Just back from one, and off to another.
A bit less of a drive to this one, thankfully, but equally scenic. We followed the sat nav to Hamilton and on to the church in deepest Fairhill. I think I’d have struggled to find it without electronic assistance. After the service we drove through the labyrinth that is East Kilbride, missed my turning twice, but then on to the motorway down to the Fenwick Hotel, dumped our luggage there and got a taxi to the very posh Rowallan Castle in Ayrshire.
There are two castles in the grounds. We were heading for the ‘new’ castle which dates from around the turn of last century while the smaller ‘old’ castle dates from the 12th century. Still the ‘new’ castle looked the part with a grand entrance stairway, a library with a secret door and another door leading to a balcony where the great and the good could look down on the peasants below.
Lots of canapés being served and also plenty of alcoholic beverages freely available. We wandered around taking photographs of anyone and everyone we saw, hoping there would be more than a handful of folk who’s faces we’d know. PoD was a low viewpoint shot of a wee daisy growing through a crack in the paving stones with a kiltie disappearing into the distance.
Soon we were called to the ballroom where the tables were set. All the tables were named after places Laura and Ross had visited. We were on table Prague. Most of the folk at the table were friendly with the odd one or two who were just a bit stand-offish. We ignored them as they ignored us.
Speeches were the usual mix of rushed in-jokes and muttered wedding banality. The exception was John, father of the bride who, although he stumbled a bit at the start, showed his teacher’s training with a clear and measured delivery thereafter.
The meal was lovely. A fixed menu Chicken Liver Paté with Tomato Chutney to start. Main was Supreme of Chicken with Fondant Potatoes and a hot Pink Peppercorn sauce. Sticky Toffee Pudding with Baileys Ice Cream was the dessert. No coffee, but there was a free Cocktail Hour after the meal. I had a Bramble and Scamp had a Passionfruit Mojito. Both freshly made and quite delicious, but totally different from each other.
While we were comparing and contrasting the cocktails, the staff were hard at work changing the room where the meal had been served back into a ballroom, if a quite small ballroom, given the size of the castle. The band were loud, I mean LOUD. Too loud for the size of the room in my opinion. Maybe I’m just showing my age! After the couple’s first dance which was one of those embarrassing holding-hands ring around the roses dances that never really morphed into something like a real dance, the band really got going and it felt like a mosh pit rather than a ballroom. The less said about that the better. I prefer music you can hear, not the kind that you feel as a vibration in your chest. The young folk seemed to like it, but there wasn’t much for the over-30s to enjoy. John seemed to be ensconced in the library most of the time talking to folk, although we did stand together on an outside area watching a hare running across the greens of the golf course as the sun went down.
We had a taxi booked for midnight when it appeared that the band would finish playing. It didn’t appear. I phoned the hotel to see if there was anything they could do. Twice I phoned and it was just after 12.30 when a taxi appeared with the excuse that the IT in the taxi office had collapsed and all the bookings had been lost. In other words the drawing pin that held the big bit of paper with the bookings to the wall had come out and nobody could find it. However, we were past caring. We got into the taxi got to the hotel and fell into our beds.
Tomorrow would be another day. Hopefully a quieter, less hectic day.