28th March – 2nd April 2013

We were sad to leave Crear after the wedding and the next morning we began to slowly pack up our things…we constantly amaze ourselves how quickly we physically take over a place! To say we don’t have a lot of ‘stuff’ we seem to spread out the moment we get the opportunity!

We had filled the fridge, the wardrobes, the bathroom was like a local body shop and the bottle bin!!! You can only imagine!

We were packed up and ready to hit the road around lunch time, Graham was coming along on a little road-trip with us back to Glasgow where he was due to jump on a flight back to Devon, we had a few more shots we wanted to get before we left. We had hoped to drive into Campeltown to get some pictures in Alex’s Dads home-town, maybe in a local pub or something but the roads were still closed due to the bad snowfall. Campeltown was still without electricity and the local police were carefully doing their rounds of the area making sure we were all okay, they even popped in on us to check we had water, heating and had not frozen in the night.

We set off on a mini adventure with my stunning going away dresses, lent by Iona Crawford! The gorgeous silk floor length gown was going to look amazing in the snow…however…I was probably going to get a little chilly!

We said our goodbyes to Kate and the team at Crear and set off into the white wonderland! The narrow lane wound around picture perfect crisp white fields and finally into an ancient forest of gnarled old moss covered trees! It was perfect and JUST what I had envisioned! We pulled over and started to hatch a plan to get over the barbed wire fence and nearer to my chosen tree.

I changed as quickly as I possibly could into Ionas dress and held my chattering jaw as Graham snapped away. Alex joined me in his toasty warm kilt and I shivered next to him. I made it back over the barbed wire fence and into another field ALL. IN. THAT. DRESS! I literally wrapped my jeans around the wire and held the dress up as high as I could to keep it safe, I just wanted those pictures! The scenery was stunning and the dress! I just LOVED it!

Soon enough I was frozen to a living ice pop and we made yet more tea at the side of the road to warm us up before continuing on our journey.
We dawdled along, stopping now and then to think about pictures but we had what we wanted and nothing was beating it.

We said our sad goodbyes to Graham as he rushed off to the airport and we made our way towards Keswick near the Lake District, we still had another day to kill before we had to drop Alex (girl) and Rich home.

We found a pub for them to stay in and we camped in the car park and after a HUGE portion of fish and chips we slept like logs…Rich woke us up in the morning as excited as a new puppy with the idea of going to the shiny brand new ‘GO APE’ which was not far from where we had stayed!

Alex (boy) is scared to death of heights and Rich admitted to not being too keen either, yet, somehow we found ourselves there and within minutes strapped to a zipline by the seat of our pants!

The crash course (!!!! Its all in the name) included learning to FASTEN YOURSELF to the SAFETY wire, learning how to throw yourself off a platform into a pile of wood-chip shavings and that if you fall you will fall to your doom!
Oh, AND that you are totally responsible for yourself at all times sign here please…and no I have not forgotten my grammar in this last sentence!

We signed on the dotted line, climbed up a rickety rope ladder up the side of a tree, strapped ourselves onto the safety line and threw caution to the wind..that was howling in our faces 30 feet up a tree!

Go Ape is like an assault course but…at the top of the tree line. You fasten yourself to a zipline and then precariously balance and tippy-toe along tightropes, skinny planks of wood and rope ladder rungs spaced JUST too far apart to be comfortable. The craziest thing about the whole thing (apart from being 30 feet in the air) is that you cannot feel resistance form the harness attached to the safety line…SO, you feel like you are doing this WITHOUT A LIFELINE! Of course, if you slip your harness wont allow you to fall (IF you have fastened YOURSELF onto the safety line properly…if not…you WILL definitely fall) BUT trying to tell your brain to override the self preservation law that has been beaten into your skull from day 1 is pretty hard…especially when petrified of heights!

