Bonnie Flora

Space at a premium.

 The second wonderful family wedding this year giving me two of the best weekends of my life! And this second, in Scotland, involved a variety of travel adventures. Planes cancelled; road traffic at a standstill; trains also cancelled or so late that connections were missed! I travelled with my son on the Royal Caledonian Express and I was ridiculously excited at the thought. We did enjoy it, perhaps son David less than I as he hardly slept. But I was totally amazed at the lack of space; if each bunk was occupied, then two small, unopened cases filled the entire space available for the two occupants of the bunk beds should they step down! Behind a sliding door to a toilet, hung a tiny conglomeration of pipes and tubes proclaiming itself to be a shower. How? Where? We didn’t discover. I lay, enjoying the rhythm of the moving train [Left Euston at 9.15 pm; arrived Dunkeld at 6.01a.m.] and the background noise of the engine and the passage over the tracks but David less so, I think. I slept like the proverbial log!

The bridge at Dunkeld.
Tay House Hotel was opposite one side of this bridge.

When we alighted together with one grandson and his girl who had travelled without benefit of beds or cabin, it was to rural surroundings. Our hotels were obviously some distance away so we split, in a proposed race to Tay House, my destination, and as Dave and I were enjoying walking along, dragging small suitcases as we braced against the 8 degrees temperature in inadequate clothing, a car drew up, the driver asked where we were bound for and then uttered the sweetest sentence ever. “Would you like a wee lift?” We hastily, and joyfully, indicated that a wee lift would be most welcome and the lovely lady drove us across town to the hotel. It was next to the river with a pub and pub garden on one side, and a super hotel offering great cooking, on the other. In other words, in a perfect location. The little town, Dunkeld, turned out to be a lovely place, obviously used to tourists and visitors, with excellent coffee places, a bakery, a Californian wine merchant who sold his own wine grown in Napa, and two art galleries. Plus many other extras!!

White water rafting was available on Friday morning. Some
played golf; others got acquainted with Dunkeld; I visited an art gallery

I won’t list the activities engaged in or bore with details of a perfect wedding but have to claim that the long weekend was probably the best, or at least one of two or three, very best of my life. It was joyful, incredibly well-organised, had amazing catering with unlimited alcohol which seemed to be thrilling for many [though not for me!] and a large guest list of people who all seemed interesting and fun to be with. The humanist service in Murthly Castle chapel surprised and delighted. Rather differently from the usual church weddings I have attended, it was totally informal, with people clapping and whooping approval whenever so inclined. Mercifully no hymns but we did sing loudly and happily, Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World. The bride’s mother read an extract from Just William and I read the superb The Art of Marriage by Wilferd Arlan Peterson. I especially liked the exit; guests stood, edging the route away from the chapel in a single line and when the happy couple appeared, we all threw our handfuls of rose petals over them. Poetry!!

The rose petal-strewn post-ceremony walk

Murthly Castle chapel was magnificent.

The bride, Flora, a Metropolitan girl I would say, who has always lived in London, comes from a Scottish family hence the venue and the kilts on display! Both bride and groom love Scotland and one can see why with its stunning scenery and lovely people. Dunkeld is almost certainly a little town where people don’t even think of locking their doors! As she is now in Brazil and almost certainly won’t see this blog, I think I can mention that Flora is not only indeed bonnie beyond beautiful, but also tall and clever and simpatica! What a brilliant addition to our family!

No caption needed.

Instead of white-water rafting, a small group went to see the Beatrix Potter garden nearby which incidentally enabled me to refresh my memory about dear Beatrix. I had not realised the strong connection of the Potter family with the Dunkeld area. The gift shop was, in fact, so full of Peter Rabbit and Co, there was little room for non-Potter pots 'n' things!!

I went with my son for a lovely walk from the centre of Dunkeld; we were immediately into the most green and rural landscape and eventually came to the Cathedral with part of the roof demolished. In spite of that, its huge size means that weekly services are still held here; its size also reminds that there must have been huge wealth somewhere in the area to enable the building of such a huge structure. Perhaps something to do with the Duke of Atholl who seems to own thousands of local acres!! British landed gentry estates are large; Scottish are huge!

Dunkeld Cathedral.
Built of grey sandstone between 1260 and 1501.
Dedicated to St Columba.
Church of Scotland.

Dunkeld Larches. Near the Cathedral is one 275 year old
larch, survivor of the original five, introduced
into the Atholl estate and grown from seeds obtained in the Austrian
Tyrol in 1738.
Successive Dukes planted over 14 million larches on the Atholl estate over the
following century, on 10,500 acres of land too poor for farming.
The land was thus stabilised and the larches provide
an effective habitat for wildlife.