The Honeymoon (Part 2)

As we drove into Gairloch, we could see our hotel coming into view. As I mentioned before, it was a large, traditional Victorian hotel, built from Granite, so it glistened in the evening sunshine. The sun was also reflected of the two large coaches parked at the side of the building, and off of the line of large black cars lined up at the front.


More on the coaches later, it was the black cars I was worried about. It was either a funeral reception or a wedding. As I could see no drunken bodies or broken windows, it probably wasn't a traditional Scottish wedding, but I've seen some funerals which exhibited similar behaviour. As we parked our Capri in the large car park at the front, I saw a large group of (mostly elderly) people coming out of the hotel. Black suits and black ties. No flowers in buttonholes. It was either a Mormon mass conversion training group or a funeral party.

No American accents were to be heard, just the gentle Western Isles lilting Scottish intonations.


Perfect.


We had started our married life in a hotel hosting a funeral. Not quite the ambience I had been hoping for.



As we walked into the very large front porch, my beloved gave me a nudge in the ribs, and indicated the ceiling.


What on earth was she on about now?



Looking up, all I could see was a traditional plaster ceiling, decorated in Victorian style, and obviously in need of a good dusting to get rid of all of the cobwebs.



"What is it?" I mumbled to her.



"Coffins" she whispered back.




Good Lord, she was right. The geometric lozenge pattern on the ceiling was not a normal rectangle or square, but coffin shaped.



Had we booked into the House of Death?

Not quite.



I should like to explain to any of my "younger" readers that this was in the 1970s. Before the Internet/Web. The only way to make a hotel reservation was by phone or (gasp) letter. There were no easily available reference books (yes, paper books) and many people used a travel agent, and trusted their opinion on hotels and places to visit.

The original Thomas Cook (not the person I saw.  I'm not that bloody old)

Just 2 years earlier I knew that I would be in Germany for a big BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) exercise, and when it was finished, I wanted to join an extended family trip from Norway to Finland to attend a cousin's wedding. All I had to do was to get a train from Hanover to Hamburg, and then fly to Bergen. To arrange all this detail, I had to go into Thomas Cook Esq. in Glasgow, and for about an hour I sat in front of a travel agent as he thumbed through various timetables, maps and calendars, scribbling furiously on a planning sheet, then phoning the airlines and Deutches Bahnhoff to check facts and eventually make the bookings. These were transcribed onto a typed itinerary, and a copy (remember carbon copies) was given to me. Believe me travel agents really earned their commission in those days.




I had booked this hotel myself (by letter), the only reference being an advert seen in the Glasgow Herald, so I had no real idea of what to expect.


I wasn't too sure about the big coaches outside either. Coach tours were/are a popular method of seeing the gorgeous Scottish countryside, but normally the coach companies used smaller hotels, hotels of less than average distinction. Cheap hotels. Oh dear.



The first thing which struck me as we walked into the reception area was the size of the counter, it was really small compared to the size of the hotel (about 200 rooms), and had only 1 receptionist, a spotty Gaelic youth who seemed not to speak English, and who didn't seem to understand my Glasgow (but educated) accent. (I later came to the conclusion he didn't understand Gaelic either, and was just incompetent, uncaring and as thick as a brick).

The second thing that struck me was the smell. It was a curious mixture of beeswax polish and embrocation. (Embrocation is a general term for the various lotions/creams etc. used by many of our aged citizens on aching limbs and joints, in a (vain) effort to escape from the nagging pain of arthritis and lumbago)



The third thing to strike me was my beloved's elbow.

I blame myself.


I had plenty of opportunity for re-training or avoidance therapy.



I could have said something.



I could have said "Would you stop hitting my ribs with your damned elbow"



I could have retaliated.



I could have launched an elbow attack of my own.



I could have swung my devastating right hook.



I didn't.



I was head over heels in love, and we were on our honeymoon.



I was in lust.



I said nothing.



I blame myself.



34 years of bruised and bashed ribs.



It's my fault.



Obviously.





Then I saw the zombies. I was brave; I didn't run or scream or even wet my pants. I just stared. A shambling tide of ancient and decrepit wrinklies were shuffling towards us.

It was the TOUR PARTY.



As we discovered, this hotel, situated in an admittedly gorgeous spot on the side of Loch Gairloch, was regularly used (twice a week in summer) by a bus touring company which specialised in the an elderly clientele. This was before SAGA was even a glimmer in an entrepreneur's eye.



I had booked our honeymoon in a place which seemed to specialise in Death and Dying.



Lovely.



Next episode. At last.

The Dangers Of Being Interrupted During Sexual Congress By A Bloody Stupid Chambermaid Who Wanted To Turn Down A Bed And Who Wouldn't Go Away.

