A Pearl of a Wedding Anniversary

I have been married for thirty years... I have to keep saying that to myself because in so many ways, it seems like only yesterday when I was a young bride -- a very young bride by today's standards (I was 25). In my wedding dress I look like a little china doll. Oh to have that figure back again! 

30 June 1984

They say it is good fortune if it rains on your wedding day and on 30 June 1984 it poured. It was also terribly cold (mid winter in Melbourne) and I have to confess, the bride is wearing a spencer under her wedding dress. Always a sensible Capricorn! Like all wedding days it passed in a blur. Back in those days, we still changed into "going away" clothes and left the wedding reception after tossing bouquets and in a shower of confetti... I remember shaking confetti out of our luggage for years afterwards. We arrived in Sydney that evening and collapsed exhausted on to the hotel bed where we ate our way through the mini bar and spent our wedding night watching The Nun's Story on the TV. Beat that one if you dare...

You have to love a man who comes with his own sword...

My husband, "D", is an intensely private person but he has been beside me now for over half my life so I will spill a few beans. We met doing Officer training for the Army Reserve.  At a time when long hair for men was de rigeur and my father lived in fear of me bringing home a boyfriend with hair past his shoulder, I had to wait for D's hair to grow back after a particularly vicious military haircut before I introduced him to friends and family.

Puckapunyal 1981... I am in the front row and D is in the row behind my left shoulder...before we were 'going out"

If you are into horoscopes then it is hard to find two more compatible signs than Capricorn and Taurus... both earth signs and supposedly practical and down to earth. On the whole we've made a good team and despite his profession on national TV about why he never buys me flowers ("I hate to manipulate her emotions"**), I see the little signs of devotion in the door knobs that get tightened without me asking and the endless soaps and shower caps he has produced from his travels. We don't talk about the Christmas I got one pearl earring ("But it's your birthday in 3 weeks!"). That is taking practicality too far! For the record I wore those pearl earrings to dinner on our anniversary - it was, after all, our pearl anniversary!

And somehow we have managed to bring up two beautiful sons - or maybe they managed to bring themselves up despite their parents. 

Fiji 1984

We celebrated our wedding anniversary by going back to the island in Fiji where we spent our honeymoon. The quiet little resort was now no longer little (or quiet... note to self, avoid school holidays) but we cocooned ourself in our beachside bure, staggering the ten feet to the beach, snorkelling on the reef and reading loads of books and just enjoying a few days of just being ourselves. 


So thank you, D, for thirty wonderful years... and here's to another thirty! 

Fiji 2014

**ABC Art Nation April 2010 http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s2881298.htm