So sorry for lack of blogging. There is a big family wedding here, and all the relations are arriving on the compound. There are great-nephews. Both nieces are here. The Man in the Hat arrived on Monday to do the technicals. (After working on the Olympics, he must find this like a walk in park, although there has been some head-banging over generators.) I was so excited by the return of the Man in the Hat I had him straight round to my house and poured bullshots down his throat. Then I had to tell him the whole story of the Horseshoe Bar in the Shelbourne on St Stephen’s Green, where The Younger Brother and I used to drink the best bullshots in the world, made from the bouillon off a side of beef that came out of the kitchen each morning. He listened politely. It’s always dangerous when I get onto my old Dublin days.
The really lovely thing, and the whole point of this dashing update is: the weather. I’ve been monitoring the weather closely all week, as I always do, because of the horses. Every day, the local Saturday forecast has been low cloud and rain, the dreichiest, dreariest forecast imaginable. The poor, poor bride, I kept thinking.
Then last night, snow fell out of the sky as if someone was emptying a celestial bucket, and this morning the sun came out, and instead of drear, we have A WINTER WONDERLAND. I can hardly believe it. I think of how happy all the southern visitors will be, as they see Scotland looking like something from a postcard.
The minor problem is that my only set of clothes which works for this weather is black. So I shall be the Bateman cartoon: the women who pitched up to a country wedding in deepest ebony.
But I really think that it is going to be a very joyful day. I used to be a bit cynical about weddings. Not any more. Now I am older and more bashed about, I think: any public of declaration of love must be a thing of beauty and a joy forever. And just picture a tall, willowy young beauty, in her long white dress, walking up to an old highland kirk in the snow. It is the stuff which dreams are made on.
Quick pictures of what it looked like this morning:
Girls:
Hill:
I too like weddings very much though the general view is one of cynicism about them! specially from people of my age.
ReplyDeleteoh how BEAUTIFUL! MAGICAL! especially coming from a heinously hot and dusty hill in tanzania...WOW WOW WOW.x
ReplyDeleteHow magical to get snow on a wedding day! I love the idea of this. Not even snow that is miserable and wet; but the kind that is crisp and fresh, with sun. How lovely. Beautiful images and when I heard on the news there was snow I immediately thought of you as I am one of those in-awe Southerners who only get it every now and then. Lou x
ReplyDeleteIt is, obviously, going to be a magical day.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pictures. And I am so glad to see you have started a sentence with 'And'. I am validated at last :-) Hope you all have a wintry wonderland of a time.
ReplyDeleteWas Paddy the barman in the Horseshoe bar in your days? How different it all looks now when I go back, not at all the same as in the days when we escaped the Troubles and went south...
ReplyDeleteAh, the Shelbourne--there's a memory.
ReplyDeleteAnd it looks like this weekend will be a lovely memory in your family. There is something as well about not just people taking the trouble to say I love you in public, officially, but that so many others come to be a part of it.
Bird