Fordyce Maxwell: We’d never made a big deal of anniversaries, but Paris was the last straw
“There’s the lake,” she said.
“No, that’s a river. “
“It’s a lake.”
“No, a lake stays in one place. A river flows from one place to another. That’s a river.”
She was patient: “Look, there’s two choices. And I say it’s a lake.”
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Hide AdWelcome, Lake Tweed, and I plan to stick around until she goes into politics. Meantime, with my tongue-in-cheek suggestion about supporting the afflicted getting the treatment it deserved, we spent the day at the Alnwick Garden.
It was a happy few hours. Given our track record for anniversaries, it was one of the best. On our first anniversary Liz had flu. On the second I was sowing barley until midnight. On a dozen subsequent ones we were usually lambing, had sows farrowing or I was out late on a tractor.
On one when we weren’t working and managed to arrange a meal at a recommended local hotel. We were the only diners apart from a sales rep who coughed and drank in a corner of the cheerless room. It was laugh or cry. I’m pleased to say we laughed, only slightly hysterically.
The final blow was our 25th, a romantic few days in Paris. That was the year of the foot-and-mouth epidemic and in the six weeks before we flew to Paris I’d averaged 90 hours a week reporting on slaughtered animals, distraught farmers, panicking politicians and funeral pyres.
The pain in a shoulder that I attributed to an insect bite as we drove to the airport turned out to be shingles. I spent five days in Paris taking painkillers to keep me upright for half the day then sleeping a feverish 12 hours, when we had imagined dining out and strolling by the Seine in moonlight.
I’d almost forgotten – the Seine was flooded and the boat trip we’d planned was also off the list.
We’d never made a big deal of anniversaries anyway – strange, that – but decided Paris was the last straw. Since then we might decide to go out on the day itself, if we remember or, more usually, have a pleasant meal in.
But Alnwick Garden was a good idea. It’s an early stage of the gardening year, but the recently planted cherry orchard was just coming into bloom, and in the walled garden a mature white cherry – called, touchingly, The Bride – was in stunning full bloom and worth the visit on its own.
I took a photograph of Liz beside it because the same applies to her.