Richard Baum

I am going on my summer holidays tomorrow, to the Isle of Mull, in the Hebrides. I am disappointed to learn from the BBC weather service that the defining feature of the island for the next five days is going to be threatening clouds. However, I suppose it could be argued that if I’d wanted tropical sunshine, heading north from Manchester probably wasn’t the brightest idea. 

I have never been to Mull before. In fact, my Scottish adventures have been limited to a couple of weekends in Glasgow during a foolish teenage romance, and a break in Edinburgh when a £10 Travelodge room was too good to resist. I hear that Mull has birds to spot and caves to explore, mountains to climb and walks to take. And that’s what I’ll be doing. 

We are also attending a wedding in Newcastle on our way home in a few days. Due to an horrific geographical error, I assumed that getting from Mull to Newcaslte would be like getting from Manchester to Liverpool. Unfortunately this assumption was based on the belief that my own brain was a superior mapping tool than Ordnance Survey, and yesterday I was sorely disappointed to note, on consulting a map, that Mull and Newcastle are almost as far apart as Mull and Manchester. 

The wedding itself will be yet another occasion when a couple more of my friends remind me of my advancing years and get hitched, rather than, y’know, behaving like teenagers for a few more years, or sitting at home with their parents playing video games, drinking milk and watching cartoons. It will be the first wedding where both bride and groom are long-standing friends, rather than just one half of the couple. Watching them in bride and groom-wear will be like some mad dressing-up game gone awry. It should be the generation above us getting married. Not our one. I am firmly of that belief for the time being. 

I may cry at the ceremony as well, which is unacceptable for one of my standing. 

All of which is a round-the-houses way of saying that I won’t really be blogging much over the next few days. But I will be back after the break for more. 

Rick