Spliced

 There is a profound emotion in marriage, an atavistic recognition of the value of connection all the more so when it’s your sister.

The ceremony was every bit the emotional, personal and intimate celebration of life that one would expect but it expressed in the details my sister’s convictions about how life should be lived in the community that is her home. Duncan her eldest piped us through the building leaving no doubt exactly where we were. 

Lucy wore a veil as tradition demands and a family member said she’d probably rather be wearing coveralls for farm work but she of course carried herself with aplomb. 

It was a room packed with emotion but also tradition, a connection to the past and a promise for the future that drew everyone in to a ceremony that is universal. But it was quintessentially Scottish. 

Check out the oathing stones, whose significance I only understood during the ceremony. I added mine unaware, casually, but soon learned the meaning  and apparently these stones from this day are to be collected into a display in the garden at home. What a brilliant tradition. 

We ate a menu made in Scotland and I was required by my sister to speak, my last public act after which I settled back to be outside the stress zone. 

After my childhood tie-bound in school I swore I’d never wear a tie again and I didn’t for my own wedding but I once found a wooden bow tie maker in Czechia and if the occasion demands I’ll pull that out. It rides in the van with us and this occasion demanded I pull it out. 

The dinner was perfect, combining the intimacy of the moment the jokes and the memories and the breaking of bread with the traditions of Scotland. I had soup to start, others had shrimp all locally sourced. 

Vegetarian risotto or Lucy’s own lamb to follow. I had the lamb with crusty rugged bread to sop the gravy. 

Scotland on a plate. There was cheese and biscuits and cake and lamb koftes (meatballs) later, a midnight “snack” highland style, and I hope there’s some cake lying around my sister’s home because I was unable to taste it last night. I was stuffed to the point I even passed on the cheese and crackers, my favorite snack and took only the lamb koftes because I wanted to honor Lucy’s work of lamb rearing and I did not suffer at all in so doing. The lamb was superb. 

Fig pudding for me and chocolate mousse for some. 

They are a family of musicians so the evening devolved into various performances and I kept promising myself my bed and kept failing to fulfill my own expectation. Beer and whiskey kept me lubricated. 

This is the classic parlor whence the ceremony began and for a while I had it to myself, a rest with a whisky and a fire seemed quintessentially in the spirit of the night. Rain and wind slashed outside and pitter pattered on the windows. 

I got to bed after one in the morning only after much conversation and learning what an astonishing cross section of people the happy couple knows. I even met a man born in Guyana… and I met another keen to know all about Suriname a long desired bucket list for him to visit. And luckily I suppose there was an extra hour of sleep for celebrants and workers. 

There was the loud brash confident public display of joy. Paul, dreaming of Suriname, a  musician chef and joker. I could be outrageous and he got it. 

Solais had to stop supplying me single malt as he had to go perform.  

Duncan plays the bagpipes and sings. My sister’s family is all talent; 

Alex the wild Irishman lost and found now after thirty years. I think there was something spiritous in his Coca Cola.  

Lucy and Luke’s friends crammed in together. 

Mother and daughter celebration. 

And elsewhere the serene intimacy of the small group weaving their connection seamlessly for us to listen in on. Luke toured with Riverdance for years so his accordion is an extension of his thoughts. 

I needed fresh air from time to time and between squalls I went outside in the cold windy night. There was a storm blowing in from the north Atlantic symbolic I thought of the sturdy strength of marriage protected by the strong stone walls of the building. 

I found serenity in the day, comfort from the timelessness of the act of marriage and the affirmation of faith in the future. 

I also took on board the Celtic nature, the organic locally rooted details, the symbolism of Scotland in the unique traditions. 

I hope by posting a few pictures here of something so positive you too will get a renewed sense of the possibilities in your life in the face of so much negativity outside the bubble that is tiny Ullapool.  

This wasn’t just two people getting married, it was a good moment to be alive. 

Scotland forever. 

A Walk In Scotland

Friday broke the streak and dawned rainy and gray. 

I got tired of looking through the windows at the drizzle and figured if I walked the woods I might not get too wet. Ha!

It didn’t work and I walked back to the cottage damp but refreshed. I took a nap, drifting off with my latest Longmire novel on Kindle  sliding  off my chest. 

I decided to have another go at ducking the showers blowing in from the ocean. Do I took off walking down the A835 highway  hoping to keep my feet dry. 

My father built these chalets in the 1960s as a hotel and restaurant. They have new owners now renting them out as vacation homes. 

My father met my mother in Italy.  during World War Two and she went to live with him in London. They had twin daughters in 1947 and me in 1957. They divorced in 1969, then my mother died leaving her land in Italy to us three children in 1973. Our father remarried an Englishwoman and had Lucy who grew up in England. Later Lucy’s mother, my stepmother, died followed by the patriarch in 1998 who left the Scottish estate to Lucy. 

The day before the wedding, guests gathered for afternoon tea before Lucy’s sons ushered everybody out to witness an ancient Highland custom. Luke and Lucy had to be blackened.

The idea is to cleanse the betrothed by paradoxically covering them in muck. Hauled to the site in wheelbarrows (dressed in old clothes) they are tied together and covered in molasses. I added my handful of chicken feathers kindly provided by the boys. 

In addition to molasses some flour was added to the happy couple as they stood and suffered. 

Some straw is piled up as part of this absurd purification project. 

I was pleased to see no fruit or eggs were included in the torture. 

Duncan with a bag of flour enjoying his mother’s misery. 

Luke making the best of it. 

Aww. Sweet. 

Oh wait. 

Johnny had a bucket of cow manure so proper tradition was maintained, much to everyone’s delight. 

Alex whom I last saw traveling on our boat with Lucy through the Panama Canal in 1999 orchestrated the chaos, he of the green jacket. We’re both a bit greyer now, he said. 

Enough levity, I got a ride back to my cottage while the happy couple washed off. The hardier celebrants lit a bonfire down by the farm. They needed it, it was cold. 

Enough people for me. A whole afternoon talking.