johnadams.org.uk

We (the Pinchbecks, Brookers and us) went to Jacqueline’s cousin Antonia’s wedding yesterday. The wedding was held at the fabulous Dalhousie Castle just south of Edinburgh.

The wedding ceremony was held in the Castle Chapel and was a friendly informal service with lots of children running around and a fair amount of laughter. Antonia’s daughter Sophie was very sweet, along with her last-minute page-boy companion Ben.

Andrew the Castle Steward played the bagpipes and before the meal led a tribute to the bride and groom with a long and elaborate allegory based on the wedding cake. He reminded me so much of Mr McKay in Porridge.

Although the vast majority of people at the wedding were non-Scottish (apart from Antonia’s step-dad Hugh), most people had a go at the ceilidh - even managing an eightsome reel! Jamie and Lucy both had a go at dancing and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

It was a lovely day and both Antonia and Iain’s families were really generous and welcoming.

We all spent the night at the glamorous surroundings of the Musselburgh Travelodge, and went into Edinburgh for breakfast (porridge at Henderson’s) before wandering around the city.

More pictures on Flickr , mainly for friends and family.

We shared a lovely Boxing Day with Roger, Ruth, Caitlin and Riona, who visited from their Christmas holiday in Keswick.

The day involved much eating, present opening,

games playing

and a nice walk in the cold in Pollok Park (Ruth, note correct spelling),

and ended with John collapsed with exhaustion.

It was lovely to see them all, so thanks for making the extra drive up the M74.

Ruth, the rest of the pictures are on Flickr, for those with the right priveleges!

As both of us were in London for work, Ruth and I met up for a meal on Monday night at Rasa, a Keralan restaurant just of Oxford Street.

OK, as Ruth expected (!) here is the full list of what we ate:

The food was typically Keralan. As a starter, Ruth had the Kathrikka, effectively battered aubergine slices with tomato chutney, I had Lamb Puffs, which were like puff pastry sausage rolls filled with spicy lamb. For a main course Ruth went for the alarmingly pink but very tasty Beet Cheera Pachadi, which is blended beetroot and spinach. I kept with a omnivorous theme and tucked into the Kappayum Meenum, chunky fish in a turmeric-ginger sauce. Both main courses were extremely tasty. A mango sorbet and a Kesari (soft semolina cake) rounded off the meal nicely.

The following evening, after attending the Microsoft Ready Launch Tour 2005 in Hammersmith (maybe I’ll blog on this later), I went with a couple of colleagues to Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Fulham, for some cracking burgers made with real meat, served with fantastic chunky chips.

I thought that I would relaunch our family archive of my grandfather John Adams’ letters home from France covering the period 1915-1916. There are a few reasons for this:

• It is now 90 years since John Adams landed in France in 1915;
• I have just finished reading Sebastian Barry’s book A Long Long Way, dealing with one Irishman’s experience in the Great War, and this contains echoes in the language, style and events of the main character to those of my grandfather. This even extends to a description of the Battle of Langemarck (Ypres 1917) where my grandfather was awarded a bar to his Military Medal.
• It is the run up to Remembrance Day, and there are only a handful of living survivors of the Great War, so I feel it is good to put first-hand accounts in the public domain.

The letters are posted in a blog style (using WordPress, what else! - although I had to modify the date settings to allow pre-1970 dates) and cover events such as:

• About to go up to the front line for the first time in January 1916
• Easter Sunday 1916 - in the front line while meanwhile, back in Dublin…
• Being wounded 6 weeks before the Battle of the Somme, where many of his battalion were killed.
• A telegram from the War Office informing his mother that he was wounded in October 1918, and his mother’s anguished response.
• A letter from one of my great-great uncle’s neighbours, in a PoW camp in Munster in Westfalen. I have recently been in touch with this man’s granddaughter.

As usual, I would welcome any comments on the letters or the story they tell.

People born in Northern Ireland, like me, are in a unique position. I am automatically a British Citizen because I was born in the United Kingdom to British parents, and an Irish Citizen as I was born on the island of Ireland. This is different from most other dual nationality situations where a person has parents of different nationalities, and is based almost entirely on my birth location. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement reinforced this position.

I’ve held a British passport since I was a teenager, but I’ve only had an Irish passport for a couple of years. This may be rare, but not unheard of, for a person brought up in a Unionist community.

Jacqueline is also entitled, as a spouse of an Irish Citizen, to apply for Irish Citizenship by Post-Nuptual Declaration. We went to the Irish Consulate in Edinburgh today to hand in Jacqueline’s application. This application was relatively straightforward, except for the requirement to include a significant amount of documentary evidence of co-habitation, for each month of the last 12 months!

As the post-nuptual declaration is being phased out with a final deadline for application of 22 November 2005, we expect the application process to take 6-9 months. I will post again whenever Jacqueline becomes Irish!