On Saturday we went to the wedding of my dearest cousin Kevin’s eldest son, Ed Megarry, to Jane Devanney in the Teviot Church in Hawick. The reception afterwards was at Hothcote House, Roberton, in its beautiful gardens where music played and the sun shone on young love and devoted families. It was a wonderful day, especially the chance to catch up with Ed’s younger siblings Will, Patrick and Kate, and to meet Becs, Will’s Canadian fiancée.
The wedding breakfast was in the marquee, and I was lucky to be seated between Keir and John Pringle (Ed’s uncle, whereas I consider myself an occasional aunt), with some of his lifelong family friends nearby. The choice of speakers was splendidly unconventional, and the Megarry side had a lot of air time after Peter Devanney’s highly emotional speech. His struggle for control was echoed by many of the audience who were also close to tears for a high proportion of the time. Bridget, mother of the bride, spoke with passionate maternal feeling on behalf of mothers throughout the marquee. The light relief was from Will and Paddy, jointly acting as best man and stand-up comedians. It’s a rare talent to be able to be so rude about your brother in a totally unmalicious and entertaining way, and a privilege for the audience to listen to so much heartfelt, unembarrassed emotion. It was obvious how much these two families were delighted to be joined, and we all smiled a lot as well as choking back a few tears. (There are some photos below.)
The only down side was the combination of date and location meant that we had to drive back to Landrick before the evening event, which for me meant extremely limited wine. (No bad thing, since I should really have been in training for months.) After 5 hours’ driving and 7 hours socialising, it was time prepare for Sunday’s pre-Nepal event in Aberfeldy. Safe Journeys is the small company that is organising our trek, and although there are others that offer pre-expedition events, Richard Struthers is very unusual in that he personally accompanies both the pre-trek event and the trek itself, and he also doesn’t charge for the pre-trek guided walk. So staying sober enough to turn up seemed the least I could do, despite a poor forecast.
The day turned out less daunting than I expected. As I feared, others had devoted far more time to their training, having done the Ten Tors and the Three Peaks and many other feats in preparation. However we all plodded up Meall nan Tarmachan (above Killin) at roughly the same pace, and although I probably found it harder than some, at least I wasn’t left behind. Knowing what life would be like during the week that followed, including several days spent at the Edinburgh Festival, just one day on the hills seemed the bare minimum. (In the event, a week later I would find myself toying with the idea of going to the Hilton gym after checking in at Edinburgh Airport, but even I realised that this would create needless last-minute pressure and decided against.) But it’s a measure of what that last week was like that although I wrote this on 31 August, I finally got around to uploading it and the photos below from Kathmandu, once things had calmed down.
They show two family groups, first Megarry then Devanney, and finally Ed and Jane cutting the cake. May they have a long and happy marriage:
