Jane and I and the girls have just got back from a wonderful wedding weekend on Exmoor.

Jamie and John tied the knot in a civil ceremony in Tiverton on Friday, and then had invited all close (i.e. parents, siblings and their children) to join them for a weekend lording it up.

Obviously, you need to find somewhere suitable to throw a party for 24 people, so we were well impressed to find ourselves staying here: http://www.northmoorhouse.co.uk/ 

Jamie & John had kept all the details a surprise until the very last minute, so we were well chuffed to find ourselves staying in a Jane Austin-esque mansion complete with 100 acres of wandering space, a large number of rooms including a massive dining room, two sitting rooms, snooker room (with full sized table), kids play room, table tennis room etc etc.

Every family group attending was given a task/object to bring and for some reason (  )our job was to provide cocktails to the adults.  After acquiring a recipe book and having a few goes, we settled on four suitable mixed options - Moscow Mules, Margaritas, Cuba Libres and Fuzzy Navels, along with a bunch of ready made smoothies that just required a shot of vodka or rum to give them the appropriate adult kick.  It also meant we could give the kids a drink that looked a little like the adult ones and help them intake one of their 5 portions of fruit .

On Saturday, there was pony trekking for those who wanted - Emily and I went for a walk instead and then played table tennis and snooker - followed by a trip to Tarr Steps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarr_Steps) for lunch.  Only one of the kids fell in the river (not one of mine either!) so it was a succesful journey all round.  after lunch, we had a photographer taking informal shots of everyone, before there was a rush for the 5 bathrooms in order to dress for dinner, and have formal photos taken on the lawn outside the house, including photos of the groom and groom wearing matching suits on a bouncy castle.

Jamie and John had organised outside caterers to provide dinner - which was fabulous. Three courses with roast beef or nut roast for the main course, with fabulous roast spuds, and all sorts of great veg too.

On Sunday, after a little bit of a slow start, owing to more than sufficient quantities of wine the night before, or maybe it was the extreme table tennis competition, we set off for Butlins at Minehead - where we had day tickets to use the pool and funfair, all of which was good fun, although I probably wouldn't recommend it as a holiday destination...After returning to the house we all split into teams for a treasure hunt, and then had a barbeque followed by fireworks in the grounds .

On Monday morning, there was a plan to go hot air ballooning - with the lucky ones, including myself, having to leave the house at 6am - unfortunately the weather wasn't clear enough, and the event was cancelled, although luckily enough we found out before going to bed and so didn't need to wake up so early after all...

The last thing we did on Monday before leaving was to cut and eat a fab chocolate coated wedding cake, with three different flavour layers  - just what you need to set you up for a 4 hour car journey.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and I was dead proud to be invited too.