Saturday 16 May 2015

No.12

I met Robin when we were at college together in 1990. We'd only known each other a matter of weeks when he asked me out and then 9 days later popped the question. All the naysayers who said it wouldn't last can be pleasantly proved wrong after  almost 25 years, 5 children and a gorgeous grandson, we are still going strong.
    That's not to say we don't have our disagreements. One of our on off arguments that we like to have is over who does the driving to weddings. When we have a wedding that is too far to taxi to, I always end up at the wheel and on a few occasions I have strongly hinted to my beloved that it would be nice if, even once, he would volunteer to drive and give me a break.
          Robin's side of the debate says that on the way to the wedding, he is still tweaking what he is saying and really needs that time to polish up his talky bits for the day. On the way home, well that's not even an option! He feels that during the day it is the manly thing to do, to discuss in great detail what each man has in their hip flask and then pass it round for everyone to have a little sip. Especially as the nervous groom waits  with his best man and groomsmen for the inevitably late bride to turn up. So, even if he doesn't really drink anything else the whole day, because of the new laws on drink driving...well, you can't really take a risk!
       Never mind, I'm up this morning, fresh as a daisy, after driving to yesterday's wedding and raring to go for today's, so all is good with the chauffeur job.
       Ross and Eilidh asked Robin a couple of years ago  to officiate at their wedding. This was just after Ross had asked Eilidh's Dad, Alistair, for her hand while he was building a timber shed and had a nail gun in his hand. Ross must've been pretty confident that the answer would've been yes!
         As well as chauffeur, I also work as Robin's PA taking calls for him when he is out on visits etc. On Friday I took a message from a couple who thought Robin would be the perfect person to do their service. When Robin returned their call, he came off the phone telling me that the wedding proposal had been done on Ant and Dec's Saturday night takeaway with a thing called the 'Supercomputer' that gets set up all over the country and challenges members of the public to do different tasks. After doing his bit, Don asked the computer to help him propose to Julie and to rounds of applause she accepted. They won a holiday to New York and went on Ant and Dec's show the next night...how exciting. I'm only telling you this now as it's a 2016 date and I will have finished my blog by then...maybe I'll do a few one off specials!
       I digress...as usual..
   Fyvie castle was the venue for Ross and Eilidh's ceremony and we have been part many special days there. A really stunning location, in any kind of weather, but for this wedding the sun was shining. We walked up from the car park through the most beautiful gardens with the rhododendrons coming into blossom and I was glad that I had worn my floral ( zipless!) dress  and made Robin take a picture.
     As we approached the castle someone had placed a sign with 'nearly married' on the pathway, just to remind everyone what the plan for the day was.
 
      Robin had married Ross' brother Scott and Marie in 2011, his 39th wedding, so it was lovely to see them again, especially Chloe, who was only a wee toot of 2 at the time, and Leo who has come on the scene since then and were part of this ceremony as flower girl and page boy.
      As we stood outside catching up with Michael Ross' Dad, we spotted an oyster catcher that had taken up residence in the central flower stand in the castle courtyard. Apparently it nests there every year and was quite happy to sit on it's eggs in the middle of the flower bed while everyone milled about. Only getting a bit vocal when anyone decided to get a bit close for comfort.



Eilidh was fashionably late due to having to make a fuel stop before heading off, but as we were entertained by some wonderful harp playing, no-one minded and she walked in looking beautiful , on Alistair's arm letting the ceremony begin.
      We sang 'Wild mountain thyme' accompanied by the multi-talented harpist , Vivien,who also played piano. At the end of their vows Robin was saying a blessing over the new Mr and Mrs Clarihew and suddenly Alistair's phone went off in his pocket. He swore to us afterwards that no-one ever phones him, so he never thought to turn it off but it gave everyone a laugh and at least it was a pleasant ring tone. I've just changed mine to the minions singing 'Ring ring ring.....' to the tune of the Beach boys 'Barbara Ann', so I can tell you, that's the first thing I do when I go in to a wedding...turn it straight to silent.
   We went back down the 60 stone spiral stairs of the castle. Yes, I've counted them and I'm sure that between that and the walk up to the castle in high heels on gravel paths, my exercise quota for the day was complete.
    Things had turned a bit chillier, so after a celebratory (soft) drink and strawberries dipped in chocolate (one of my 5 a day ), I managed to get a picture of the happy couple and we headed off to Meldrum House hotel for the reception.


