Wedding Anniversary

My husband and I have been married 5 years yesterday 10 October. I can't imagine not being married to him.

When we met in 1999 in a pub in Windsor we had both been going to that pub for 3 years before that and never set eyes upon each other. Clearly we weren't ready to meet each other before that night. Because since we met we haven't really been apart. We married 3 years after we met (to the day). My Nanny once told me it was destiny and we both just had to be ready and that's why I made (what seemed at the time) a rather absurd decision to stay in the UK.

My neighbour, Dawn and I were there to watch the Rugby World Cup. I was walking through the pub looking for Dawn. God only knows where she went. It isn't a big place and I never did find her that night. As I walked past Marc, I bumped into him (accidentally, I swear) and said "Excuse me." He asked me "What part of Ireland are you from?" I told him he was an idiot. He clearly didn't understand what I said (must have been my accent) and thought that I wanted to speak to him. Then it was last bell and I didn't walk to walk home in the dark alone. I had to go through a very dark, deserted alley to get to my flat about 1/2 mile from the pub and in a drunken state of mind, I thought it was safer to ask a complete (and equally drunken) stranger who thought I was Irish to walk me home. He did.

The next day he sent me a sappy poem via text message all about taking a trip round the Milky Way together so I decided to see him again. And he knew how to sail and it was something I always wanted to learn to do and I thought he could teach me. We've been together ever since.

Our wedding was a small affair, VERY small. It was just the two of us and two friends, Mike and Gillian. The limo picked Gillian and I up at our house in Windsor. Marc had stayed at Mike's house overnight and Uncle John took the two of them to the Registry Office in Kensington, London. My limo got caught in traffic hence my belated arrival. Just before the ceremony started, I handed Mike the video camera and informed him that he would be the videographer for the day and our wedding video is the funniest and best I've ever seen.

He was the first man to make me believe I could raise a family with him. He was the first man I thought I could spend an entire lifetime with in relative happiness. He was the first man to make me laugh in my darkest hours.

We are extreme opposites. He'll be late for his own funeral (although I was late for the wedding and he was on time). I am the epitome of punctuality. Five minutes late is too late, in my opinion. I am a neat freak. His office looks like Hurricane Katrina has landed. He obsesses about cars. I soooo don't care.

We both love sailing. We both love travelling. We both love The West Wing. We both love our children.

He is my soft place to fall. He knows when to argue and when to throw in the towel. He knows what I like and what I hate. Together our dreams have come true and we continue to build new dreams for the future.

I love you, Marc!