A big fat greek wedding

I'm a man involved (perhaps not as much as I should be) in the planning of a wedding. My contributions to the planning of this event have, so far, been fairly theoretical and I am working towards making a more tangible/valuable contribution.

Now choosing your wedding guests is a challenging tasks. I had a conversation with one of my friends who is soon to be married where he raised the often-thought-never-asked question, "Is it wrong to drop your cousins from your guest list in favour of your mates?" I pondered and answered and the conversation carried on. But it nonetheless got me thinking about the guest subject and in keeping with my theoretical planning led me to ask questions such as "How many spaces should be left for people we don't yet know?" I don't have an answer to this mainly because we don't know who we don't know and therefore don't know who they might be or how many of them there might be. As you can see this kind of thinking doesn't get anything done.

When I am in Cologne I do most of my travelling around in a taxi to and from the airport and normally to and from the office. We have an agreement with a local taxi firm and as a result we see the same drivers most of the time. They are our friends. A friendship based on the fact that once a week someone in our team has to hand over a credit card and pay a fairly hefty taxi bill.

This morning in the taxi with the usual taxi driver I and my colleagues were surprised when the driver handed us personal invitations to a wedding. As someone who doesn't know many people in Cologne I was confused as to who would invite me to their wedding.

As it turns out I don't know more people in Cologne than I thought. The wedding I have an invite for is the much anticipated union of the taxi driver's son and his fiancee to be held at a Greek orthodox church in Cologne on August bank holiday weekend.

I didn't really know what to say other than thanks but it got me thinking about guests. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't sure if I would invite my current co-workers currently sat in the cab with me to my wedding. I was pretty sure I wasn't inviting the taxi driver and as for the taxi driver's son and his (by the time of our wedding) wife. Well it was pretty unlikely unless I have a big falling out with some cousins and need to get the numbers back up.

I discussed the situation with one of my colleagues and said that I couldn't see me inviting the taxi driver's son to my wedding. My colleague agreed and pointed out that maybe I would spec my guest list differently if the taxi driver's son gave my family 2000 euros a month. He was right. I probably would.

Bad news is I can't make the wedding as I am already booked to attend my friend's wedding in Scotland. Problem is I need to RSVP and decline in a combination of Greek and German!

"Working" from Home

I'm working from home today. I worked from home yesterday and got a bit sunburned sat on Brighton beach. But honestly today I am working. I am sat in front of my laptop and my mobile is switched on and next to me. I'm not expecting it to ring as it's a bank holiday in Germany but I've switched it on just in case.

Now I'm not doing to well with this working from home thing. I've narrowed my current failings down to 3 potential things.

1. Sat in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops I am perhaps not in a work frame of mind. Maybe I should go and put my suit on and my productivity will improve.

2. Tea. I don't have tea in the office in Germany mainly because Tea is not a German thing and if I want coffee I have to pay for it and I am against that in principle. But at home I have an almost endless supply of Tetley teabags (I think there are 30 left) and it's great. I've had 4 cups already and I've not been going long. Soon I will have a 4th reason not to work which will be a side effect of drinking a huge amount of tea.

3. To my left I have another computer and on that computer my itunes library. It tells me that I have enough music for 40.7 days with out repeat. That means I can sit here "Working" solidly until around the 10th June without hearing the same song twice.

I have to go an take a plane to Germany tonight and even though I can take the same music from the computer with me on my iPod it doesn't appeal in quite the same way. I don't know why that is.

Well done to anyone who manages this working from home thing. You must have more will power than me but to be honest that is not an achievement worthy of listing on your CV.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be working and this is not getting anything project managed so I should stop. Just need to select a new album to listen to and maybe grab a quick cuppa....