Storming round

Yesterday was a very wild Saturday up here in Scouserland, although it did not stop me playing golf. We got 14 holes in before the skies darkened and we headed back to the 19th hole for an all day breakfast and coffee. They were two  wise decisions. Firstly, some moments after adjourning to the bar, the heavens opened and shortly afterwards a procession of drowned rat golfers came scurrying in, all looking enviously at our scoff.

Having that was the second wise decision, as later in the afternoon SWMBO and I were attending a wedding in St Georges Hall. It was a 4;30pm start so solids would not be available much before 7pm.

The wedding was a civil ceremony held in the small concert room. The room is a small amphitheatre which holds about 500 people and was restored to its former glory between 2000 and 20007, its centrepiece is a crystal  chandelier which is made up of over 2,800 pieces .It was in this venue that Charles Dickens held many of his readings.

St Georges Hall is a magnificent building, and one of the finest neo-Grecian buildings in the World. It holds a Civil Court and a Crown Court although neither are used in anger now, but they do feature regularly in TV and cinema drama. The cells in the basement are also maintained for the same purpose.

Its most impressive feature though is the grand hall. The hall boasts the third largest organ in the country after the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and the Royal Albert Hall. Its floor is constructed of Minton tiles and is protected by special flooring  for all but two weeks a year when it is exposed and put on view for the public.

We went into the wrong end of the Hall when we arrived so we were lucky enough to be walked along the gallery of the grand hall, and saw that it was laid out for a 500 people Burns night dinner that evening.

We were all taxi'd to the reception in another elegant building in  Water Street, and bailed out in the early hours.  Luckily the storm had passed by the time we left, but the joy of weddings is that there always seems to be one brewing the next morning, only time will tell.