At six fifteen I was awoken by a text message asking me where the hell I was. I had managed to set my alarm for the wrong day. I had developed a tickle in my throat overnight, but I managed to grind out a coherent apology over the phone and my friend graciously agreed to come and pick me up from the motel. In the meantime I stumbled into my suit and threw everything else into my backpack. By the time my lift arrived I was the sharpest dressed zombie in South East Queensland.

I am not well known for my navigational skills. Or, to put it more accurately, I am well known for having a catastrophically poor sense of direction. And that's just in Darwin, which by rights I should know like the back of my hand by now.

Incidentally, as a by-product of spending four and a half years typing up these incessant blog posts, my familiarity with the back of my hands is up there with best of them.

The point is that when my friend handed me a print-out of Google's instructions on how to get from Indooroopilly train station in Brisbane to Stanthorpe Presbyterian Church in Stanthorpe it did not bode well for the journey ahead.

Interesting (well...) fact: Despite having a population of just five and a half thousand, Stanthorpe has both a Uniting Church and a continuing Presbyterian church (plus all the others you'd expect in an Australian country town). I don't know what the story is there. And if you don't know why that's intriguing in the first place, don't panic. Within a generation or two it won't matter anymore.

The plain fact is that I'd be utterly incapable of giving you useful directions to either of them without consulting the satnav at least twice. This is one of the reasons I'm so rarely invited to join street evangelism missions.

There are others.

We made it to the wedding with five minutes to spare. The bride and groom had asked me to do one of the scripture readings, which would have been a great honour if not for the fact that the reading was taken from the Song of Songs. If you know your Old Testament then you'll realise that's a magnificently awkward choice for a wedding ceremony. If you don't know your Old Testament, then TURN OR BURN, HEATHEN!

The reception was delightful. As always it was a great chance to catch up with old friends, relive old times and reassure each other that we're still awesome. After spending the previous evening with platinum selling rock stars, taking lunch with assorted doctors, aerospace engineers, international missionaries and federal parliamentary journalists led this particular training officer to the conclusion that some of us needed more reassurance than others.

By the end of the trip back to Brisbane later that afternoon my throat tickle had developed into a dry cough and runny nose. I had planned to spend Saturday night catching up with a few Brisbane friends who hadn't gone to the wedding. I ended up tending to my exasperated sinuses in front of a hastily selected DVD and then turning in at about ten.

But first I took great care to correctly set my alarm for the following morning so I'd make my flight home.