AND FINALLY

A happy day for our little homestead

TODAY is such a happy day, although I’m writing about it before it’s happened.

Maybe you’re reading this at the very moment when my son, Dan, is marrying his lovely Aimee at the Bath Register Office.

Dan was born in 1974 so has hardly rushed into marriage. That makes today all the more wonderful, and I couldn’t wish for him a sweeter, kinder, prettier, more capable, loving and very special bride. At the end of next month their first child will be born (rather a surprise last autumn!) and so there’s something gloriously touching about this small wedding, and his wish to do it ‘right’.

Dan and Aimee live next to us, and so we share many aspects of life: looking after dogs and chickens, hay-making, moving the sheep, meals, giving a hand shifting furniture — you name it. Aimee (a country girl from Lincolnshire) is in charge of the kitchen garden we created and she also acts as my assistant, organising the letters for this column.

Dan likes wielding the chainsaw to create a good wood pile for winter, while my husband, Robin, will climb a ladder to mend a roof in a high wind without thinking twice, and is allround Mr Practical.

Our ‘homestead’ (as I like to call it — which is again rather old-fashioned) is a shared enterprise. Believe me, I know how lucky we are that we’ve been able to choose to live as generations before us did, especially in rural areas.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve picked a version of a very old Celtic marriage poem, to read during the ceremony. It starts with a reminder of the essentials of life: ‘A blessing upon your home / A blessing upon your hearth / A blessing on your dwelling / Upon your newly-kindled fire.’

The poem then blesses every aspect of the couple’s life, from future children, to those who help the household, ‘wise parents’ and ‘kith and kin,’ and even jobs, goods and income. It ends: ‘A blessing on you both in light or darkness / Each day and night of your lives.’

The words are simple, but what more could any mother wish?

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or e-mail bel. mooney@dailymail.co.uk. A pseudonym will be used if you wish. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.