A hike, a question and a ring

Yesterday was quite a day. And I’m sure you’re all reading this to get details of a certain event that happened. But I’ll start at the beginning.

We began our day a little later than usual because we both did a little job searching online and then after breakfast and showers Brandon played his pipes for a bit. When he was done we loaded up our little backpack with water and the camera, stopped at a little deli/bakery close by for sandwiches and headed off for Arthur’s Seat. I’ve wanted to attempt this hike for a while now and since it was maybe one of the last clear days we could have for a while, today was the day. Arthur’s Seat is a hill in a large park in the middle of the city. Here’s what the guide book says about it: “The rocky peak of Arthur’s Seat (251m), carved by ice sheets from the deeply eroded stump of a long-extinct volcano, is a distinctive feature of Edinburgh’s skyline.” It’s visible from nearly everywhere in the city and it doesn’t look like all that bad of a hike when you’re at the bottom.

The path we took lead us to a stone wall that is the remains of an old church. From there, the path got steadily steeper and steeper and we both realized that although we’ve been doing an awful lot of walking lately, neither one of us is in very good shape. After a few rest stops and photo breaks, we eventually did make it up to the top. The view is absolutely worth the hike. You can see all the way out to the Forth bridges in one direction and to the beach in Portobello where we ate lunch last weekend the other way, and then there’s farmland and city and town everywhere in between. It was pretty gusty up there though and we were both happy we’d bundled up a little bit.

We found a good spot overlooking one edge of the hill to eat our lunch and we let our poor knees recover from all the hard work. We were both getting rather chilly so we decided that we should start the downhill trek. I started packing everything back into the backpack and stuffing the sandwich bags into the Pringles can because the lid blew away while we were eating and didn’t really pay too much attention to what Brandon was doing. I put the camera and our keys into the pack to make room in my coat pockets for my chilly hands and then turned around to pass it to Brandon who was going to carry it down. But he just stood there looking at me for a minute. I was about to ask him what was wrong when all of a sudden he was down on one knee holding up a ring in his fingers. I’m sure my eyes got huge and my heart leapt up into my throat and he said, “Will you marry me?”

Now this is the moment that every girl dreams about from the time they’re old enough to be reading about Prince Charming. Or Jamie Fraser, or Edward Cullen or whoever it is that happens to be your fancy. And I’ll admit that I’d been thinking for quite some time now about just how the perfect reply to that question should go. In my head, I got down on my knees with him, took his hands, looked him deeply in the eye and said, “Yes. With all my heart, YES!” We’d kiss, we’d hug, people would cheer.

In reality, what actually happened the moment Brandon asked me to marry him, was that I pretty much ignored the ring, even though I held it on my index finger while I grabbed his face, pulled him down and ended up half sitting, half laying on the ground kissing him and crying and trying to make coherent words come out of my mouth. Somewhere in the middle of all this I said yes, I put the ring on the correct finger, took a moment to admire how totally gorgeous it is, asked him when he bought it, laughed, kissed some more, asked him if he was serious, and pretty much was taken up in a moment of complete and utter joy.

In a nut shell, I did pretty much the opposite of what I thought I would. And it was perfect.

We had a man who was there with his family on the hill take our picture and explained that we just found out that we’re getting married. He was so happy and smiley and took a great photo. You can hardly tell we’re happy in it at all. (Ya right!) Then we took a moment or two to just let things sink in a little and began our walk back down. I don’t really remember much of that part of the day, I think I floated more than walked. And when we got back down to pavement, we went to the first pub we found, ordered glasses of wine, and Brandon toasted to happily ever after.

I was completely and totally surprised by this proposal. I mean, I kind of hoped it would happen while we’re over here, but I did not expect it yet at all. And get this: Brandon’s had the ring since the middle of August.  He actually bought the diamond in March then worked with a jeweller to choose a band and a setting and bought ten more, smaller diamonds to go into it as well. I love my ring. I love that he spent all that time and effort to make this ring all mine. He listened so carefully to everything I ever hinted at for what an engagement ring should be, and no one else has ever tried this one on. And he did it all right. He asked my dad, he consulted with my best friend on the ring and he didn’t give me a single hint that this was coming.

October 19^th is now one of my most favourite days.