End of an era

Actually this day (I’m actually blipping this on Monday morning) nearly ended me, let alone an era! It began very normally in the grey calm of the morning, in which we got to church early enough to park in the ‘poised for speedy departure’ slot at the corner of the drive, sang the Lent Prose and a Taize duet with impeccable composure, and were off down the drive with nary a sociable word to a soul. (Well - almost).

There was a worryingly large queue for the ferry, meaning we didn’t get on the first one, but another appeared a few minutes later and we were off, sliding out safely on the worryingly low tide and having time to eat bacon rolls and a lump of Christmas cake as we crossed the Firth. A comfort stop at Harthill yielded a Sunday paper and we were checking in at the Premier Inn at Ewan’s before the #1 granddaughter whose final whole school concert we had come for was out of her jammies.

The Usher Hall was packed. The programme was of epic proportions. Catriona emerged onto the platform with her trombone and vanished into the aptly-named Big Band. Blipper Lady Findhorn waved madly from the row behind us. Not for the first time, I remembered my own school concerts in the St Andrews Halls in Glasgow, though that splendid auditorium had burned down by my own final concert. I wondered if Catriona was feeling sad at the end of an era …

Turns out she was. It had just struck her, during the concert. There’s one more gig to go - jazz, smaller forces, smaller venue - and then on to more music-making, more memories. But the school years, so epic to the child she was, so unbelievably speedy for the grandparents who used to meet her at the school gate - they’re almost over.

We all piled into Ewan’s strangely capacious car - there seemed to be two teenagers and a trombone in the boot - and went back to his for meatballs and lingonberry relish and gravy-melted mash, and a glass of wine that finally stopped my clock altogether. By ten o’clock we were off over the road to the predictable comfort of the hotel bed and blipping had to wait.

Till now …