static.laterooms.comOf course, the main distraction was the wedding of my daughter Joana. She had become reacquainted with Nicholas after a number of years. They had known each other at college but had not been romantically involved. Nicholas recalls the moment he first saw Joana, descending a staircase. He was transfixed by her beauty. She, however, in the way of true romance, was going out with a good friend of his and all he could do was watch wistfully from the wings. On meeting again last year the situation was different and he grasped the nettle. The manner of their second meeting is in itself fascinating, involving as it does, dreams and premonitions.
So, at Christmas, I entered a frenetic world of fevered activity, of barely contained excitement, nervousness and high pitched squealing. The house was a cocoon of warmth and subdued light, against the permafrost beyond. My wife does Christmas beautifully; she has embraced the northern traditions and blended in the Portuguese, creating the quintessential sensual feast.
Rebecca, my second daughter was up from Bournemouth and my mother in law arrived from Portugal to Luton airport, a place Britain should be ashamed of, but of that, more later. Joana, Nicholas and the jewel in the crown, Savannah, had their own place by then, close by and were in and out of our house all the time.
So, Christmas came and went. I, now defined as an atheist Christian, had expressed a desire to attend midnight mass on Christmas eve to sing carols but as this would have disrupted our much loved routine, I was vetoed.
Joana and Nicholas had arranged the wedding and reception at the same venue, Langar Hall in the Vale of Belvoir, just outside Nottingham. Imagine a Tuscan villa, cypress trees, a formal garden, sheep grazing beyond the ha-ha, in a mature Capability Brown (esque) landscape, approached along an avenue of plane trees. The village church stands adjacent, its twelfth century tower jostling with elms and oaks for prominence. A Tuscan idyll in the East Midlands? You may think I exaggerate.
Joana and Nicholas, being capable and independent had decided to take charge of certain aspects of the wedding themselves. Both have experience in kitchens, domestic and professional and had decided to create their own cake. My wife (the mother in law), was willing and able to assist but was comfortabl-ish looking on from the sidelines. That is until two days before the wedding, which is when she began to twitch. She and Joana made the icing which, when drawn to a peak, remained like Salisbury cathedral spire. It was kept in the fridge until the next day when the three cakes were baked and piled one on top of the other, to form one large one. By now it was early evening on the eve of the wedding and my wife and the wife to be were still in the kitchen. All that had to be done was the decoration. Piece of cake. The icing was removed from the fridge and tested. What had mimicked an architectural pinnacle now flopped languidly back into itself. Looks of consternation transmuted into panic. They could both see the icing slithering off the cake, forming a ruched skirt around its base; not what they had hoped for at all.
The kitchen was now a no go area, fraught with danger for the rest of us. The two of them threw ideas, concepts and kitchen utensils around. A strange calm descended and some time later, there was the most beautiful wedding cake ever. Simply a pristine white chocolate cake topped with frosted fruit and foliage. An ice fruit snow drift. Gorgeous. By now the day had begun, midnight had come and gone.
My function, apart from being the butt of jokes and performing the duties assigned to the father of the bride, was to ferry people and things the twelve miles to Langar. The first journey took my wife and Joana along with all sorts of stuff and dozens of long sheath white lilies. The next was my mother in law, Rebecca and Savannah, her high chair, the cake, myriad other items of import, gold leaf and a white umbrella.
I had met many of the guests on my brief visits that morning; they had stayed the night and moved through the sumptuous wide corridors and hallways, mingling with the staff as they prepared. Many of Nicholas's family were there; mother, brothers, sisters, partners and children. On our side, my parents, my wife's mother, two Portuguese uncles, Vasco and Juca et al, Yuri, Joana's friend, and Alistair the honorary photographer. The guest list numbered 37. I went up to the bridal suite and there found my wife, two daughters and grand daughter, beautiful beyond words in off white silk. And so we descended the broad staircase, to the Indian Room and the sealing of the deal, the tying of the knot.
To be continued..................................
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