Fairytale stuff

Five years ago, I described a pretty perfect wedding that we went to in Eton College Chapel. One of the groom's sisters has since tied the knot beside the ocean in Kenya: yesterday, another of his sisters made it - rather late! - to the altar of St Andrew's Church in their home village near here. The sun shone. The church was full of flowers, music and under fives (and more than currently the usual quota of us old codgers). No cars were needed to take us to Manor Farm's Dutch Ground, where the sides of an enormous tent were hung with sarongs, and all our family (for a few moments anyway) were able to find themselves amongst old friends once more.

Cooking two Nights

Having bemoaned the likely lack of culinary trade for Cheltenham town centre eateries during this year's Literary Festival, I have to report that excellent fare is available in the tented Feastfest Food Hall in Montpellier Gardens. Rosemary and Eva Nightingale were this lunchtime deservedly doing a roaring trade, and what I ate from their stall was quite delicious! (This is not a foodoir, so I will spare you the details: anyway the menu changes by the day.)

Floreat Ed'n'Bella

Ed Nightingale and Bella Mackie were married yesterday afternoon in Eton College Chapel. It was my first visit: what a joy to worship there, with all the colour and life in those eight huge John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens windows!

The wedding service was memorable on a number of counts: for the groom being invisible to most of the congregation - poor man, he had just broken a tendon playing tennis; for the address, by the same priest who married Ed's parents; for that splendid priest omitting to ask whether anyone objected to the marriage (once a lawyer, always a lawyer); and for the music: Parry, Mozart, Bach, Handel, Beethoven - perhaps all to be expected. But Offenbach? Anyway, the Tales of Hoffmann barcarolle was sung beautifully by two of Ed's sisters.

We emerged after the ceremony into the sunlit School Yard, dominated by this statue of Eton's founder, King Henry VI. I've always had rather a soft spot for this king, in spite of - or possibly because of - his being on the "wrong" side in the Wars of the Roses.

She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.

One could understand if Ed - an English teacher - had muttered to himself these words (from Shakespeare's Henry VI, part 1) when he met Bella. She was a smashing bride.