21 years ago...

About 21 years ago, I was in Oxford - probably it was when I was trawling the vintage stalls in the markets, looking (successfully) for a going away outfit. I spotted the Ben's Cookies stall in the covered market (it was the first ever one - you can read about it here) and just had to buy Ben a tin of cookies, even though as as student about to graduate and then get married, I was pretty broke.

Spot the difference! This year, for my anniversary present, Ben bought me a second tin, filled with eight most wonderful chocolate cookies. We ate them over the last two days, and the tin will become another favourite, and may even last as long as the previous one, still going strong...I made him an anniversary card, using brass and nickel buttons, as I discovered that a 21st wedding anniversary is, technically, a brass and nickel one.

j

I like anniversaries. I like the opportunity to think back and really count my blessings...

Memories of the weeks and the years...

This is our souvenir of our week camping in the Ariege - local honey, bought at the night market. It's delicious, and going fast!But the reason I didn't get round to posting about it yesterday, as I'd intended, is that yesterday's memories were from much longer back... Ben and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary!

The pink ribbon on our front-door wreath was around the drop waist of my 1920s 'going away outfit'.

And yesterday I hung the under-dress from that very outfit up with the wreath. It normally hangs on my wardrobe door.

Ben and I celebrated with a lunch out in one of his favourite restaurants (he goes to so many with clients, poor man...) and then spent an afternoon wandering round Toulouse, just doing the kind of things you don't do with sons in tow - looking at pictures, exhibitions, architecture, the river, the canals, the cafés etc.

We had a wonderful afternoon, and are wondering if the next 20 years will be as interesting and unpredictable as the last...

And as a great anniversary gift, we discovered that Son 1's dog Raja has an easily-treated tummy bug, rather than a chicken bone or other object stuck in her intestines, as we'd come to fear - she's already on the mend.

19 years ago today...

...Ben and I got married at Sidwell Street Methodist Church, Exeter, Devon. It was a lovely day, but I'll tell you the thrifty/vintage side of it! My dress was an organza Laura Ashley one, which my mum and I had spotted for £25 in the sale while I was at school. She paid half, I paid for the other half, and we thought we'd alter a bit to turn it into a ballgown. We never did, so when Ben and I got engaged I realised I'd got a readymade thrifty silk wedding dress already in the house!

We hopped into the vintage car outside the church for a quick journey to the Imperial Hotel, Exeter, which boasts this amazing fan window designed by Brunel, I think...After a wonderful reception with so many friends and family, I got changed into my going away outfit - a 1920s broderie anglaise dress with a pink ribbon and a matching hat, which I'd picked up in the vintage market at Oxford when visiting from our university town of Reading. I still have the vintage petticoat which went under this completely sheer dress!My friend Clare-Louise, wearing the navy blue blazer in the Laura Ashley-fest below, had just trained as a florist and did all my flowers as a present - what a wonderful gift!

We celebrated our anniversary on Friday night, going out to the cinema to see Looking for Eric (in English - great fun if you can cope with Ken Loach's approach to swearing, which was probably made more amusing by the French subtitles in our version) and then for a meal in the restaurant attached to the very indy and alternative small cinema. Who would have thought we would celebrate our 19th anniversary as residents of a small French town?