Alex (girl) skipped through the trees like some kind of human squirrel, all none handed, one footed and across the HARDEST option! Rich put a brave face on it and made it across all of the obstacles and even tried letting go once or twice. Alex (boy) looked ABSOLUTELY petrified the WHOLE time, could not control his legs and tried to RUN every obstacle without looking down! I was trying to be brave for Alex, I’m not OVERLY scared of heights but not keen on them either but seeing Alex (boy) go to pieces just destroyed me! It was exhausting watching him and trying to tell him it was ok when I didn’t really like it myself!

The breaking point came when we came to a particularly hard crossing. Alex (boy) was in front and just went for it as the rest of us stood on the platform and waited (only one person on a crossing at a time). The crossing was 2 ropes running parallel with each other (like a train track) across to the other side above our heads. From each rope and exactly opposite each other was a 6 foot long piece of rope with a large hoop on the end. They were evenly spaced all the way to the other side.

We figured you had to put your feet in the loops and hold onto the rope holding the loops and make your way across! See, its hard!!!

Alex (boy) just went for it and before even he knew it he was 30 feet in the air with both of his feet in hoops opposite each other and NO way to control them! His feet shot outwards making him appear to be doing the splits in mid air. He managed to get them back together again and his arms went forwards, his feet back. He used all his strength and pulled his arms back and his feet went our from under him…I’m sure it is impossible to imagine it but please try. I was THE worst wife EVER and could not breath for laughing! He was trying so hard but the panic had set in, he was laughing, struggling and couldn’t think.

We kept shouting to sit into his harness so he could feel he was safe and eventually he did. BUT, we were both absolutely worn out with the histrionics I could barely stand any more! My legs had gone to jelly and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how Alex (boy) felt.

We completed 3 out of 4 of the obstacles. The last one was so high, about 50 feet up in a visibly swaying tree and we stood with our feet firmly on the ground and watched Alex (girl) and Rich monkey through the trees.

After more tea to calm our nerves we got back on the road home to drop them off. We had had such a great week with them.

I have been known Alex (girl) for 15 years and although we may have grown apart at times we have always been friends. I am a strong believer in true friends being the people you can call any time and feel like you have never been apart. No pressure to call every week, no guilt if you call because you need a good cry, just pure friendship come what may. I am lucky to have that in Alex and I hope she knows she has that in me too. It was great to spend some time together for the first time in over 10 years and it just felt normal…and I suppose its lucky that she is crazy in love with a really great guy too and we all got on a storm!

We are lucky that we make new friends almost every day but we are more lucky that we have friends that have always been there for us too, and always will be.

I cried as we drove out of their street, knowing it would be a while before we saw them again and we stopped at Alex’s (boy) Mums for the night. We spent a few days with family before we hit the road again…this time South to Wales!

We were lucky to have friends along with us this time too! The beauty of being in your home country is that there we can drag our friends along with us to our weddings…England is only small after-all!

We arranged to meet Toff, Nats and Eleanor in Wales and literally spent the day driving what should have taken 4 hours. After getting completely lost in the bowels of Wales and taking 7 hours to get there it was too late to catch up with them the night before the wedding.

Instead we met in a greasy spoon for breakfast before we set off to the wedding. It was great to see Toff and Nats and to spend a little time with Eleanor who had been born JUST after we left in 2011! We ate a big greasy breakfast and hijacked their hotel room for a shower and made our way to Aberglasney Gardens where we would be having our first Druid ceremony!

Alex had been talking with Nicola from Daffodil Waves for months and everything had just fallen into place when she contacted the Aberglasney Gardens and asked if we could hijack the place for an afternoon. They were thrilled to have us and before we knew it we had Mark Townsend signed up to hold the special Druid ceremony for us. Mark as well as being a Druid priest is a member of the magic circle and we were super excited to meet him. His reputation precedes him and we were honoured to have him along on our wild wedding adventure!

We scrubbed up and made our way over to the gardens for our 40th wedding! Things were happening so fast!