Author: wonderfulexchange

‘Just stand up there,’ she said. ‘It won’t break. See, the cushion comes off.  Oh, there’s nothing underneath?  Well, I said it wouldn’t break.  That’s it.  Now if you could just climb up the other side…’

Instead of watching the royal wedding, I spent the morning taking pictures of Falkland Palace for a friend’s book.  She was rather more used to making herself at home in palaces than I was.  But we got a good few photos in the end, despite my reservations.

(no, Rosemary, No, don’t take it down.  Yes, I wanted a picture of the cross.  But I’m not sure we should.  No.  Don’t worry.  It’s fine. Really.  No, please don’t take it off the wall.  Or move the Chinese Lamp.  Really…)

It was a good and eccentric end to a good  (and eccentric) week.

But now it really is time to watch the wedding.   Surely it can’t be that the weathervane at Falkland has a better crown than the new duchess?

It was a sheer act of faith driving to Banburgh in the horrid, fuzzy rain.   The only thing that kept me going was the fact that just there, just over that hill, around that corner, it looked like it would clear.

That, and the fact that I was due to see someone in Berwick first, so I was committed.

The drive proved worth it for the conversation alone –an unlikely blessing from an unlikely source.  A reminder not to assume you know what someone is like just because of a few short meetings, and strongly differing views.  And proof once again that Fr Kevin speaks with the wisdom of God. ( ‘now, don’t dismiss this out of hand.  I think  you should go talk with…’)

But then, the sun came out.  Truly and gloriously Spring.

Banburgh is never tame.  It was warm and bright and bursting with joy.  But the wind was fierce, and the sand blew like glass.  All the better really:  it meant that everyone, absolutely everyone, who stayed on the  beach was utterly mad.  Like a flock of terns, we spun seaward in a continual flow as the sand rose, and flew in our face, and settled like thorns in our hair.

Wind enough to sing safely, and my old totem, Rutter’s Requiem, came welling up:

my soul fleeth unto the Lord; before the morning watch I say; before the morning watch.
O Israel trust in the Lord.
In the Lord there is plenteous redemption.
For he shall redeem Israel from all her sins.  all her sins.

I played in the water and took pictures and kept trying to get my hair to stay back.  But mostly, I just drew in the joy of it.

Then, the sandstorms began.  Oh, it had been blowing before — but suddenly, the dunes wanted to dance like the waves, and rose up on the wind.   I was in the water, walking towards a couple of equally mad waders.  And they were radiant.  And I realised that I was smiling as much as they were.  That, and that we were all being lacerated with sand, and it was utterly ridiculous to be so very happy.

But there we were.

And then, the laughter began.

Make of it what you will, dear reader, but I laughed and laughed and laughed, and it was blessed.

And then, I found a sheltered spot in the dunes and lay down and stared at an utterly still sky, far above the swirling sands.  A gull looped over me, and another.  And I lay there a good long while.

By then, Rutter had yielded to a song I love more for he memory it stirs that for it’s intrinsic value — memories of Blessed Melville of St Andrews, still singing the tenor line in his 80′s…

… which, according to his abundant mercy,
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Later, I drove home to

Sing (sing we).  Sing we merrily.
Unto Go -o -o   -o    -o  -o   -o  … d our strenght.
Make a cheerful noi -o -o -o -o -o… ise.

and I didn’t even worry about the bad language.

A glorious, life giving day.

‘What do you want?’  she asked.

Sensible question.  But the one to which I seldom know the answer.

I want a thousand things that are everything and nothing all at once:  things that are true, but that I never seem to know how to make real.  Things that I would think are reasonable if someone else said them, but that I still talk myself out of — assume are impossible, unrealistic.

Molly, on the other hand, wants a cat treat.  And she has done such a good job of trying to get it herself, that I must now give it to her.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere.