Amazingly the OH and I will have been married for 50 years on the 27th of August.
For anyone wondering how you do that, it’s like anything, you keep going and don’t give up.
Our neighbour wanted to take us to dinner in a restaurant as a thank you for his house not exploding, which is always good, so that will be the celebration.
There are ups and downs in everything. We married in 1976 following a drought, as I came out of the church I put my parasol up and the rain came down.
He found the way to save people with Legionnaire’s Disease in a six year research post for very little money. I wrote for magazines for twenty pounds a page and taught quite a lot of dyslexic people to read, for five pounds an hour.
He went into local government planning how to save people in a disaster, I started making miniature porcelain things, mainly dolls.
I have done a lot of gardening, he has done a crossword a day, mostly.
We were so lucky; our son did not inherit Downes Syndrome, which is in his family. I’ve had cancer twice, each time after caring for a demented family member at my own expense, in every way, but I’m still here.
We each do our own thing but we do stop to watch the TV news preceded by a quiz show together, each evening. He now does his own cooking as he still eats meat. I am mostly vegetarian and grateful you don’t have to cook lettuce.
For a few years we have been able to have a bathroom each; I would heartily recommend that if you can.
Fifty years has gone so fast, I feel as if we are us but the fashions and the politicians have changed round us.
He still has most of his hair, I am still on a diet. He is still drinking and doing the latest sporty hobby, currently archery. I am still making things, currently water colouring my drawings.
There have been ups and downs, never much money, nothing like enough holidays but shared laughter and, mostly, the same views about a lot of things.
The way to stay married is to be tolerant of each other’s foibles, and, really, just not to stop.
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