The Ladies Who Lunch descended on our house for The Wedding

IREALLY, genuinely, seriously thought young Persephone had suddenly acquired an interest in cycling. She generally prefers American comedy to sport. Yet here was our daughter in the sitting room, flopped down on the sofa and glued to the telly when I pottered in looking for my glasses. The pictures commanding her attention appeared to show someone on two wheels who was wearing a dazzlingly yellow jersey. The coverage was clearly taken from a helicopter which kept track of this individual as he sped along a tree lined road. This programme really did have many of the elements of a major cycling event, complete with convoy of cars tracking the man in the brightly coloured gansey.

My grasp of what was going on was hampered by the fact that I did not have the assistance of my bifocals. Nevertheless I should have twigged that the jersey was more a lurid shade of green than proper golden yellow. And anyway this was the month for Giro d’Italia, not Tour de France time, and the Italians favour a pink jersey for their race leader. Plus, the attendant cars were a uniform black, none of them plastered with logos advertising cheese or broadband providers.

‘How is Yates doing? I wonder is he any relation of Ivan,’ I asked as I groped around the coffee table seeking the missing spectacles. ‘Any sign of that that Bennett lad from Tipperary? He seems to be a flyer.’ ‘Da, what are you talking about? Would you please get out of the light? I am watching The Wedding!’ said an exasperated Persephone.

The scales then fell from my eyes. The fellow on the two wheels was not a cyclist at all but a policeman in a hi-viz tabard aboard a motor-bike. This biker cop was charged with ensuring that the bride made it to the church on time. Presumably the bride was passenger in one of the black cars.

Indeed the breathless TV commentary soon confirmed as much: ‘She completes the last leg of her life’s journey from the suburbs of California to the palace of Windsor in a Rolls Royce.’

I could pretend that I knew nothing in advance about The Wedding but that would be a lie. Despite efforts to avoid the pre-nuptial hype, I was aware that some English prince with a passing resemblance to Ed Sheeran was set to marry some woman who sounds, if surname be a guide, as though she should be running Germany.I thought of it as the Ed & Angela Show but to everyone else, it was The Wedding.

I had a pain in my finger from switching stations on the radio in order to seek some other topic of interest in the week leading up to the great event. In an affront to republican sensitivity, the Irish media – whether printed or broadcast – joined their British and American counterparts, making the countdown to The Wedding nigh on universal.

‘Why should I care?’ I found myself yelling at the telly as some usually earnest current affairs presenter degenerated into royal lickspittling. There was endless speculation about The Dress, about the lack of bridesmaids, about whether the groom would be wearing a kilt, about whether Elton John would gate-crash…

I discovered my glasses on the mantelpiece and departed to enjoy an extended walk in the woods with The Pooch. Four hours should be long enough to get the whole thing over and done with, I reckoned, so that normal life could then be resumed. I returned from the hike, however, to find that the Ladies Who Lunch had descended on our house.

And they were giving The Wedding a full critical review. They all liked The Dress – not too showy and a nice train. They all loved the music – the spirituals were wholly appropriate. They all adored the bishop and his sermon – he said the word love 47 times, aaaah. And they were completely divided on whether the marriage would last.

Seeking to join in, I suggested it was nice of Prince Charles to walk the bride up the aisle. Wrong move. They turned on me like a pack of dogs. ‘Charles should have stayed in his pew.’ ‘That man is not fit to be in charge of an allotment, let alone the duchy of Cornwall.’ ‘What he did to Diana puts Charles beyond the Pale.’

I beat an embarrassed retreat and sought out the one other member of the Medders household who could be depended upon to remain aloof from all this monarchy guff.

Our Eldrick was in the kitchen, eating peanuts. He looked up and spoke like a love sick puppy: ‘Da, did you see The Wedding? Isn’t she beautiful?’

Harrumph!