:: days of whine and roses

Kate and Robbie's wedding ceilidh was wonderful: Kate looked radiant and elegant, and Robbie was magnificent in full fig Highland dress. Andrew was also in a kilt and formal jacket & bow tie. I know kilts are a Victorian invention -- originally it was just a long bit of fabric bundled up round the waist with a belt, with the excess tossed over the shoulder -- but I do think it's gorgeous. Blokes like it because it comes with a non-embarrassing handbag, the sporran. This year, they're putting their digital cameras in there! Slightly nerdy digression, since we're talking tartan: I now know how to tell a military kilt from a civilian one. At the back, the pleats of the civilian kilt make checks when they hang flat. On a military kilt, they make stripes. You probably already knew that, but I didn't.

So yes, lots of wild dancing, including the tango -- Robbie is from Argentina. My camera is rubbish at taking flash pictures in large spaces so I didn't take a lot. This one, of Andrew doing the tango with the best man's wife, required a lot of technical fiddling around with to show up at all. He's got a rose between his teeth, put there by Paul. And yes, that's the best man in the background. He was a very nice person!



The age range went from tiny babies (the youngest was six weeks old) to ancient folk, and everyone had a ball. Here's another picture of Andrew:



Afterwards we piled into a minibus and had a brief drink in a manically noisy bar/club before repairing to the hotel where Andrew, Paul and several other wedding guests were staying.

So that's the roses part. The whine part was the hotel where I stayed. Whiiiiiiiine! My room was unbelievably tiny -- no room for Bertie to turn round without backing into the bathroom -- and jammed full of ornate furniture and hectic florals. Bertie hated it. I think he's always slightly worried in case this is our new home.



The bed was excruciatingly uncomfortable, so what with Bertie moaning and grizzling and everyone else in the hotel getting up at 7:30am, I got hardly any sleep. Then at breakfast came the final insult: I was seated at a table right at the back of the dining room, next to the kitchen. I had to scramble under a palm tree and shove aside wine-bucket stands to sit down. Grrr.

What cheeses me off most, though, is that I didn't complain. I should be more assertive, I should have refused to sit at the damned table. But I was tired and hungover, so I just paid up and slunk out.

Yesterday it rained and rained, but I went to the Hermitage for a walk anyway -- it's lovely there whatever. Meeting up with Andrew and Paul lightened my bad mood, but then I fell over!! Argh. I gave up and went home, where I had a nice hot bath and a nap. In my wonderful comfy bed, in my spacious bedroom. Bliss.