Inspiration

Six months ago this week my life was turned upside-down. I had the amazing fortune to be introduced to the most wonderful person I’ll ever meet… the most wonderful person that I think a lot of people will ever meet.

Around about last July, regular readers of the blog will have noticed a chance in spirit in this text. I was very shy of writing about Charlie to start with; if I’m really honest, I didn’t want to screw anything up by saying too much of what I felt.

The story of how we met is, in its own little way, rather wonderful, and doubtless will be a tale that we recount in years to come; one day I might even sit down and write about it here. Suffice it to say; things happened, and in the late summer, I was blessed when Charlie moved in with me.  It wasn’t that much later that we decided to get engaged.

And on Friday, Charlie and I were married. I’m also not going to say too much more about our tiny ceremony in Camden Town Hall, which was so strangely, deeply, curiously moving; or about the lovely lunch and evening we had with our closest local friends afterwards; I’m not going to say too much about how happy, proud and frankly amazed that I am to say to people now… please meet my husband, Charlie.  But I am.

One of these days, too, I’ll probably write on this blog about the changes at home. Some are big, like the beautiful new wallpaper in our bedroom (that’s a BIG change for a decorator… let’s just remember what this blog is normally about); some are small… like a kitchen which is now never without an avocado. They are all wonderfully, gloriously life-changing and life-enhancing and every single day of my life I feel like the luckiest man on earth.

I think it would be wrong not to have a little thank you, too, for a change of culture than within my own lifetime means that I could get married on Friday to the man I love. I think, if I’m honest, that even on this blog, if you look back, you’ll find me struggling with the social changes going on here. I’m so lucky; and so grateful – especially on a day where the world struggled with a different type of intolerance, in Paris, that in the quietest little way, Charlie and I were able to do the most wonderful, lovely but normal thing in the world, by expressing our love for one another, in front of our friends – for now, and for ever. Thank you too to my Mum and Dad, for their support and understanding; thank you to all my friends who’ve been so excited about this massive change in my life.

I’ve already had some lovely comments on the blog, and please, there is no need for any more. There really is nothing more to say except thank you to the kindest, most genuine, most wonderful person I’ve ever met… for joining in life’s great adventure with me.

Charlie, I love you.