Eucharist at the Church shop with the faithful few this morning, then a wedding preparation meeting scheduled with a couple at noon, but they didn't turn up. Eventually I found their contact number and learned that it had accidentlly got booked in their diary for tomorrow noon, despite emails confirming today's date and time. The perils of digital diaries I'm afraid. We re-scheduled for this evening, and I confirmed by text message, reminding them to bring the wedding certificate with them for inspection. Crisis. They'd forgotten to bring it, despite reminders. I simply cannot proceed without seeing it.
This also happened in Marbella last summer, and was resolved by someone in Newcastle sending photos of the certificate, once it had been retrieved from the couple's home. Fortunately, thee couple were able to arrange this quite quickly, and said the certificate would be on its way here with another of their 150 guests arriving tomorrow afternoon. Crisis ended, preparation meeting re-booked for this evening.
After lunch, Bill, Jo, Judith and I met the couple and their children for the wedding blessing at San Miguel. A lovely family they were too. Three daughters, two with boy friends, and two sons, except that the one son coudn't come because his girl friend was expecting a baby and couldn't fly. Rather than be left out, he joined in the service by means of his sister's smartphone - Face-time or Skype I'm not sure which, but we could hear him joining in and he was able to see them all and the church too. Well, we've seen it on the phone ads, and in reality, with a good phone and 4G roaming deal, it truly enhanced the occasion for an obviously loving and close knit family. It was a very happy half hour we spent together, and it offset the irritation of everything going haywire with the other couple.
After their service, I helped get things ready for the Mothers Union Cheese and Wine fund raising social evening downstairs in the catchechism room at San Miguel. Then, as they started I went off to meet the couple. By this time the photo of the wedding certificate had arrived, meaning that I could proceed with good reason, on the assumption that all would be in order by this time tomorrow. Then, back to San Miguel for the last hour of the social evening. I was quite tired by the time I finally got back to church house.
How nice that the vice consul from Malaga came and joined in. I asked about the new U.K. consular call centre for half of the world, now in its third year of operation. It employs forty odd people, and is adjudged to be working successfully, by the criteria set for it. What's not to like? I still think there's nothing to beat having consuls dealing with expatriate and visitor affairs working within local territory. But nowadays more and more admin is done by remote service providors. I should know. I've been working remotely from the CBS office at home and abroad since 2012.
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