Diary – 13 October 2016

To Edinburgh to get married, but first my toyboy groom John Playfair (he’s a mere 69) shows me the city of his birth, which is peppered with his kinsman William Playfair’s neoclassical buildings. Outside the Chambers Museum there is a new, magnificent statue of him by Stoddard. We climb Calton Hill to admire the monument to another Playfair, this time the mathematician and astronomer John, and also his observatory, both built by W.H. Playfair. I’m now a bit daunted at joining the Playfair clan. Next day at sunset we drive as high as we can along Salisbury Crags and up Arthur’s Seat. It seems feeble not to climb the last bit. So up we go, me in high heels. It’s easier uphill than you’d think as the heels keep your feet horizontal but coming down they exaggerate the pitch and it’s impossible. I descend in socks.

The day of our nuptials is, like the whole week, sunny and clear. At our age getting married again is exciting, wonderful and slightly embarrassing. John is persuaded into his kilt, something he has resolutely refused to wear south of the border during our five years together. He reminds me of the Mugabe story: the cunning despot, on being welcomed to some laird’s estate by a Highland piper, is said to have remarked: ‘If I’m not mistaken, that man is blowing into a bag made of cowhide, he has a bearskin on his head decorated with ostrich feathers, a dagger in his sock, a badger’s head and horsehair tassels between his legs, and he’s wearing a skirt. And you call us uncivilised?’ The pre wedding lunch with our witnesses, Luce and Alan Macmillan, is in Ondine’s, opposite the magnificent registry office in Lothian Chambers.