--------------------- RUBY WEDDING - MARRIED FOR FORTY YEARS --------------------

Ruby Wedding

30th August 2015

Married forty years

I got up early this morning 

And made a cup of tea
It was a beautiful Northland morning

 A Sunday morning dawn
I made the tea, two cups, 

One for you and one for me.

He had just built this dinghy. He thought that if he could build a clinker dinghy he would be able to build something much bigger - which he did. He was all long hair and flared jeans. He was a brand spanking new School Teacher. He talked about Education, Politics, Religion, the meaning of life, building boats and sailing with the intensity of an incandescent light bulb. Still does. He built his big sailing boat. Together they built something far more important. A life and a family.

She was a brand spanking new Kindergarten teacher. She drove a dark blue Morris 1100 which was destined to carry two tons of lead ingots for the keel of his yacht and a thirty seven foot mast strapped to its door handles in an illegal clandestine race through the night. Today she drives a dark blue Volkswagen Golf which she often ogles at with the same sort of satisfaction as his yacht ogling. When they first met she talked about Politics with the intensity of an incandescent light bulb and found that she walked on the same side of the ideological railway tracks as the young man with the hair and the flared jeans.... but when she talked about childrens education and developmental needs she spoke with a rare insight and passion that made it abundantly clear she was far ahead of her time. She still is. He was entranced. He thought she was beautiful. And still does.

Her engagement ring has a ruby at its center and is surrounded with diamonds. Her wedding ring is gold with diamonds and rubies. Very apt for a Ruby Wedding Anniversary. Life has expanded to include three children, a daughter and son in law, and a grandchild.

Often they are like water flowing to water. Often they are like chalk and cheese. Underpinning it all is love, affection, humour, tolerance, forgiveness, commitment and a certain amount of Ruby Red sheer bloody mindedness ! LOL.