New beginnings..

Come and sit down for a minute, said the Other Half. I want to talk to you.

It was about nine o’clock on Christmas morning. Fuck, I thought. He’s going to leave me. On Christmas day! He’s never sat me down to have a talk before. What on earth can have happened? Nervously I made my way to the sofa and awaited my fate.

We’ve talked about this before, he said. You’ve always said that a girl likes to be asked. So, I’m asking you now. Producing a small, jade green box from his pocket, he continued speaking…Will you marry me? As he opened the box to reveal a beautiful, delicate diamond ring, I stared in utter disbelief and tried to assimilate what was happening. We have talked about getting married, and it was tacitly agreed that it would definitely happen at some point, but for some reason* I wanted to be asked properly instead of just drifting into it. And here we were, having a Proper Proposal. I must have looked so shocked as to have panicked him slightly….Um, so will you?

At this point emotion took over. As I offered a slightly wobbly “of course!!” we just sort of stared at each other, simultaneously grinning like lunatics and crying like girls. It was beautiful. The ring is beautiful. The Other Half has once again proved himself to be the most wonderful man on the planet and we couldn’t be happier.

So. We are engaged. Squeee!

It’s only just starting to sink in that this means we will be getting married in the next couple of years or so. A wedding. Blimey. Having been at my brother and sisters’ weddings (they didn’t marry each other – we might be a slightly odd family but we’re not that weird), I will admit to a slight pang of I-want-this during my father’s speeches. But, you see, I’m not really a big-white-dress-and-dancing-with-my-aunties sort of girl. If we have a wedding like that, my mother will want to come. If my mother were to come, my father and stepmother wouldn’t attend. To be honest, if my mother were to come I don’t think the Other Half and I would attend either. It would just be my mother and the registrar, shuffling uncomfortably and wondering when the buffet was kicking off. Bruh.

But I don’t know what I do want to do. Mostly, I want to be barefoot on a sandy beach. Just me and him and a celebrant. Waiters for witnesses. Jumpers for goalposts. All that. But then I want Small Person there too. But it wouldn’t be a children’s holiday really, would it? So what if we get married here, then go off somewhere on honeymoon? But where, here? I’m fairly confident that a registrar’s office isn’t for us. All silk flowers and stuffiness and being glared at by a portrait of the mayor.

I’m just so difficult. So, for the moment, I’m just revelling in the warm-and-fuzzies. Life is pretty fucking brilliant, all things considered.

Squeeeeee!!

* The reason being, of course, that under the sulky-teenager bravado and the tattoos and the snarling and the grouchiness, I am really a hopeless romantic. But don’t tell. Shhh.