Weddings

The house is quiet now, after a fun-filled afternoon of drinks, excellent food and great stories.  Who said the over 60s can't have fun?  Some of the jokes were a wee bit off-colour, but that can be blamed on the wine.

I sat down to catch up on the blogging community's posts, and felt sad on reading Fflur's post on her search for a partner and going ot a friend's wedding.

Weddings.

Strange affairs.  Pack everyone into their best bib and tucker, cram them into a Church of some description, say the/multiple/whatever Deity has blessed the Union of the two people, rush to a hotel/resteraunt/hall for a big feed, much vino, probably bad music and worse dancing.  A 35% chance of a punch-up between relatives or new/old family groupings.

It seems a strange way to start a life together.

I can remember many of the weddings I've attended.

Cenral Hotel, Glasgow

My first was my cousin Rena, when I was about 7.  Huge affair in the Central Hotel in Glasgow, when it was the premier hotel in the West of Scotland.  Very formal affair with many men in evening suits (the kilt revival had not yet occurred)  I can't remember all that much except:

Sole Veronique

Fish course was Sole Veronique (with grapes and capers) I remember this one because my cousins and I had a fight by squishing the sauce covered grapes so they squirted out between our fingers at high velocity, and made a lovely SPLAT sound when they hit something/someone.
Glorious roast beef.  My Great Uncle Joe (the father of the bride) was a renowned butcher and his new son-in-law's family were farmers from Galloway, so they had carefully chosen the best pieces of meat available in the West of Scotland.  I wasn't that impressed (I was 7 remember?) I wanted more grapes to squeeze, but I can vividly remember one of the adults at my table actually groaning with gustatorial ecstasy as he chewed the succulent beef.
My last memory was after the meal, when all of the tables had been pushed to the side to make room for the dancing.  All of the adults seemed to be dancing most of the evening, and when they weren't promenading over the dance floor, they were sitting at the tables drinking. The hotel had ensured that they were provided with fruit juice, in large jugs on each table, just to TRY and reduce the total number of drunks by the evening's end.  I was with a pack of my cousins and my brother (aged about 5), running around the periphery of the main room, dodging in and out of the dancers. crawling under the huge tables with their long crisp linen tablecloths, and drinking the orange juice.  We had a contest to see who could drink the most orange juice.  I'm not sure if I won, but I remember beginning to feel a bit odd, a little bit queasy.
The explosion, when it came was remarkable (so my Mum told me).  Onlookers didn't think that such a small boy could have contained so much vomit.  My last memory of the wedding was going home in a taxi, with my Dad's voice whispering in my ear that if I was sick, stick my head out of the window, quick.  Or face the consequences.

Use the window

My own wedding was not one of the best organised.
Because I had taken the unusual step of proposing to a lovely lady of non-Scottish ethnicity and non-Protestant (Church of Scotland) religion, the normal rules applying to the wedding were thrown into confusion.
Traditionally in Scotland, the family of the bride pay for the wedding, with the grooms family probably kicking in for the drinks, or helping out in some way, but my fiance's culture did the opposite.  In Singapore, the groom's family paid for the wedding, although much of this cost could be covered by the large number of cash gifts given by guests.  As my beloved's family had not yet come to terms with some round-eyed foreign devil taking away their lovely daughter (they did later, and I love my Singapore relatives), we would be getting little support from them.  My Mum and Dad hadn't prepared for any weddings, as they had 2 sons, which meant no real cost under Scottish customs, but they gave us £2000 as a wedding gift, and ho we spent it was up to us.
What we planned was:
Date; June 1st.
Wedding service in a Catholic Church in Partick (Polish community church).

Photographs in Kelvingrove park
Reception in a large Chinese restaurant in Glasgow city centre (Renfield Street)
Meal to be huge Chinese Buffet, with copious amounts of Champagne
We would then depart to our new house in Lenzie, and go on to our honeymoon in the far North West of Scotland (Garloch and Loch Ewe) in a hired car.
Any surplus monies would go towards a new bed for us (A rather large priority for a newly married couple)

What actually happened was:

Date June 1st (Turned out to be a heat wave, with ferocious humidity.  The weather broke just as we left the reception, and Glasgow was flooded and cut-off for 12 hours)

Wedding BLESSING in the Polish Church.  I was pretty non-religious by this time, and as I wouldn't convert to my beloved's church (I had been brought up C of S, and I had no intention of swapping one silly set of beliefs for another) the priest would only perform a blessing, not the full mass.  I also had to give a signed promise to bring up my children as Roman Catholics.  A piece of emotional blackmail which crystallized my vague negative feelings about organised religion into a loathing.
I got my own back by following my promise, and sending my kids to Church and Sunday/Catechism school.  BUT I also primed them to think for themselves and to ASK QUESTIONS if anything they were told didn't seem to make sense..  The nuns hated it.  They told my lovely children to stop asking questions.  FAIL.

