mere spectators

I wasn't entirely sure where today's wedding was going to be; for some reason I'd initially thought the location to be Symington but it had then apparently changed (though possibly from somewhere else entirely) to another small place of which I had heard but whose precise location was not something I had ever needed to memorise. All I knew was that the new location was somewhere south of Ayr, possibly near Culzean and that a journey there would therefore involve the unalloyed excitement which is passing through the Electric Brae. I can't immediately see when this particular site's illusion was discovered nor what they called it prior to Electricity's discovery (if the road pre-dates Edison, Faraday and Volta). There's also an Electric Bakery in Ayr though that was merely named to distinguish it from the (more numerous at the time) gas-fired-oven-equipped bakeries. In any case we were denied this excitement (I've yet to experience the effect working) as there turned out to be another road to the church-destination (passing through the reception-destination) which omitted the coast and any geological excitements other than pleasant rolling hills and trees upon their crests and cows grazing thereunder. Unfortunately I was unable to appreciate them to the full as I was in fear of my life at several moments when Scott in the passenger seat unwisely distracted Joanne's dad Stan from the road; he's probably been safely driving for thrice the time for which I've had my licence but it doesn't make him any less likely to plough into something whilst he's pointing off down a side-road. There was even a helpful range-rover parked on the twisty-uphill-narrow road up to the church which we avoided hitting despite the apparent lack of attention paid to it. There must have been plenty of space (the bus taking everyone back up the road to the reception squeezed easily through) but I still tend to do that narrowing-the-shoulders reflex whenever in a car heading for a gap which is anything less than twice the width of the vehicle.

Whilst I would have described the church interior as pleasantly cool all the bare-shouldered people nearby who didn't have to wear shirts and jackets (even relaxedly flaxen items such as mine which makes wearing a suit barely tolerable) started hugging their upper arms and muttering about goosebumps. We could easily have stayed outside the front of the church to enjoy the combination of the smells of cowshit and secondhand fagsmoke in the sun but they wanted good seats although the portion we were pointed towards by the ushers and their haircuts provided an excellent view of the band (only keys, a drummer with a single snare and a fiddler but there's no more suitable term seeing as duet and quartet have never been chocolatey biscuits with a toffee taste too) and the rest of the congregation but not of the traditional view of the backs of the incipient couple's heads with the vicar looming over them although even with his foot-high podium-thing the vicar in use today still struggled to loom over anyone.

After an extremely lengthy delay for the bride to appear (thirty minutes late which apparently is good going by her standards) and a lengthy service we were free to run outside into the warmer but fresher air and hang around near the minibus ready to be ferried to Kirkoswald for the reception. We all managed to get into the first busload whilst everyone was busy craning over everyone else's head around the corner attempting to get the wedding party to look in the same direction at the same time. The reception was in a village hall thing which had the feel of a school assembly hall about it (especially around the stage) but which had a nice little garden bit at the back and proper rectangular tables inside where it would be possible to converse with at least five people rather than the two possible with round tables. Unfortunately whilst a couple of wee barkeeps were pottering around refilling the cava-drinkers' glasses people on orange juice had to go and meekly ask for refills which at least got them away from the wasps and the probably more dangerous people flailing at them and getting them nice and irritated. It would have been more sensible for them to remove their various buttonholes and corsages and maybe fling them over the wall rather than shriek and flap their hands.

After about forty minutes of slowly rotating to make sure I didn't burn and trying to catch natural expressions without being spotted we were finally called in for the food although not before ninety minutes of speeches had happened. The FotB was nice and concise, the bride's own speech succinct and meaningful, the groom's reasonably shortish and heartfelt (in parts) and the uncredited links reasonably amusing but the best man's speech could perhaps have been shortened slightly or indeed completely omitted seeing as the groom's non-best-man brother also did a speech. At least we were sitting nearest the buffet table and so were second only to the top table in serving-order. It was also quite handy that the band stopped muttering behind the stage curtain after a few minutes so that we could at least hear the speeches.

After the food and another short break in the nice cooling air outside whilst the tables were shuffled round ninety degrees and the band finished setting up and noodling aimlessly; it's always a bad sign when a band is too loud even when warming-up and this lot were ear-bleeding from the start in the usual LISTEN-TO-MEEEE manner of bands who probably all secretly hate each other. The bassist simply got on with things and played competently but not excessivly flashily and the drummer (who was given a five-minute solo later on in the evening in which he attempted to slip some sections of Moby Dick once he'd started getting his sections properly linked and almost carried them off) was equally laudable but the guitarist/singer should really just stick to playing at home in front of a mirror where he doesn't have to embarrass his audience with James Brown impressions which he couldn't carry off and where no-one would be perturbed by his waistcoat. He didn't really deserve the very nice-sounding 335 clone he played and especially not the Mesa Boogie he was hurting our ears through. As for the saxophonist... to their credit they didn't play any wedding-inappropriate tunes such as Careless Whisper just to give him something to do but now that we're almost a good two decades beyond the eighties a saxophonist who plays only the saxophone seems a little extravagant.

There was only a little short ceilidh section so I got to sit and chat for most of the evening and I was luckily up on the balcony taking pictures when the horror of a conga-line was begun although I had to jump into the rear pews when it came up the stairs and threatened to approach. At least there was no slosh. No fighting nor passed-out inebriation either though I didn't check the garden much as access was only via the collection of smokers at the back door. Altogether a pleasant evening although I did have to install earplugs for the last few songs as the volume and shouting ramped up along with the general level of drunkenness including that exhibited by a Colin whose wife had to leave early in order to be up in time to make up a wedding party on Sunday, leaving him free to sink several whiskies and fall deep into conversation with a grizzled-and-sozzled-looking codger a couple of tables over in between bouts of embarrassing dancing. Due to the taxi-unfriendly location we'd pre-booked a plenty-seater bus-let to convey eight of us home in overheated swervey splendour though with the roads dark it was at least only as scary as the journey there.