It's all Crystal clear

Today is my and hubby's 15th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe. It doesn't seem that long ago at all that we were standing in the rain, photographer's assistant holding an umbrella over our heads, as we had our wedding photos taken. We had to have the real ceremony at the town hall because I was a scarlet woman in the eyes of the Church of England, being a divorcee (my, how things have changed). We were allowed a church blessing, which is what we invited all the friends and family to. My side was a little bit thin. There was my dad, my stepmother, my mother, my stepfather, my sister, my brother, my niece, and my friend who was with me the night I met hubby. All my family stayed at our house except for my friend who stayed with our neighbours. It was quite historic getting my dad and mother in the same house at the same time. Everyone behaved themselves.

Except for my mother-in-law, who was quite distraught at the idea of losing her son to a scarlet woman. Most of the family who came were from her side, and none of them knew I'd been married before till the wedding blessing. Such a scandal!

And here we are. I'm still in England, though many times I wanted to move back. I've even decided to go for dual citizenship at long last. We're still married, though at the beginning of the year I had thoughts of ending it. That's how this blog came to be born, in fact. While I was internally debating the pros and cons of this union, the mighty words of Dear Abby, that famous agony aunt in America, came back to me: Are you better off with him or without him? And the answer is with him, of course. So I told myself to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee and decided to blog about my life instead of keeping it locked up inside.

Hubby doesn't know about this blog, but I'm going to have to tell him because I get to meet Pixie in person next week and I have to tell hubby how I know her. I'm very excited at the thought of meeting one of my blogfriends!

Marriage is not the easiest relationship in the world to maintain. It's a bit like a car. With care and attention, you can keep it running forever. But if you ignore it, it can break down irretrievably. Usually, at this time of year I'm not very happy with hubby. I think it must be because it's right after our annual holiday with my family, and hubby usually makes some comment like it's not a real holiday and I feel hurt because it's the only time I see my family. That didn't happen this year. Maybe it's because we made an effort to do some different things or maybe hubby decided not to be a dickhead this year.

The 15th anniversary is crystal. He gave me a necklace with pearls and crystals like one he saw in Vogue (!!!) magazine. I give the guy credit for even looking in Vogue. I bought him (and me) a bottle of Cristal champagne. Extravagant, but my local wine merchant gave me a good deal.

So Happy Anniversary, hubby. Let's hope the next 15 years fly by as quickly.

Yukon not be serious: Sometimes the stupidity of people is just too much. While we were at Pompey's Pillar, my daughter signed the guestbook with our names and UK under state, there being no column for country. My husband then overheard some children who were looking at it ask their dad: "What state is UK?" Wise father replied, "That would be Yukon." The asshole didn't even know how to spell it.