Venue

When we chose Berwick-upon-Tweed for the double civil partnership ceremony, it certainly seemed like a good idea (and of course the main event was to have been the big party in Edinburgh the following day). COVID made it a lot more complicated than we expected it to be, and the date was changed twice. But we got there in the end.

The early part of the day was spent wandering the ramparts again, this time with L and Mr A, and procuring various bits and pieces we needed for our socially distanced 'reception'. Pictures after the ceremony can be found in the extra to norfolkdoc's blip, and courtesy of Munroist, who met us after the event with Mr C. My extras show what one has to contend with at such events in times of COVID, plus a lovely selfie (and bridgie) with L.

We had pared the ceremony details back to the absolute minimum, as we did largely regard the whole process as 'administrative'. Dealing with the Registrar's office in Northumberland was quite entertaining, in the sense that their suggestions for the CP ceremony were basically 'marriage-like', but for us that wasn't the point. The other three were all like, "been there, done that", and I'm a longterm marriage resister, so there was no going there for me. I guess that when CP was the only option for same-sex couples, it developed various scripts which aped marriage. However, a bit of research on the internet produced a script from Haringey Council in London which was literally "we're registering our partnership, and there's no legal reason why we cannot do it, so give us the piece of paper", and we went with that. After the two ceremonies, conducted within about five minutes by the generally pretty obliging registrar (and actually without masks except for the 'audience') (and video cast to Sweden for R by Z, who couldn't resist giving a few people some bunny ears...), the Registrar started to embark upon a little speech about partnership, but she cut it short when there were some giggles. The certificates are apparently due to arrive in the post in the next few days.

Anyway, for these purposes we used the Town Hall at Berwick as the venue. What I hadn't realised before this visit was the LS Lowry link with Berwick, and his painting(s) of the Town Hall, but when I did, I thought it would be cool to get this image which aped one of his (which features on the town's LS Lowry trail).

L had to head back to London (there being no trains on the Saturday), so this time we had dinner at the large table with Z taking the same position L had taken earlier). I kept kidding her that yesterday's candidate for the job had performed better (not least because he bought us a bottle of celebratory bubbly!). But she was, as ever, charming and entertaining company and we had another good night.