15th – 17th July

Tim’s stag

Tom, the best man, and my former housemate, organised the stag do from Australia. No mean ask because logistics of contacting everyone when they’re asleep can be difficult. But he did a very good job. I personally thought I wouldn’t see him or his now fiancée George again after they left for Oz. I told him as much and we had a hug.

The stag was very suited to me. It was at Cotswold Glamping and it was exactly what it said on the tin. The beds were all in Tipis, which housed a big double with two single mattresses side by side. All proper mattresses. Along with the Tipi’s it had a heated swimming pool and a converted barn with an outside grill for BBQ. Due to the large contingent we had the place to ourselves, which was probably for the best. The first night was a Texas Holdem poker night plus a bbq. Matt and I arrived by train and we were picked up by Kiran. For a while in the accommodation it was just the old housemates. It was nice to sit there and reminisce. Gradually over hours everyone else began to arrive. We started the game at 9pm. Unfortunately I went out first but I was allowed to buy back in. By then I started playing much more conservatively and better, only betting on hands where there was a high probability of winning. As everyone else got more drunk, I slowly worked through the whole group. Ending with a showdown against Nick, who is a pretty good player. I won, and took the £75 prize, which pretty much paid for the rest of the weekend.

I went to bed soon after that, walking to the Tipi with a mostly full moon. As good as the evening was, I needed to go to bed. It’s important to keep a routine up.

I woke up the next day in a pretty good mood. After the breakfast was clay pigeon shooting. Having done laser shooting at Centre Parcs I was put into the group that had done it before. I started pretty well and went first only to then take on the instructors tips and got worse. Overall I came in the top third of the guys there. Not bad for the ill guy. By far the hardest part was getting a decent shot when the clay was aimed directly along the ground to emulate shooting rabbits, it bounced around and generally got harder during the morning as more clay remnants disrupted the grass.

We then went back to the glamping, and I was shattered. Tim was forced to put a mankini on, while they were chasing him around the pool, I tried to nap but after half an hour or so felt like joining them, for their crude version of water polo. We were having so much fun that we didn’t do the intended bar crawl and kept playing, stopping only to shower and to get Tim spin himself around whilst drinking quite a bit of beer. I won’t describe what happened, I’ll leave that up to your imagination, but rest assured it had the intended outcome. Throughout the day it became clear, with plenty of red faces, that the guys, including the doctors, hadn’t used enough, if any, sunscreen. I was pleased that the clay pigeon team provided baseball hats, but nevertheless it goes to show even the those who know the risks and with a large reminder (me) can still be very sun ignorant.

After that we had a three course dinner in a private room in a pub in Winchcombe. The food was very good, a particularly nice vegetable tagine for the main. We went from there to Cheltenham for a night out. I bailed, along with the bride’s uncle a bit before midnight. I crashed and woke up the next day. The rest of the stag party came back in packs the first group came back after a successful post club Pokemon hunt, and came back happy after catching Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle on Pokemon Go. The rest came back in dribs and drabs and we finished off the weekend with breakfast and a telling stories of the weekend.
Please check out my latest TV appearance

http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2016-07-18/under-the-skin-watch-our-series/