DON'T Ask Questions

The photographs went well we thought.  We didn't hire a professional, but had two of our friends take the pictures with their 35mm SLR cameras.  One friend was so drunk (before the reception remember) that he left the lense cap on (seen, fixed) forgot to wind on the film between shots (seen, reminded gently) and had the wrong time set on the exposure (not seen, not fixed, stuffed all photos).  Our other friend was conscientious and carefull,  Took multiple shots to ensure everything was covered, and ripped the film taking it out of the camera.  The only photos we have of the glorious event were taken by one of the guest in her Kodak Instamatic.  My beloved still won't talk about it.

Not as bad as this, but close.

The reception went well at the start.  Our chosen restaurant was up on the first floor, and everyone had to ascend a steep flight of stairs.  My Gran found the whole thing a bit much.  She had accepted that my wife-to-be was non-Scottish and was Chinese.  But she had taken a long time to accept that she was Catholic (Lots of older generation Scots were a wee bit bigoted).  The only saving grace was that she wasn't ENGLISH. That would have been too much.
My Gran was a bit exhausted after the steep climb, so one of my Uncles got her a glass of lemomade to refresh the old (and teetotal) lady.  The lemonade had a good measure of whisky added (purely medicinal, my Uncle was a bit worried about my Gran's colour).  My Gran enjoyed it so much she asked my Uncle to get her another large glass of "the best lemonade I've ever tasted".  She slept a lot of the rest of the afternoon.

The buffet went well, apart from some of my relatives commenting that the pickled onions were a bit bland.  The restaurant (ignoring our previous instructions) had put out all of the starters, mains and desserts at the same time.  Many of our rather unsophisticated relatives (Scotland.1970s.) has been putting Lychees on their plates, thinking them to be pickled onions

Most of the Champagne we had previously bought and given to the restaurant to distribute for the toasts and speeches had mysteriously disappeared, and I had to buy another 3 cases of a decidedly dodgy Asti Spumanti to give our guests something to drink.

The tape of recorded dance music we had organised broke in the machine, so all we had was screechy Chinese Restaurant background music.
I can't remember the resulting chaos of speeches, dancing in the dark (a lighting strike caused a power cut over most of Glasgow, and as the room had no exterior windows, all we had was 2 or 3 candles) the uncertainty of breaking with tradition etc.
My beloved and I made a break for it, running to our hire car parked just a street away.  The weather broke as we walked, and we finished the last 100 metres in a run through the heaviest rain seen in Galsgow for 100 years.  It was torrential (at least it was warm), the gutters were full in seconds, the drains couldn't take the amount of water, and the streets started to flood in minutes.  As I drove slowly (I couldn't see much through the downpour)away to our new house on the outskirts of the city (Lenzie, near Kirkintilloch) I thought that with such a bloody awefull start, the rest of our married life could only get better.

Next week: 

The Honeymoon Hotel Which Was Also A Funeral Home,

followed by:

The Dangers Of Being Interupted During Sexual Congress By A Bloody Stupid Chambermaid Who Wanted To Turn Down A Bed  And Who Wouldn't Go Away.

The Royal Bloody Wedding

Prince William and Kate Middleton are going to get married.

Hoo-bloody-Ray

Nothing makes me happier to have left the class-ridden society of the UK for the (warmer) egalitarian climes of NZ.  The buggers don't even get married for another 5 months, which means an increasingly hyped approach by the media all around the world.

Who cares?
Who really gives a shit that one of the parasitic bastards who have sucked money and land from the people of the UK is going to get married.
Is it going to impact on our lives? No.  It's just an excuse to flaunt their wealth and position to all and sundry.

A pox on them all.

Anyway they should know better by now.  After the fiasco with the Bimbo of Westminster (better known as Blondie or Diana), keeping a low profile would probably have been the intelligent option.

I've seen articles on astrologers predictions, dress possibilities, choice of venues, 3D television broadcasts of the ceremony, honeymoon choices (even NZ is on the list)

But the bloody icing on the bloody cake is he headline I saw today.

Beckhams to attend royal wedding.

Well, that must be the official seal of approval.  If Victoria and David are going, the union is obviously blessed in heaven, and no mere mortal should stand in their way.

I just hope that my blood pressure doesn't blow a gasket before the entire vomit-inducing business is over, but I wouldn't bet on it.