30 years ago, a beginning...

On Friday morning Mr M arrived home at 6.30am and came straight to bed. As he climbed in one side I leapt out the other. So much to finish and BF would be arriving to complete her cleaning schedule.
She arrived a little after 8am with her 2 year old son - my precious G*dson. My three grabbed him and whisked him off for a walk. Once again she vacuumed and scrubbed and polished while I put the American frosting on the cake, boiled the rice chopped lettuce and cucumber and did other culinary things.

By Noon everything was ready, Mr M woke up and we fed him breakfast in the garden because there was no way that BF would let him drop a crumb in her nice clean house. The children came back and after eating they donned their best clothes. Mr M put on his suit, I brushed my hair and put on the dress from the sale three years ago and we went next door into the garden centre where I worked to show everyone what we looked like when we were scrubbed up.
My boss gave me a corsage made with silk flowers and a lovely flower for Mr M's buttonhole. My daughter decided that she would wear white for her mother's wedding and just to be, well, my daughter she topped it off with what looks like a tablecloth. Mr and Mrs M snr plus Big Brother M were at the register office together with my uncleand aunt. The wedding was quiet and perfect. We posed for photographs and then went back to our house for food.
The american frosting on the cake appeared luminous in the photographs and my youngest son in his favourite blue jumper, knitted by Mr M's grandmother, was very adept at getting into each photograph. My parents rang that evening to wish us good health and we were able to give them congratulations on reaching 36 years of married life.
My Best Friend isn't in any of the wedding pictures because she couldn't come. She had to get home to meet her older children off the school bus and to get dinner ready for her husband. How about that? I have never found a way to repay her for all the things she did in that week but she says it was her way of paying me back for what I did when she went through an horrific divorce. We are still friends, and have been for more than 40 years so I suppose things are just about even. We looked through the album I made thirty years ago, Mr M and I. We chuckled at the memories and I thought briefly about how differently I would do those pages now.
We celebrated our anniversay with lunch in Morrisons in Ross on Wye followed by a little trip around some of our favourite places in the Forest and then we  went up "the hill" for dinner with the shipping magnate - Mr and Mrs Onassis Bluefunnel. I will explain why my cousin is called this one day.
So there it is. The story of our wedding. Captured in the pages of an album and now shared with you. Thank you for staying with me this far. I have enjoyed sharing.