Louisa Simmonds

Will and Kate may just have celebrated their first wedding anniversary, but more excitingly we too have a major wedding anniversary looming. One that could test the very foundations of our marriage, as inevitably we share very different views about how best to celebrate it.

It’s not that I’m worried about the old man remembering the date – he only has to look at the massive tattoo on his chest inscribed with the words ‘17th JULY’ – my gift to him on our first anniversary.

I just know innately that I’m going to be disappointed. I can’t decide whether to accept that for what it is, suck it up, and focus on all the things he is wonderful at.

Or HOPE.

I think that ‘hoping’ is where I always go wrong. Hope is dangerous and a little foolish after twenty years together. Logically, leopards do not generally change their spots.

But, I argue in my head, this anniversary is more special than the others, so maybe….

*Hoping*

My argument is that we need to celebrate that I have put up with him for twenty years and lived to tell the tale. It’s an achievement that needs to be celebrated with more than a bottle of sparkling white wine, a curry and a quickie.

His arguments are characterically, ‘cost’,  and some bullshit about ‘not needing to prove his love with false public demonstrations of love.’

It’s not like I’m expecting anything REALLY special, like friends of ours who set the bar unrealistically high by flying to New York and doing romantic stuff like ‘spending time together’. (You know who you are!). Just a step up from a Chicken Korma and a kiss on the cheek, say.

I’ve bandied around the idea of a weekend on Hayman Island, which was met with what I can only describe as a guffaw from the old man’s camp. Is that a positive reaction or am I reading too much into it?

I foolishly thought that if I aimed high, he might actually ‘read the cue’ that I’m serious about him treating this anniversary with a little more than the usual skepticism.

But there is a fundamental problem with us going to Hayman Island, (were there even the remote chance in a billion that he would ever to take my suggestion seriously), in that I am terrified of the ocean. I’ve always had difficulties with the whole breathing technique of snorkeling and usually end up a spluttering mess on a bed of those hideous-looking Sea Cucumber things at the bottom of the ocean – (Ever question God’s choices when he decided what to create?). Frankly, I can only tolerate living fish if they stay in their own zone or are in tanks.

So I was hoping that he might come up with a counter-suggestion along the lines of a weekend in Noosa or Port Douglas maybe, even Melbourne, or worst case scenario, some fancy-schmantzy hotel in the city. But I haven’t spotted him furtively researching any holiday or hotel websites recently and I’ve checked his search history and there’s nothing there apart from questionable bodily function symptoms.

I made him promise years ago that for my fiftieth birthday we would go on a tour of Italy together and he’s even having second thoughts about that now. Last night he offered me a change of plan and suggested that I go (with a few girlfriends) on an all-expenses-paid trip (by him) around North Korea.

So it doesn’t bode well.

My husband has many talents but organization and ‘giving’ are not two of them. He has surprised me once during our marriage – at our wedding reception, when he introduced my speech to our guests – the one that I had no idea I was making and had to deliver after at least eight glasses of Champagne.

The other problem we face, of course, is that we are not sure if we can leave Kurt Cobain (the ADHDer), the Spoodle and Nerd Child on their own and in the same house, for a whole night.

Nerd Child has been having a bit of a crisis as a result of Kurt’s recent antics at Darling Harbour. She has come to the conclusion that our house is a mental asylum and I admit that I have noticed that she stays at friends’ houses more and more regularly as Kurt becomes more and more sociopathic. I’m envisaging more therapy bills for the old man to tut about.

In fairness, she has offered to ‘babysit’ our sixteen year old for vast sums of money, but these are the conditions:

1. Kurt is not allowed to walk around the house naked
2. He is not to emit his Tourettes-like howls before 8am in the morning
3. He is not to steal money from her purse to buy cigarettes
4. He is not to climb out onto his roof to smoke them
5. He is not to wake her up in the middle of the night, singing
6. He is not to take the television apart
7. He is not to play his electric guitar at full volume using his Big Muff distortion pedal before 8am
8. He is not to wear his bunny onesie or Thunderbird costume in public
9. He is not to terrorise the Spoodle by any of the following means: a) the blanket game b) the bladder game or c) dressing up in aforementioned onesie.

Unfortunately, Kurt will not agree to conditions 1 and 8, so it looks like we could be back at Blue Ginger’s curry house for our 20th wedding anniversary after all.

What did you do to celebrate your 20th Wedding Anniversary?

Hayman Island by df1hx at http://www.flickr.com

Snorkelling by Jenchiblu at http://www.flickr.com

Nilgiri Chicken Korma by Sailajag at http://www.flickr.com

#relationship #weddinganniversary #Marriage #HaymanIsland #Anniversary #Parenting