Long, long ago...

It took a phone call this morning from Chiara, our older daughter, to remind that we have been married for 43rd very happy years. On our 10th wedding anniversary, the reminder came from our neighbour, who appeared at the door with formal congratulations and the mouthwatering banana cake his family reserved for high days and holidays (best banana cake ever). I suppose we must be a very prosaic couple, but somehow, dates have never been that important to us – and it was years before we could consistently remember whether we were married on the 14th or the 18th. The fact is that, dates or no dates and whatever the future may hold, we both feel we have been incredibly fortunate in our marriage.

The day continued in a prosaic manner, with HH hunched over his computer all morning while I went to roust out the younger members of the family. Grandson Phil failed to appear, but granddaughter Gaby and I went down to the windy beach, with the tide roaring in, and then on to the library. We are surprised and delighted to find that she reads well and enjoys it, as although we managed, while he lived with us, to instill a love of books in Phil, we never had that opportunity with Gaby and as reading was anathema to both her mother and her aunt, we didn’t anticipate much encouragement from that quarter.

In terms of things not to do on your anniversary, worse was to come– we had an afternoon appointment with a solicitor to discuss wills. However, it turned out that she had sloped off home, feeling ill, shortly before we arrived, so after talking things over with a young trainee, we sloped off in turn back to the family. The sun having reappeared, we went back towards the beach and Gaby and I boarded the pirate ship perched on the rocks by the prom, in which we raided Ireland and points north and south for diamonds and gold.

We finally celebrated the date with a most delicious dinner, cooked for us by sis-in-law Audrey, following a recipe of chef Tom Kerridge’s (she acquired a signed copy of his book at a flower show the other day – as I suppose one might, if one went to flower shows). Lemon pepper chicken, with green pepper salsa, really tasty and different.