Eloped!

It's ten years ago today that the Minx and I met face to face for the first time. Back then, she was fairly anti-marriage on principle and I'd had enough of it, to be honest. So, in that, as in so many other matters, we were congruent in our outlooks.

But over the last decade, I think we have slowly - imperceptibly, actually - changed our position on this. I'm still not convinced we'd have ever actually gotten 'round to getting married but for the serendipitous coincidence of our approaching tenth anniversary and the Minx's discovery of gettingmarriedindenmark.com. The idea of going away and getting married on our own was irresistible.

So, that's why we're in Copenhagen, why we went to the Town Hall to present our paperwork on Wednesday, and why I needed to buy cufflinks, yesterday.

Today, then, we were back at the Town Hall by eleven, for our ceremony at quarter past. Our witnesses were two of the security guards, who clearly enjoyed being called on for this duty, and the ceremony was conducted by a wonderful Danish lady, who led us through the simple, beautiful service. She was terrific.

We celebrated firstly by taking a ride in the paternoster lifts - we saw the couple before us doing it, so we thought we wouldn't get into trouble - and then we went back to the coffee shop that we visited on Wednesday, this time for a glass of fizz.

We were both mildly nervous about telling the kids, who we were worried might have felt excluded, but, honestly, they couldn't have been happier about it or more pleased for us. (Abi: "dad what the fuck YASSSSSSSS congrats xxxxxxx")

And then we set about letting other people know. It was a lovely way to spend half an hour :-)

And after that we went to collect our bags from the hotel and take a taxi - with the most garrulous driver I have *ever* encountered - to the port for the overnight ferry to Oslo. We had a splendid room, with its own balcony (see Extra), and so we opened a bottle of Prosecco and relaxed, before finding our way down the restaurants.

All in all, it was the most fantastic day. I'm a very fortunate guy.