Hestia and The Wedding

And so it came to pass that Tartarus' beautiful niece plighted her troth to her equally beautiful fiance.  Honestly, so much handsomeness and gorgeousness ought not be allowed in a single relationship.  Certainly, I didn't have my fair share of it in ours.

We got gussied up and looked like this:

Don't let that Vogue cover-girl look deceive you.

Earlier that very day, I had realised that there were no shower caps in the accommodation 

and had to improvise one.

From a Superdrug bag and two hair clips.

Sexy, don't you think?

The bride's mother, Tartarus's elder sister, entrusted him with one single task:  make sure everyone gets on the bus for 1.30pm.

He dutifully strode down the centre aisles of two coaches trying to count heads, having given up with the calling-the-register approach which was greeted with good-natured cat-calls from various be-sporraned young bucks and magnificently-hatted buckettes (buckets?) who were eager to get going to the wedding.

The spreadsheet of names that Tartarus's sister had given him was becoming very dog-eared and by the time he collapsed down next to me on the coach, he announced that we were good to go - even though he had 61 people counted and his sister's list had only 60 on it.

Well, better one too many than not enough, eh?

Oh reader....we were but 5 minutes into the journey to the venue when Tartarus noticed that there was another small spreadsheet table on his checklist.  One that had seven other names on it.

So it seemed that we were not one extra, but six short.

Tartarus began to sweat a little and I turned my face out of the window and admired the lovely gardens that we thundered past on our way to the venue.

'I can borrow a car and go back to pick them up,' he said after a bit.

'Hmmm - yes, possibly.  What time is the ceremony taking place?' I asked.

'Two-thirty,' chimed a perspiring gent in a dapper kiltie outfit in the row in front of us.

'Well,' says I, 'we've been travelling for 30 minutes and we're not at the venue.  With the best will in the world - and the best car - you are not going to make it to the accommodation and back in an hour.'

The coach rolled to a standstill in front of the venue and we poured out into the afternoon sunshine and the lawn of a very exclusive Royal Deeside wedding place.

Tartarus headed off to face the music with his sister.

And it turned out that six people had got on the rear coach after Tartarus had done his head count.

So we were actually all square.  Tartarus intercepted a waiter and gathered himself a drink.

'That was really, really worrying,' he said, mopping his brow, his hat stuffed under his arm.

I made sympathetic noises, but actually, I had found the whole thing wildly amusing as Tartarus is always the Person Who Always Gets Things Perfect and everyone else screws stuff up.  So he tells me.

The Master of Ceremonies appeared and asked us to move to the area where the wedding would take place.  Yes, with the advent of good weather, the ceremony was taking place OUTSIDE.

And she was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

Their vows were beautiful.

Look - aren't they beautiful?

I drank a MASSIVE amount of Highland Sparklers.  It was only when we were sitting down for dinner at God knows what time that I realised the interior of the venue looked like THIS:

That's twenty gazillion sets of antlers in them there rafters.

Royal Deeside is all about the hunting, shooting, fishing and bladder infections for elderly Dukes.

I had a very lovely, lovely day.  And drank rather more than I am used to.  And didn't care.

And we did not get involved in counting heads to get people onto the coaches to get them home again, let me assure you.

Toodle pip!!