Iona, by Martin Needham

  Miss Wood had always had a reservation about her parents' choice of honeymoon venue. She completely appreciated the romance of sailing two-handed around the beautiful scenery in glorious June sunshine in a generously proportioned but yare yacht with those gorgeous deep crimson sails that you see on the old Thames barges. It was also kind of cute to think that she had been rocked into existence on a gentle swell when they dropped anchor in  the blue waters of a secluded white-sanded cove on one of the islands.  However, Iona had had to deal with the consequences of their resulting choice of name for thirty years now. How tiring sometimes were the smirks and smart-aleck quips about her name.

“What’s your name, darling?”

“Iona Wood”

“Does it have many trees?”

“Is it pretty?”

“Is it for sale?”

“Does your undergrowth need thinning?”

Men's chat-up lines could be so tiring, and so immediately off-putting.

Didn't her parents even think about it? Try it out before hand? What was wrong with Ilsa, Alisa or even at a push Skye? Still it could have been worse: she sometimes reflected on the implications of being called Tobermory, Eigg or Muck.

With the onset of dating, Iona began to imagine more seriously the possibility of a name change. Surely Iona Jones wouldn't raise a smirk, or Iona Davies, but what about Iona Gunn?

   Iona began to view not just her name, but the whole issue of fate, in a different way when she met Michael. A few weeks into their relationship he took her to his family’s holiday cottage: an ancient mill house set in five acres of lush deciduous woodland at the bottom of a secluded Cornish coombe. They spent a glorious summer holiday clearing pathways in their private wildlife-packed sanctuary. They sipped champagne in an ice-bucket that floated alongside their feet as they dangled their toes in the old millrace.  They built a fabulous treehouse bedroom that swayed gently as they lay in each others' arms through that first passionate summer.  Wedding plans swiftly followed and she longed  for the moment when someone would ask her name. In her head she rehearsed the conversation as she answered, "Iona Small-Wood". “Is it pretty?” they would ask. And she would say “Yes it's absolutely beautiful"

And so it was.