“And she said that together we could take on the world
And she told me that I’ll never find another girl like her
And she said that together we could do anything
And she told me that she loves a boy who knows how to sing so I learned how to sing”
Dakin / Leonard / Reeves / Lowe
Last weekend we travelled over to the Land That Vowels Forgot, also known as Wales. We travelled together as a family with our car on the Dublin-Holyhead ferry as we did multiple times a year when our kids were kids. My Soulmate’s twin sister, Ger , and her husband , Liddy, live in the north of The Land That Vowels Forgot , and their three kids are the same ages as ours, so between the ages of 1 and 15-ish we all saw each other three or four times a year for weeks at a time. We were heading over to celebrate the wedding of Barra, the eldest Liddy kid, to Holly , an amazing lady who shared his bizarre love of sitting in a plastic boat and hurling himself against rocks in rivers in far off lands like Tanzania, Iceland, Indonesia, and Shropshire.
Our journey began with a pleasantly uneventful drive down to Dublin to catch the ferry. Eileen’s family were also going, and her brother Gareth had told me that as long as I was there 30 minutes before the sailing time , I’d be grand. We headed off around 5.00am ish and meandered into the port and only then started to get concerned as there didn’t seem to be anyone else there. Elliott helpfully looked up the booking and said that it stated in BLOCK CAPITALS that you had to be there at least 60 minutes before sailing. I said that they always say that. I drove past an empty set of gates and cabins. Eileen said that someone was waving frantically from the cabin we’d passed. He was now joined by a line of hi-vized Customs Officers who were also waving and pointing back at the cabin. I reversed and discovered that this cabin was the ticket office. The ticket officer said that we must be the Bonds , as everyone else was already on board.
After we parked and made our way up to the lounge we met Gareth and Angie, and then Paul and Grainne, and we all settled into our seats. The rest of the McKenna clan, John, Michelle, and Catherine were travelling at a much more sensible 11.00am. I remonstrated with Gareth about the boarding time and he reminded me that what he’d said that was in an emergency they might let you on with 30 minutes left. We agreed to disagree.
When we landed in Wales Paul and Grainne headed off as they were staying in a place with several more ‘L’s in it’s name that the rest of us. We told Gareth and Angie that we wanted to pick up food for later and we arranged to meet up in Bangor. Which we did. We all stocked up on food for dinner later in our cottage and then we had a wee snack at KFC. We were heading towards a place called Beddgelert and Gareth’s satnav was suggesting a different route to mine, so I went to his car to match our phones. He headed off and I hopped into mine to follow. I headed off towards the first of several roundabouts and went to connect my phone lead and then discovered that Robyn had connected her phone to it. The next few moments are a blur of shouting, huffing, harrumphing by me , and driving around the same roundabout 3 times looking at signs with names that all started with LL and contained no vowels.
I pulled over and in a now silent car connected my phone and headed off to catch Gareth.
The silence was broken when Robyn said “ Do you know hat we should do ? We should each take turns saying what we like most about each of us. You can all start with me.” They all laughed and I felt something happen to my angry , frustrated face…I think it’s called a smile.
We were heading to the wedding venue to meet up with the Liddys who were there getting everything ready for the next day’s festivities. The wedding was taking place in Llyn Gwyant, in an old barn beside the lake. We arrived and were greeted by my Evil Goddottir Eimear, Barra’s sister. We then met Ger and were hugged within an inch of our lives. We wandered about and admired the place. It was stunning. We were introduced to various hairy people and some very nervous bridesmaids. We met Barra briefly , and I managed to get a photo of all the Liddy/Bond kids together just like they used to be when they played as a football team, Monkeyhead United. We pottered about and then we were all hooshed out of the venue as they were having a wedding practice. Walking past an open side door I thought it would be funny to lean in and shout “I OBJECT !” , so I did, and it was…to me. No one smiled.
