What’s the best way to celebrate our Nth wedding anniversary today? In our case, there isn’t a best way. In fact, we don’t bother to celebrate just the one day a year, instead choosing to enjoy our good fortune – well, mine at least – in finding a lifetime partner and soulmate. (All say ‘Ahhhhh’.) Last night provided a classic example.
We’re coming up to 37 years as an item and unlike many other couples of our vintage we still have next to nothing in common. We manage to compromise regarding our televisual consumption, we never read the same books, our food tastes are poles apart (she has good taste in food whereas I have none: this applies to just about everything in our lives, I’m afraid), she likes history, I am not evenly vaguely interested and when it comes to music, rarely the twain shall meet. On the basis of that, how on Earth have we managed to keep going for so long?
The aforementioned last night saw my partner (I hate the word ‘wife’) go out for dinner with her ex boyfriend and still close friend from pre us times, eating sophisticated Italian food which I would, frankly, leave on the plate. Meanwhile, I met up with son number two in the new Listening Bar, which is part of the Rough Trade record shop, where we enjoyed several pints of lager, met the brilliant poet and performance artist Antony Szmierek who was there to perform a DJ set, followed by more pints, haute cuisine (my first KFC in years), more beers, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit at the Bristol Beacon followed by … er … more beers.
This is my life, where my music tastes correspond far more closely with my youngest son and than my partner. I can’t quite believe it but that level of connection, for someone who is lurching uncomfortably towards old age and infirmity, it feels like a blessing. While my partner and her ex were getting an Uber home, I stood happily in the rain on the Bristol City Centre, waiting for the bus home to the accompaniment through my ear pods of Jason Isbell’s magnificent album Foxes In The Snow. In truth, we were all happy.
It’s probably just us but birthdays and anniversaries mean little in our world. If we want to do something, we just do it. If we want to go out for a meal – and that’s rare for me because I hate going out for meals – we just do it. If we want to go anywhere or do anything, it doesn’t require any kind of specific celebration. This life doesn’t last forever. Why limit your activities to what a calendar says?
We will be going into town again today, me for more random record and book shop trawling, she for more considered and planned shopping, after which we will decide on a pub to visit – this is much easier to choose because Bristol is blessed with so many great pubs – before returning home, likely without a ‘Happy Anniversary Darling’ episode.
Anyway, here’s a photo of us and Antony Szmierek. Check him out: he’s brilliant.
