Chapter 63

Marrying on New Year's Eve in The Dominican Republic is as close as you can get to guaranteeing perfect weather in a beautiful location. What I hadn't expected was the scale of the wedding. Instead of a temporary altar on the beach a full church ceremony was the order of the day. The bride's dress proved a perfect choice once she was seen alongside her kilted groom given that she was being given away by her brother Taulapapa with Isaac, my father, as the best man and both of them were wearing formal grey lava-lava.

As a bridesmaid I think I held myself together well, that is until the music Bill had arranged for leaving the church hit me - Louis Armstrong singing What a Wonderful World. Luckily Litara and Anna were there to support me before I dissolved into an emotional puddle!

We had the wedding reception back at the hotel and by usual standards, with only the 15 of us, it would be considered a small affair but Grandma and Grandpa McLeod had taken that as an opportunity to have the best of everything. The other two receptions held that day were similarly short on numbers so as each individual party concluded its eating, toasting and speech making the groups joined together with two bands spelling each other from separate stages over the evening as the celebrations progressed from reception to New Year's Eve party.

Despite my inexperience I got few breaks from the dance floor which Aarón put down to what he called the perfect timing of someone who could dance with imperfect partners. Despite all of the attention I think my favourite moment was late on being led through my very first waltz by my Da although it did strike me as ironic that the very first time a I got to dance with my father he was wearing a skirt albeit with a shirt and tie! With one thing and another dad and I had not managed to talk much since my family flew in so it was both a breather from the dance floor and a chance to catch up when he guided me to a table for the two of us.

"Most fathers with daughters your age are worried about boys and pregnancy but although that may well be in your future there is something more important we need to talk about now. Until last summer you were living as a boy and boys fight… Tell me honestly please, have you ever been beaten up in a fight?"

"Some boys may fight but not all of them. I was never the sort of person to fight beyond the odd skirmish to stand up for myself.

"So you didn't fight but you've always had lots of friends so you didn't hide away and you didn't get beaten up. I'm aware what people say about me; about me not being a person to be made angry. Have you ever thought that you might be like me?"

"Dad, I love and admire you but you are 2 or 3 inches taller than me, weigh without exaggeration more than twice as much and are I'd guess the strongest person in Cardiff and probably Wales. Where are the similarities?"

"I never have to fight because people think that as I am big, strong and fast they would loose. You never had to fight growing up because people thought they would lose."

"That's silly because nobody would ever be likely to think I'd beat them in a fight!"

"I had a chat with Serena back in Cardiff and she told me about the bag snatcher at the coach station and how you literally kicked his arse!"

"That doesn't count! I mean it's a cliché - I hit him with my handbag, for god sake! It's not like in the car park when you took on two men, knocking one out and breaking the other one's leg."

Dad looked at me for a long while without speaking then… "That wasn't me that was you and I saw the whole thing. The first man you hit in the temple with the rubber end of the walking stick then you hooked the second round the leg with the handle and yanked as you ran."

"But I thought it was you… I mean I'm not like that… I couldn't do that if I wanted to."

"And yet you did. Just like yesterday you saved Tina's jewels by putting the man in hospital with a broken jaw, cheekbone and nose. I know you aren't a fighter sweetheart but I've heard Bill and Aarón talk about your ability to see the future clearly through knowing how people will really behave. I've seen you on the television able to sway people into seeing things your way. Your sister believes you will be a big success and she isn't easily impressed.

In a short time the bells will ring and it will be 2001. Only a few days away now you will be in hospital for an operation, the thought of which must be scaring you but that is only the start of your year for in a few months you have agreed to set off and single-handedly sail around the world by way of Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.

It amazes me that your mum and I could have produced you and this seems to be the time to tell you that I believe you can do all this. Maybe you've got a special talent to see the future and maybe you've got a guardian angel looking after you. What you do have for sure is my belief that you can do whatever you set out to do. Now lets join the others for midnight before I blubber all over you."

An hour later Litara and I sat on our balcony each looking at the new moon. We clinked our glasses

"Here's to 2001."