A country that has the thistle as its national flower and the bagpipes as one of its trademarks, Scotland has a little grimness about its beauty. But St Andrews is a beacon of light and loveliness. Six years ago I spent a semester of my degree at St Andrews, and Dad and I went back to visit it on Friday. Just being there made me so happy, and it was lovely to walk down memory lane (in this case, memory lane was called Abbey St and was the road leading out of the town centre to my student accommodation). I will go back there. One day I will do my masters in Classics or in their Centre for Theology, Imagination and the Arts, and I will live in one of those old sandstone flats with a brightly painted door, and I will take classes in 500-year-old buildings opposite the beach to the sound of the bagpiper who plays outside the supermarket once a week. I hope he's still there.
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| St Andrews |
Friday evening the relatives started flocking in and the celebrations for the ordination started. Lynne and Chris Brown (my third cousins) came up from Nottingham on the train and we had dinner in a lovely French restaurant. Jill was networking like crazy with the restaurateur trying to get him to buy the olives they're importing from their grove in Sandon in western Victoria (between Ballarat & Bendigo for those of you who know and/or care).
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| Jill, Dad, Lynne, Chris & me |
Saturday we met my uncle Neil off the plane from the south of England and then headed in to the ceremony. It was quite formal, and the bishop was wearing his mitre, and I bowed to the altar before I gave my reading! So Dad is now officially a deacon in the Scottish Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in Scotland). There was a lovely connection to America: after the American War of Independence Church of England bishops were forbidden from ordaining American priests, which according to the Anglican tradition was really necessary to carrying out the practice of the church. So the Bishop of Aberdeen ordained an American priest so that the tradition could continue there. In thanks, the American Episcopal church gave a lot of nice stuff to the cathedral in Aberdeen, including shields from each of the states & colonies (I was proud to locate the Lone Star of Texas!), and the chalice that Dad served the Eucharist from.
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| Dad & the Bishop |
After that there was a great big dinner with loads of family and friends at the Spanish restaurant Dad & Jill took me to on my first night there. As you'd expect, Dad knows a lot of interesting people! I had a great chat to an American woman who used to be an actor and was a part of the birth of improvisational theatre led by Viola Spolin in the U.S. in the sixties and seventies. She now works for the Scottish Episcopal Church. I also met some relatives I hadn't met before, Dad's cousin Graham and his wife Christine. Christine is fabulous, about sixty (much younger than Graham, who's 72) and slowly retiring from her job as an HR consultant. She's great to talk to, with a mind like a steel trap, loads of interesting stories and a sparkly, engaging personality, and she actually listens, which is more than I can say for some of the people I talked to over the weekend. I also had one of those lovely mumsy moments with Lynne Brown. I love my English family.
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| Some of Dad's colleagues and friends |
Sunday morning was breakfast with the Browns and the Garners at Dad's place before heading off to St Congan's Church, where Dad now has the official role of Assistant Curate. It was a really lovely service and they seem to have a great community there. Church lunch was at the priest's house afterward. One of the people I was complaining about earlier, who talks but doesn't listen, was really getting on my nerves but everyone was being very polite and British about it and not breathing a word about how much he was making everything about him. But Christine handled him marvellously. He was talking to her at one point and correcting her on something she'd referred to incorrectly, and she said, quite politely but with a twinkle in her eye, "I feel I shall be a better person after this afternoon, with you adjusting me all the time." Sunday evening Dad, Jill, Uncle Neil and I played a board game called Touring England that Dad remembers really fondly from his childhood. He lost pretty badly though. :)
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| St Congan's |
I'm at the airport now waiting for my plane down to London. Actually, I'm first waiting for Dad to run home and come back with a whole bunch of money he promised me - in typical Dad style, he forgot his wallet. My fourth cousin Zoe, who I love dearly but have only seen a handful of times in my life, is meeting me in London and tonight she and another cousin Emma are holding a big dinner for all of the cousins to see me. I can't wait! It'll be lovely to see them again, and also loads of fun to hang out with people who are younger than sixty!
More Scotland photos
here.
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