Wednesday, September 9, 2009

A bit of up and a whole load of love.


The weekend came and went, I was in a better mood by the Sunday, still pretty wiped out but in a better frame of mind.

Monday our Viv had her second baby by ceasarian, baby Lola came into the world happy and healthy and with a full head of hair. Dave (my brother in law) was in attendance for as much as he was allowed to be and then the electronic notification started whizzing around the world. As much as I wanted to go with Wend and the girls to visit I was scared of going out and on a purely selfish basis I wanted to save myself for that night.

You see Tuesday was our wedding anniversary. Nine years, a tip for singletons reading this, get married in a year which is memorable and easy to do the maths, we got married in 2000 which makes life for a simpleton like me much easier! In those nine years there have been births and deaths, job changes, redundancies, retraining, working away, arguments, laughter and a whole load of love.

I met Wendy through a blind date arranged by a wonderful friend. Gwyn was my boss at the time and had suddenly exclaimed one day that she knew the perfect woman for me, not bad considering we'd only worked together for a couple of months and then it was only a 12 hour shift on Saturdays! To say I was sceptical was an understatement, I'd never been particularly lucky in finding the right person, I guess I wasn't actually sure of what or who I was looking for. As blind dates go it was interesting to say the least. We went out as a group from work and although Gwyn had described Wendy to me I'd never seen a picture so when the person Gwyn described walked into the pub I nearly walked out. She was, well, er, putting it politely, not my type, possibly not anyones type! I'm sure she was a nice enough person but not my cup of tea.

I was wondering where Gwyn was as I thought they'd have come together but there was no sign and then they walked in. Now that was more like it, not the tallest person in the world but everything in the right place and cetainly not hard on the eyes, even before the beer goggles had kicked in.

We had a pub crawl which coincided with another groups pub crawl. I ended up being a bit of a tart and dancing with a woman from the other group in Roxy's. Gwyn came up to me and told me I was going to lose Wend if I carried on carrying on. Something in my beer drenched mind decided to stop the dancing and go and find Wendy. She was at the bar buying me a drink, not too bad I thought, but then she explained that she was only buying it for me as I'd bought her one earlier and she didn't want to owe me anything!

We got talking and talking and talking and talking. Until about half four in the morning on Gwyn's sofa in the middle of the manor estate in Sheffield. Yes it was just talking. As the beer was wearing off I realised the time and called a taxi, I had to be at work (for Gwyneth) in an hour and a half. B*gger!

For the next two weeks I had no contact with Wend as she'd gone home to Wales and Gwyn wouldn't give me her number. I thought that I'd been in love before but those two weeks made me realise that I hadn't. Nothing felt like the yearning I felt, I just wanted to see her, see if she was real, see if she liked me just to be with her again.

I proposed after two months and although my dad had to come down off the ceiling and Wendy's dad thought I was gay, we both finished our courses before getting married and we've been together ever since.

To say that we've some stories would be an understatement, we've had good times and bad but we've been honest with each other and that along with our love and a fair amount of laughter has pulled us through.

The love that I felt all those years ago that convinced me to share my life with someone else has just grown and my admiration for the blonde bombshell I married has multiplied many times over. When we started courting I wanted to wrap Wend up in cotton wool and protect her from everything. I soon found out that Wend is not one to hold back with her thoughts and she didn't want wrapping up. It's this strength that she has that has pulled us through so much. She is so dedicated as a parent and so strong as a wife that I thank Gwyn every day for introducing us. (In my mind, I think she'd get fed up with all the phone calls).

We'd booked Mum to baby sit, cheers mum, so off we trotted into Sheffield for a pint and a curry. Well it ended up being a couple of halves of strawberry beer at Platillo's in Leopold Square and then a superb curry at Aagrah, underneath Platillo's. I remember many years ago driving past a curry house with an elephant outside, turns out this was one of the first of the Aagrah chain of restaurants. We had a fabulous meal and I managed two thirds of my pint before it all got a bit much. Steadily we reached the tram and made it home, twenty past seven, dirty stop outs we are! The girls were still up and it was still light and I guess it was the shortest baby sitting in history but I was done.

I'd had a fabulous time with my stunning wife, it was the night I wanted but given the circumstances it was a darn site better than it might have been.

Thank you Gwyn.

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