       Another very popular venue, Meldrum House is a stunning old castle-esque building on the outskirts of Oldmeldrum. And though it was raining quite heavily by the time we arrived, the staff were on hand with umbrellas to shelter guests and guide them in to the  beautifully refurbished stable area for drinks and canapes.
  Being old timers, we went in to the main hotel and asked the staff if we could get a cup of tea, which they kindly brought to us as we sat in front of the open fire in the reception area on fabulous leather chairs enjoying a bit of quality time together.
    Very romantic I hear you say...this is when another argument ensued. What colour were the bridesmaids' dresses? I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of them to let you see, but I can tell you now I'm right and the colour was royal blue. Robin was adamant that they were purple and so the discussion went on. I know it was royal blue as this was the colour of our old school uniform skirts before they changed it to grey and hideous burgundy....a colour I can't wear to this day.
      I'm convinced that Robin is colour blind, though he has been to the opticians and they have ( according to him) assured him that he isn't. We have had many arguments over this in our years together...but he wasn't going to shift on this one.
   As we went in to the marquee , a permanent feature of the hotel, and shook hands with Ross, Eilidh and their Mums and Dads in the line up, we took our place at the 'Cruden bay' table. The flowers at the table centre were beautifully simple as though someone had gone out and picked some from their garden, with bluebells and grape hyacinths all in a lovely shade of ...royal blue...to match the bride's colours.
    During the speeches, Alistair's phone went off again...this time on silent, but he was holding the wireless microphone and as the phone went off, the mic made a morse code sound as the phone silently rang...poor man! Scott told some amusing stories about Ross, particularly that he has been a serial sleepwalker since childhood, being known to walk in to Scott's room in the middle of the night and start to pee in his toy box! At a wedding a few years back he actually sleep jumped out of a 1st floor window, narrowly missing a greenhouse and breaking his leg!
              Robin had been asked to say grace, so stood up and asked ladies at the top table..
"Could you settle an argument, what colour would you say the bridesmaid's dresses are?"...Eilidh, her Mum and Ross' Mum looked at him like he was mad and said, "royal blue" in unison.
    I gave a cheer, that was greeted with complete slience by the rest of the guests and slid down my chair hoping the ground would swallow me up!
 Then we heard a faint voice,of one of the groomsmen ( who obviously had too much to drink) shouting , "purple".....and Robin looked round triumphantly...I mean really he's male and totally outnumbered!
     Still convinced, Robin indeed did say grace and we were able to eat. Thank goodness!
  We had a great meal, sitting with Andy and Gail who's son Graeme and wife Chris were Robin's 119th wedding last year. We had made our menu choices a few weeks back and both Gail and I were convinced that we had ordered something different, so decided to do a swap, her beef for my chicken. When the waiter came round asking Gail how she would like her beef done...she turned to me and said..."How do I like my beef?"....I said "rare", and all the other guests at the table looked at us wondering what on earth was going on. It worked really well though and we swapped as soon as were served, enjoying each others' food immensely.
       We watched Ross and Eilidh cut their cake which was wonderfully rustic, like the rest of the wedding theme, and decided to head for home after saying our farewells.
 
 
A big thank you to Mr and Mrs Clairihew for letting us settle our disputes in public at their wedding and not having us thrown out. I hope as they head off to the Maldives and Dubai for their honeymoon that they have as happy a life together as Robin and I despite the odd argument or two.....
 
 


  

   

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