Ever tried to weather-proof a Scottish garden party?
If so, you’ll know – as I do now – that it’s a pointless, futile exercise.
Nature will find a way to show you who’s boss. And if you don’t want to learn that lesson the hard way, don’t make the gazebo your catch-all Scottish garden party solution.
It was my girlfriend Alison’s 40th birthday last week.
And in preparation for ‘Alisonbury’, her festival-themed silent disco, myself and a crack-team of family members spent untold hours deliberating how many gazebos to put up in case of torrential rain, where to put the food in case of torrential rain, if it’s worth bulk buying ponchos in case of torrential rain…
The party was happening in the west of Scotland, so there is on average around 85% chance of torrential rain on any given day in the year.
In the end we went for three gazebos and a belltent. I was meant to order ponchos for everyone but forgot, and there was a period in the day when I thought this was my biggest oversight.
It wasn’t.
Dial up the universe – it works for me!
What I did remember to do, was dial up the universe and ask for sunshine for Alisonbury.
This is my new thing, by the way – dialling up the universe and making requests. I’m not sure how scientific it is, any more than a wishing well, or a prayer.
And trying to control the weather on an imaginary telephone (mine’s a big old fashioned one, with a rotary dial) is bound to bring down nature’s thunder. Or in this case, 35 mile an hour winds, which were just enough, three hours before the party, to rip the roof off one gazebo and completely mangle another.
I’d just come off stage in Edinburgh to find a bunch of distressed texts with photos and videos from Alison, who’d been chewed in the frame of one gazebo and almost paraglided out of her own garden with the other.
Some local pals helped untangle the mangled gazebo and make a virtue – if not a shelter – of the other by adorning the frame with fairy lights.
However, having rescued Alisonbury from wind-damage, we somehow forgot about the high likelihood of torrential rain.
Dry cushions don’t guarantee bums on seats
Just as well we’re used to it, so that when a mini-monsoon burst down just an hour before guests were due to arrive, we expertly wheeched all the garden cushions and blankets into the house in seconds flat, barely catching a drop.
Still, dry cushions or no, the rain battered down. Our hearts sank. At this point it looked as if the garden party, stripped as it was of most of its shelter, was going to be a washout.
But nature isn’t always so cruel. And I had asked the universe nicely for sunshine.
Sure enough, and on its own terms, the weather brightened up just as guests started to arrive. The sun came out, the wind died down.
We had the best, most fabulous, al fresco silent disco we could have hoped for – and a very happy birthday girl, throwing shapes all over the garden with her favourite people.
And if there’s a lesson to be learned here, it is: when dialling up the universe for Scottish garden party sunshine, you might want to add: “and no hoolies, please!”
