The Ceremony
The Signet Library
Three o’clock in the afternoon
Parliament Square
Edinburgh EH1 1RF
Kindly be seated by ten past three.
Our story
A borrowed book
We met in a bookshop on Via Brera in the spring of 2019, both reaching for the last copy of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. One of us let the other have it. Twenty minutes later, over an espresso, came a polite request to borrow it once it was finished. The book was never given back.
We have agreed on almost everything since, except the lake. One of us swears Como is at its best at dawn, glassy and silver before the first ferry. The other maintains it only makes sense at midnight, when the villas are lit and the water holds them. Six years in, neither of us has conceded.
Last October came a five o’clock wake-up, a borrowed rowing boat out past Tremezzo and, for one morning only, an admission that dawn might be right. The ring was tucked inside that same copy of Calvino. We would love you there as the argument continues, at every hour of the day.
Portrait
Portrait
