E--y and W------ul

Dave and I have been married now for 35 (not, as I recently told a bunch of my family, 39) years.

As a rule, we're either collectively or singly busy on our anniversary, and celebrate it on another day.  It works fine for us. This year though, we were both free, our car was available and we decided to have breakfast out and see what happened after that.

Sleeping in, and getting congratulatory calls from our kids, made us change our plan to having brunch, and we got in the car, put down the top and headed into town where we planned to brunch at the Sheraton, where we had had many a Sunday mid-morning celebration over the years.  We could have walked there, but because we had plans for the day, we drove and ran into the most horrendous traffic jam we'd hit in years, because of the memorialization of the start of the First World War which was being held at the national Cenotaph.  We twisted and turned our way through it and finally had almost arrived at the hotel, when we got stopped, siren and flashing blue lights, for turning left at an intersection where only cyclists are allowed to turn left.  

"Oh well," we said to each other, "this was a righteous call and we'll have to pay for it."  Little did we know.  We couldn't find our ownership papers or our insurance papers and Dave uncharacteristically fumbled being charming to the man in blue. Amazingly, what we had to pay was only half an hour of our special-to-be-day, even with the lack in charisma---and we got off with 3 different warnings.  Did you know you can't tear up a plasticized warning?  Did you guess that the Sheraton no longer serves brunch?  Did you see the horrendous rain storm we encountered on our drive in the countryside, in which we went about 40 miles out of our way by mistake?  Did you know that almost none of the stores in touristy Almonte were open on the holiday?

Almonte Inn and Kitchen view

You'd think all that might have ruined our day, but we found a wonderful bookshop open and just by luck wandered into the store that carries the Chalk Paint I've been wanting to buy for months. Then just as we should have been running out of luck and heading for home, I saw a road sign advertising an open patio at the Almonte Inn and Kitchen, where we sat overlooking the river, just beyond the garden and the green green grass and we listened to birds, tried unsuccessfully but hilariously to identify local trees, had sweet corn and ribs we saw done on the bbq, and I had lots of wine.

35 great years, topped off with a day both edgy and wonderful.

Still crazy, and happy, after all those years.