AMONG MY SOUVENIRS -- NO. 3

This faded rose bud is from my wedding bouquet which was left for safe keeping after the wedding with a careless bridesmaid. She stuffed it into a paper bag and accidentally sat upon it later. It is in bad shape but it was very pretty -- pink roses and white heather.

Weddings are packed with memories, too numerous to recount here. Ours was at St. Colomba's in London (seen as a shadow behind the rose) on a passable December day, by which I mean it wasn't raining too hard. Of the guests, several went on to become very famous, two notorious and I went on to the north of Scotland.

The wedding photographers were not the normal kind. They were press photographers who were friends. Their pictures are all suitable for tabloid use.

The bridesmaids were: one of my nieces, one of Himself's cousins and a nervy aspiring novelist from America. My niece became a dermatologist, the cousin married soon after and settled in Kent and the American ended up in a TV movie review slot.

The editor-in-chief of my paper gave me away. He was a family man who eventually dumped his wife and kids and ran off to an island off the State of Maine to write murder mysteries. He took a good looking blond with him. He was murdered there. At first I suspected his wife but she had an alibi. She was in the UK at the time and that seemed fairly airtight to me. His killer was never found.

The wedding was lovely. I entered to one of Bachs Toccata and Fugues but I don't remember which key. We left to Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary in D major.

As we got to the door of the church the skirl of bagpipes rent the air. From right behind us there was a blood curdling scream which continued hysterically. It was the nervy bridesmaid who had never heard bagpipes before. They do have that effect on some people.

She came to stay once we were back from our honeymoon. She brought the mutilated bridal bouquet with her. She spent her time writing letters about her adventures in Scotland. I found drafts of some of her letters in the wastepaper basket. She wrote that she was forced to scrub stone floors in dark hallways on her hands and knees and that it was so cold she had to sleep with a hot water bottle. The last was true. She had a vivid imagination, I'll give her that. Cheers, Katie.

And cheers, Marilyn and Amanda. Well done Barbara, Bob and John. RIP, Bill.

My husband's best man? He married a beautiful Swedish model and lives in London. Cheers, Gavin. And cheers, blippers.