Later when we were leaving to check in to our cottage we hugged all our goodbyes and I got to meet Holly in person for the very first time. She had visited our house before but I was away in Zagreb with Micky and Ronan. She was being hugged by everyone, and when it was my turn I said “Remember Holly , there is absolutely no shame in changing your mind at the last minute.” She laughed and said “You must be Uncle Paul.” She’s a keeper.
That evening we all had a lovely dinner together in our cottage. At one point there were 17 people in the kitchen. Lots of old stories were told in that lovely, comforting , reassuring way that shared old stories are. It was bliss…and yet there were moments of added tenderness and moments of personal and communal reflection as this was the first family occasion since Stephen’s passing.
The next morning we had three frying pans on the go and a vast array of gluten free, vegan, and regular pure pig sausages were dished up with a potential flock of fried eggs and enough bread rolls to feed 17 hungry Liddy/Bond/McKennas. Eimear’s Paul was there too. We are currently in a custody battle with the Liddy’s to see which of us gets to adopt him.
A good start.
Everyone got ready and I made a card for the happy couple. It featured a drawing of Chewbacca and a rather cute Ewok wearing a wedding veil, and said “Somethings are just meant to be.”
Now everyone was giving out that I wasn’t ready.
Fifteen minutes later, and I must say, I came down the stairs looking only fabulous !
We arrived at the wedding venue even earlier than I’d arrived to my own wedding. We milled about, looking gorgeous, and eventually were asked to go inside and take our seats. The ushers were very like Barra and said we could sit wherever we liked. So we sat together down the back. Then Eimear came and brought us up the front so she could keep an eye on us.
The wedding began with a tune from Lord of the Rings.
Ger and Eileen started to weep.
The ceremony was conducted by their friend Benji. You could tell immediately that they all held each other in high regard and every single moment of the ceremony was deeply meaningful and poignant. They selected their own readings and each one was warmly received.
I may have mentioned several times before, but I am not a fan of organized hierarchical religions. Holly and Barra are Baptists, so I guess they aren’t either. I have always perceived Baptists as the benign anarchists of Christianity. The pastor from their church spoke very fondly of them and used the Wedding at Cana as the basis of his homily. My only criticism was that he missed the opportunity to include the joke about Jesus turning the water into wine and one of his disciples takes a sip and grimaces and says to another disciple :
“He’s made the Merlot again !”
“What’s wrong with Merlot ?”
“What’s right with Merlot !”
I giggled to myself anyway.
There was a prayer scrum at one point that I didn’t fully understand, and then we had the vows. The row we were sitting in was very dusty and that was why all of the Bonds were weeping…it had nothing to do with the majesty of the moment.
The whole ceremony was accompanied by an amazing gospel band, that could have happily left the ceremony and immediately gone on stage backing Beyonce. They were stunning.
After the ceremony we went outside for photographs in the field beside the lake and with Snowdonia as our backdrop. They had also laid out various games of skittles , boules, sacks for a sack race, small trampolines and rope for tug of war. Eimear came over with a fine and fantastically hairy gentleman called Ryan who was offering shots of Kraken rum to go with our coffees. Elliott and I didn’t have coffee , so we just had shots of rum.
After the games we went inside to be seated at tables that were wonderfully decorated and wouldn’t look out of place in Rivendell in the Second Age of Elrond. We were all seated at long tables , the food was absolutely divine and the seating allowed for great conversations to be shared up and down the table.
Towards the end of the meal Holly and Barra stood up to say a few words.
Again they were heartfelt, poignant, and belly achingly funny. Just perfect.
And then we danced.
When they had cleared half the tables away after the meal I thought that they haven’t left near enough seats for anyone to sit down, but as it turned out no one really sat down for the rest of the night. And if they did, it was to catch their breath , have a quick reviving glug of something and head back out.
My abiding memory of the day is laughing and dancing.
Which is also a perfect summation of how I feel whenever I think of Holly and Barra, they are laughing and dancing personified.
It was a privilege to bear witness.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is the song quoted at the start , Viola Beach’s ‘Boys That Sing’
