J is for

…oh, it has to be John – doesn’t it?

John is my much maligned other half. We’ve been together now for 27 years and married for almost 26 years.

We met at work and I would be lying if I said it was love at first sight. It was probably just the opposite. I couldn’t stand him. he was opinionated and arrogant. Always there putting his views across in a way that I just couldn’t take to. But then there was the evening social event that we both went to and had nobody to talk to. Except for each other. He offered me a drink and then, rather embarrassingly, discovered he had no cash – and neither did I. To cut a long story short, we spent the evening chatting spurred on by the fact that other people were staring and pointing at us, decided to leave the venue together to wide eyed stares from colleagues. On the way out John said ‘If you fancy going out some time, give me a call’ I think he was being polite. My response was ‘Oh I couldn’t do that’ to which he replied ‘OK – what are you doing on Friday?’ For some reason my answer to that was ‘Do you want to come back to mine for coffee?’ I don’t know what I was thinking but that was all I could say.

Anyway, coffee over and he left after a very chaste peck on the cheek. I hardly slept all night. I had butterflies. I was restless – what was going on – I didn’t even like the man. Or did I?

Less than six months after that evening he proposed to me and seven months later we were married. A whirlwind? Yes I suppose you could say that. There have been some very tough times, especially when the boys were young but we overcame everything and are now getting used to spending more time on our own again.

As this post appears in the ether we are nearing the end of the first week of our holiday together – just the two of us this time – so if there are any reports of an Englishman being thrown overboard in the Atlantic – it may just be him! Only joking – of course that would never happen…