What's in a name?

FJ and I went to Home Affairs to book our legal civil union (which will be on a different day to our ceremony with family and a few friends). I won't give the day away, only a few know... because we want our ceremony day to be the one that gets celebrated even though I'll be able to wear a ring on my wedding finger from a different day.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaannnyyyyyyyyyyywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy

The Home Affairs booking was interesting, and I suspect the legal ceremony will be one of those moments where I'll be struggling not to laugh.

Let's face it - their offices are foul. There's no other word to describe it. Dingy, smelly, heartless and as depressing as a Sylvia Plath poem. As soon as I left I felt the need for a good shower with a product that had something cleansing like hydrochloric acid in it. FJ asked what we should wear for the Home Affairs union and I'm not sure he took me seriously when I suggested overalls.

The lady who took the booking, though, was great and seemed to really enjoy booking the boys for their nuptials. We managed to see the lady who will do the legalities and she was frightening (she's the financial lady at Home Affairs and apparently loves marrying the gays - they're a lot more fun than "normal people - we've been told). She was very disappointed that FJ and I were retaining our own surnames (I didn't even know we could change names because of the union). FJ and I have discussed it. We would rather create a mutual name than take one of our own so one idea was that we combine our surnames in some way. Now I won't mention our surnames on here (for FJ's sake) but the only real combination of our names that works is so gay-sounding that when you say it you have to say the last syllable in a higher pitch than the rest and snap your fingers in front of you as you say it. *A spin is optional.

You see, the winning combination would make me:

Clive van der Cher *snaps fingers while saying last syllable in a higher pitch*

Now I can't possibly expect FJ to walk up to his farming fraternity and say: "Hi there, I'm FJ van der Cher" while squeaking the last syllable and clicking his fingers in the air. For those of you who have met him, you'll know how ludicrous this sounds.

So we'll stick with our own names. But the reality is - we'll be married.

Li'l ol' me... married....

Who would've thought?