Oliver's Big Day

The lateness of this blog is all due to my feeling lazy since returning from the UK during the middle of last week. For it took me a couple of days to get a sense of being back at home and then came an in-dwelling of gladness for living where we do.

Only two complaints with journey: one is that Stena Line do not serve small coffees and secondly, the seating on British trains becomes very uncomfortable after one and a half hours and as our rail journey was four hours long you can imagine the relief we felt at the end of the journey. Next time we shall take a cushions.

The Big Day of Oliver's Naming Ceremony arrived and about forty guests gathered in Helen and Mark's back garden, most of whom were seated under the open sided marquee thus avoiding the hot sun.

Haley on tenor sax!

The ceremony started with a few tunes from Haley (a school friend of Helen's) who came up from Somerset with her family plus musical instruments, a tenor saxophone and clarinet. Her music eased us all into the right frame of mind.

The ceremony was conducted by Sylvia Summer, a Humanist Life Rites Celebrant, who brought everyone together in such a pleasant way that there was a friendly corporate-ness between us all.

Helen, Oliver, Mark and Sylvia

Poor Oliver fell asleep but regardless we carried on with the ceremony to completion. His parents had bought an Olive tree to mark the occasion and we all tied small cards on to it's branches. On these each of us wrote our wishes for him in the future; the idea being that when he is much older he will be able to read them for himself and take onboard our thoughts. Or not.

The Olive Tree

Oliver's Grandparents brought water from their home areas or favorite places. So the waters came from Corfu, Chalice Well Glastonbury, Warwickshire and ours from the River Barrow in Co. Laois. The waters were then mingled and sprinkled around the base of the tree as a symbol of our joint commitment to Oliver.

For myself it was good to meet Helen and Mark's friends and relations, my ex-relations and a couple of my long lost relations - I no longer feel quite so alone :-D

As a regular ritualist I felt that Sylvia created & conducted an excellent celebration, the memory of which will always remain within me - no higher praise can I give her and I hope that she manages to read this blog with one of her wonderful smiles.

Two wonderful squealers

Oliver - The Swinger