Sheila’s mum Cleonice arrived with her
aunt, Cleusa and brother, Rafael, shortly before the wedding. I prepared a cd with the Beatles (for
Cleonice and Cleusa) and Oasis (for Rafael, my new brother-in-law.) The rest of Sheila’s family would arrive a
few days before the wedding, but for the time being we had 5 in the flat. We took one air bed, Rafael another in the
living room and the sisters took the bed.
I was working in until a few days before the wedding, but I was able to
take my guests to London and Brighton during the weekend. I can’t tell you how happy they were to
experience all the new sights and sounds!
We drove to Forres a few days before the
wedding to finalise the last minute plans.
Cleonice and Cleusa accompanied us on the 10-hour journey, while Rafael
stayed in London to meet their cousins in London.
They would fly to Forres on Thursday 15th
April, arriving in time for the stag night.
We had recommended hiring a people car and driving earlier, but they
preferred to spend more time in London.
Everything was going well until Thursday
morning...
My phone woke me up, a text message, my
brother, something about a volcano... ‘I
can’t deal with this,’ I thought, and went back to sleep. When I awoke (again), I remembered a dream
where my brother texted me about a volcano.
Laughing, I reached for my phone: “Have you heard about the
volcano? Is anyone flying up?” Bloody hell!
Volcano? All I could think of was
the extinct volcano on which Edinburgh castle is built, but if that’s gone
up... I eloquently replied “what
volcano?” Luckily, someone was clearly
awake, he replied “there’s a volcano that’s erupted in Iceland. It’s thrown a lot of ash into the air and the
planes can’t fly.” Expecting to see some
kind of apocalyptic dark scene, I opened the curtains and was met by a sight
even more unusual than that: sunshine and blue sky! In North East Scotland!
 |
| Northern Europe showing the high altitude ash on 16th April |
Then my phone rang, Rafael, from
London. I can’t remember his exact
words, mainly because they were Portuguese and I was very much a beginner at
that time, but one word does stick in my mind: “cancelado.” You don’t need to be a linguist to understand
the meaning of that word. I repeated,
“cancelado?” At which point Sheila woke
up, wondering what was cancelled? The
wedding? I passed her the phone and
Rafael explained that they had arrived at the airport and all flights were
cancelled.
We spent the morning trying to find a car
hire company that had cars available, no mean feat as everyone on a UK domestic
flight was now making alternative arrangements. We eventually found something
and made a provisional booking, but the guys had second thoughts. They had never driven on the left hand side
of the road, let alone through London and along British motorways. With the stress of last-minute arrangements,
that was fair enough, so they went for plan B.
Or was it plan C?
They found a train and piled on board. Given the transport chaos and a line that is
busy at the best of times, there were no seats available so they were left
standing and sitting on the floor all the way to Edinburgh. The changed trains in Edinburgh and were
finally able to sit, but the train would only go as far as Inverness, 25 miles
from Forres. I spent my stage night
sober, waiting until 11pm, at which time my dad and I each drove to Inverness,
filled our cars with excited Brazilians and delivered them to Forres. In spite of it all, they enjoyed the train
journey and seeing much more of the country than they would have otherwise
seen, had they flown.
Of course there were several other
disruptions and changes to travel plans.
My Gran made the 8-hour train journey from Leeds with my cousin while
others drove. The friends and colleagues
that could only fly up for the wedding, spend a couple of nights and return
spent the Thursday and Friday on the phone and watching the news, hoping the ban
on flying would be lifted so they would be able to attend. The only one of my colleagues had driven to
Glasgow for work then drove up the A9 to make the wedding.
 |
| Sheila and I |
Finally, Sheila’s best woman, Taisa (she
didn’t want to be a maid, but knowing about the tradition of the best man
decided to create a role!) was due to arrive later with her sister, mum and
friend, but it was beginning to look as though she wouldn’t be able to make
it. Sheila’s friend Pati, who had
travelled up by train with the cousins, agreed to be the best woman in her
place. It wasn’t until the day of the
wedding, that we heard that Taisa was on a train, heading to Forres. With this incredible news, we continued the
last minute preparations (I honestly can’t remember what I was doing, except
that it involved driving backwards and forwards across Forres all morning)
hoping that she would make it in time.
In the end, she didn’t make it to the
wedding and we were unable to postpone the ceremony. I have to admit to a tear when Sheila entered
the room, and my mother-in-law was crying her eyes out. The ceremony itself was simple, but
beautiful. It was a bit difficult for
Sheila to understand the registrar’s Scottish accent and I seemed to forget how
to speak English!
 |
| Left to right: me, Sheila, Pati, Taisa, Chris |
After the photographs, we returned the
function room for the speeches and then dinner when there was a commotion at
the reception. Taisa and her family had
arrived, just in time for the wedding breakfast! The hotel staff set the extra places at the
table and they went to get changed while Rafael and I discovered the joys of
bilingual speeches. We appear to have
survived intact! My youngest brother
Chris delivered his best man speech along with the obligatory embarrassing
story from my youth.
We had planned a “mini-moon” instead of a
honeymoon, a few nights in the Lake District before returning home. With the Brazilian family being unable to
continue with their plans of exploring Europe, we decided to return early and
only spent one night in the Lake District.
In anticipation of a few extra house guests, our first job on returning
home was bed shopping. My old bed was
miraculously still standing, but no one knew for how long and besides, all air
beds would soon be put to use. At one
point, there were 8 people in our not-as-spacious-as-I-thought two-bedroom
flat. Pre-workday breakfast consisted of
a careful tiptoe balancing act between sleeping bodies to reach the kitchen,
quietly make a cup of tea and sneak out.
I hadn’t just married Sheila, I’d married the family!
