yonmei

yonmei @ 02:42 pm: Plockton is pretty
We had a long trip up by car, with stops in Perth (to collect wedding favours), in Dalwhinnie (which is twinned with Las Vegas, according to the sign at the pub where we stopped - where we had a very nice lunch, but saw no gamblers or white tigers), and in someplace I don't remember the name of because for two hours of winding hilly road I was feeling increasingly carsick and I didn't care where we were, or indeed appreciate how lovely the castle was, until I had breathed some fresh air and had a cup of tea and a cheese scone. But on the way out of the castle tea shop, I looked out over the sea loch at the castle and the hills and said in a bemused voice to the woman next to me, "It really is lovely, isn't it?" feeling a bit like Tommy Lee Jones in MiB where he confesses to Will Smith that the stars are beautiful, though he hasn't looked at them in years. Anyway. We got to Plockton and checked in and I found I had a room to myself (which I hadn't been sure about, because when they were booking us in January, I'd been asked if I minded sharing and of course I'd said No) and a nice bathroom just a few steps away, and a complimentary towelling dressing-gown to take those few steps.

So I wandered around Plockton, which is tiny and pretty, for an hour or so, and then came back to our hotel and we all had dinner*, which was lovely. My friends' friends are also lovely: it's very nice to meet them all. (I admitted to two separate people who asked, since everyone else present was thespian to some degree or another, that my sole connection with the stage was the O-Level Drama I did back when I was 15, and the drama group I belonged to for a year after that: I had met RiK when we were both in the same gay youth group, in 1984. Nobody seems to be prejudiced against non-thespians, though, which is nice.)

A sound night's sleep, followed by a lovely breakfast** - the food here is glorious, a focus on seafood, but there are enough vegetarian options to keep me happy for a longer stay! - and another wander round Plockton in the rain. I'd discovered this morning I could get online via the Plockton Inn's wifi, though T-Mobile has let me down. Then I went back to my room, packed up the half-bottle of wine I'd bought last night and not nearly finished, went down to the fish bar and ordered a vegeburger and chips, and took this and my wine up to a bench overlooking the sea and the houses, and ate and drank wine and admired the view and read The Guardian, and it was really very perfect. (The friends are lovely, but one can have too much togetherness, you know.) It's five past three. Time for another half hour or so wandering Plockton and taking more photos, then I need to come back here and dress for the ceremony.

I am very disappointed to hear that the Californian Supreme Court has decided that a majority vote in California can take a civil right away from the minority - I mean of course the freedom to marry, which has been established in the US as a civil right necessary to the orderly pursuit of happiness since 1967. I'm very glad and relieved, though, that they didn't decide to forcibly divorce the thousands of couples who had got married - and hope things will change for the better by 2010, if not before.

But I'd like to promote to your attention a petition to the UK Government (and ask you to sign it, if you're a UK citizen) to amend the Civil Partnership Act so that same-sex couples who want to register their partnership at a religious ceremony can do so.

*Grilled vegetables in pitta bread, followed by vegetarian haggis with clapshot (mashed neeps and tatties) and followed by Crannachan ice-cream. I'd ordered a bottle of very nice Merlot, thinking I'd share, but everyone else at my table was on gin-and-tonics or beer.

**Muesli with dried fruit salad, orange juice, coffee, brown toast, scrambled eggs which tasted like the eggs had been laid this morning, baked beans and a grilled tomato, more coffee, oatcakes.