romantic weekend away

This weekend we both took some time off work and headed to Dunkeld for a long weekend.

 The true purpose of our visit was to go to a wedding, but we had plenty of time either side for mooching around and enjoying the sights.

We visited the enormous and slightly precarious-looking Birnam oak, the last remaining tree in Birnam wood (made famous by Macbeth) from Shakespeare's days.

The tree is hollow inside but Dulcie could not be coaxed in for a photo opp.  I couldn't blame her - it was pretty creepy and full of cobwebs, her latest obsession.  "I don't like spider webs!"

We were staying near the Beatrix Potter centre.  Dulcie's Beatrix Potter-esque outfit was a coincidence.

 We all enjoyed staying in a bed and breakfast.  The lady who ran it was lovely - left helium balloons on Dulcie's bed and let us use the room as a base long after we should have checked out on the Sunday.  It was nice just to have a change of scene, away from the cats and the clutter and the jobs to be done.  Cooked breakfasts were a fun treat too!

 Dulcie had this fancy day-bed to sleep in and made herself right at home.  We packed some of her favourite books in the suitcase which helped.

Here follow some pictures of the wedding day, featuring not a single picture of the bride or the groom.  This is not because I'm so self-centred, but because we failed to get any decent photos.  I'm a very uncomfortable photographer of others, so 99% of our pictures were of Dulcie (as usual) and those of the real stars of the show were either blurry or unflattering.  But it was a beautiful day!

The wedding was at Eastwood House (so lovely!) and the sun shone just long enough to enjoy the outdoor ceremony and drinks afterwards.  The bride was my very dear friend Katharine who I lived with back in 1998, my first year in Glasgow, living in halls.  The wedding was sweet and heartfelt and homemade and inclusive and we felt very lucky to have been invited.  So apologies for the poor photographic representation of the day!

Dulcie was a wee angel during the ceremony, sitting quietly on my knee and taking everything in.  The musical interlude on the fiddle made her all relaxed and snuggly.  She has a definite attraction to traditional Scottish music, we discovered.

After the vows had been exchanged, we all enjoyed a glass or two of fizz and 60 kilos (wha!) of Alpine cheese, imported by the groom's father.  So good.

There were lots of little ones at the wedding and they were so well catered for.  Dulcie had one of her most fun days ever, I think.

Her first experience on a trampoline was a definite highlight!

She's been dreaming and talking about trampolines ever since.

The meal and the evening do were at the Birnam Arts Centre.  These paper lanterns were a lovely decorative touch for the main room.

Dulcie had her moments, but was generally very good during hanging-about spells and all the speeches etc.  We had come well prepared with stickers and crayons and so on, which helped, as did her dad's sunglasses and her mum's lipstick.  She looks like some French New Wave chick here, I think.  Her wee dress (a lucky TK Maxx find) was so sweet and reminded me of a similar dress in turquoise that the bride used to wear.  Dulcie will be able to wear this dress day to day now as it's not too fancy.  I see a chic summer ahead!

The groom works as a designer for Lego (dream job or what?!) and there was plenty of Lego around to distract and entertain the wee ones while the main room was set up for dancing.  Dulcie was delighted (she almost always claims Lego was the best thing about her day at nursery) and got stuck right in there, making a few new friends in the process.

Back downstairs, Dulcie was on the dance floor for almost every ceilidh number.  One of the other mums (lady in the blue dress here) was really good at making up simple children's versions of the dances and getting them all to join in.  There's a video of Dulcie doing the Dashing White Sergeant here for anyone who might be interested.  Watch right to the end if you want to see her rather impressive bow at the end of the dance!

She kept going until about 10.30pm when she suddenly crashed, just as the disco was starting.

We were staying right across the road, so we carried her home and popped her straight into bed in all her clothes, bless her.  Absolutely conked :)

The next day we meandered around, visited the cathedral, went to the play park, picked some daisies, met everyone from the wedding for a pub lunch...  All in all, a very lovely weekend.  I wish we could go away more often.