31 March 2012 speech

 Intro myself

Speech like a woman's dress ... cover the bare/important essentials ... but
short enough to maintain interest.

Welcome the guests.  Thanks to Joy and Jeremy and the others.  For Tim, Dan
and John - 3 great hunks of manhood  for man handling the tables and chairs
yesterday.

Today is birth of my dad, 98 years ago and 100 yrs ago Titanic I mention
Titanic not because of its short life but for its birth exactly 100 yrs
ago ....   the birth of a great liner - but that is the only parallel, I
can assure you.  This is the birth of a great and long-standing partnership
already in the making for 6 yrs and will last another 60 yrs, at least.


Toast to the groom parents:
Toast Katerina and Andy - for producing such a magnificent young man as my
son in law - not only 'cos he must, of course, have been named after me!
A man after my own heart.

A very presentable and practical outdoor man about town and country.  Not
like me ..... Tim is a fine mountaineer, navigating safely through white
outs in the Scottish hills, biving out and snow holing - a rock climber -
and up and coming instructor in outdoor pursuits.  Already has his (summer)
MLC    But I have one claim to fame that he does not yet have.

Yet, he can also turn his hand to post and rail fencing (dry stone walling
or hedge laying?), sheep farming and other rural activities.  Good DIY
skills, too ..... book shelf up   loft door repaired    my treasured,
sleek, self retracting Stanley knife made to work once more

But, there is a dark side to this young man - he tried to bump off Becky
and me!  Let me explain

"Mum, Tim tried to kill me.  He bowled a boulder down at me.  I had to leap
dramatically out of the way."

Actual toast:   Please be upstanding to toast Katerina and Andy for
producing such a fine young man as my one and only son in law.  To Katerina
and Andy for bringing him up.

Next, bare essential is to say lovely things about the bride and to offer
advice to Becky and Tim:

Now what can I say about Becky?  First, I'm only half responsible for how
my dghtr has turned out.  I've finally got her married off at long last.
She's a sometimes crazy, extrovert, daredevil sort of a yg person who can
be prim and proper with the girls and can stand her ground and rough it
with the boys.
However, she wasn't like that to begin with, of course.  At 3 yrs of age,
in the summer of 1989, I took her up her first mountain, only to find her
fast disappearing, after only going half way, back downhill, saying, "I
want my mummy".

But, by 25 she had grown out of all that when I took her on a Boxing Day
climb up my second favourite mountain, Aran Fawddwy.  It was Boxing Day
2010, the snowiest Christmas that we had had for a long time.   .......

Big hearted Becky:
Thinking I was going to peg out before completing visiting all 527 Munros
and Tops  ....

Blackmailer Becky
I was procrastinating over getting a compost bin, feeling that ....
You're not going to get anything when I clean out my hamster cage unless
you get a compost bin.   .......

A few words of advice to Becky and Tim.  Nothing much I can say here.  Both
have honoured their parents in marrying a perfect partner.  Becky honoured
Linda and I by not parachute jumping when she was below the age of 18
years.  We most definitely did not let her!

In recent mths at work, it has been brought home to me how imp it is to
endeavour to honour and respect one parents and one another.

Toast to Becky and Tim .... for their everlasting health and happiness and
many more mountain summits - NEVER conquered but always visited at the mts
behest.