This year marks 10 years of our marital bliss. It has gone so fast that I didn’t have time to complete a single blink of an eye. It has been whacky and tender, eventful and calming, enthralling and comforting. It has been one hell of a ride, during which we:

Acquired each other’s offspring to end up with the grand total of 4 children and 4 grandchildren between us;

Moved house twice before settling firmly in the depths of West Wiltshire and refusing to make way for bulldozers;

Moved on to a first-name basis with the sheep and mountain goats of the Lake District where we hold honorary citizenship;

Rambled hand-in-hand along the canals of Venice, drinking pit-stops of The Maldives, ancient forests of Canada, ice parlours of Canary Islands, art cafes of France, never-ending wedding receptions of Poland, and tulip markets of The Netherlands;

Wrote fifteen books, painted dozens of pictures (and at least four walls), sewn cushions, tended to flowers and grew carrots (some of us) and bitched about the Tories (both of us);

Dug deep to uncover Steve’s paternal roots;

Lost a mother, but discovered who she really was beneath the sediment of her 97 years;

Left jobs, found new jobs, left them, and retired (at least one of us did that, for the other it is work in progress);

Lost a cat to illness but rescued a dog from cruelty; the dog keeps us on our toes;

Made new friends; re-discovered old ones;

Stuck together through thick and thin.