New leaf and all that

I've decided to try and use this blog as more of an actual blog, rather than somewhere to randomly now and again post links to stuff. I've been enjoying my friend Katie's blog, as it's very like having her chatting to me, which I wish happened much more often than it does (being as we live an hour's drive apart, and I am useless on the telephone). I also love to write, and need more practice doing so.

I've also decided that I need to be more positive on my blog. I only seem to write about my business, or when I'm having a bad time. I never write about the nice things in my life, so my new leaf I'm turning is to write a blogpost every day. In reality this might mean a blogpost every week instead, but as my dentist says when I complain that flossing my teeth makes me vomit, let's aim for once a day and see what happens.

So, for my first blogpost, I'd like to talk about my wonderful husband. You may know some things about him already, either from Facebook, my article on quadriplegia, or from me telling you (endlessly) about how wonderful he is.

I met Ian in 1994, when I moved from Spalding to Lancaster to volunteer at the University. I looked after Wendy, and Ian was looked after by Tina and Paul. All the volunteers used to get together, and I became friendly with Tina. At the time, I knew about 4 people in Lancaster, who I met through the theatre group* - I still know them all through Facebook and 3 of them came to my wedding (as well as Wendy of course).

So I went round to Tina's flat, and met Paul, Ian and Pete (who had the fourth flat in the block). As soon as I saw Ian, I KNEW. People talk about love at first sight, and it sounds pansified to me - I wouldn't know how else to describe it though. I just knew we'd be together forever. It took a long time to do anything about it, because I was only 19, and it seemed an amazingly big thing to devote my life to someone with a disability. After 6 months of spending time with the 4 of them, I sent him a letter saying I liked him, and a bag of mini eggs, and he responded with a letter saying he liked me as well, and a Mr Men book.

In 1999, we'd been going out for 4 years, even though we hadn't lived in the same town for 3 of them, and I don't even remember talking about moving in - I think we both just knew I'd be moving in after my degree. In the April, I went to visit him, and he gave me one of those massive Kinder** Easter eggs which were around then. I opened it to find a small box. Let's forget for one moment that I said 'What the hell's this?' and felt ripped off by Kinder, and just focus on the fact that it had a beautiful ring inside. Ian had got his brother to carefully open the egg, put in the ring, and repackage it so it looked like it hadn't been touched.

We've been married 10 years, and I can't imagine not being with him. We don't really argue, just bicker about small things, and have been told more than once we have our own language, which I take as a compliment. I come home and ask him if he's missed me, and every day he says, 'I always miss you when you're not here.' I've never gone to bed without kissing him goodnight (unless we've been apart, which has probably happened about four times since I moved to Leeds). I know when he's going to speak before he does, and he knows when I'm about to fall asleep, just by our breathing. He's the funniest person I've ever met, he says I'm the kindest.

Here's to you, Mr McGenn.

Photograph by Gary Crozier




* as a sidenote, I joined this group because in 1994, the only thing I'd really done creatively was acting at school
** I used to collect Kinder egg toys, and displayed them on a shelving unit my Dad made specially.