Two wedding anniversaries and a birthday in The View from the Terrace

Tuesday was our 41st wedding anniversary. I bought Hubby a silver glasses case engraved with Happy Anniversary and a little teddy emblem. I have called him Ted from the first year of our marriage. It started as a joke because he had this dark blue wooly coat that was a little too big for him, and it stuck. I hadn’t known what to buy him and in the end I typed anniversary present for husband into Ebay and that came up perfect! I had wanted to go on a snowdrop walk but the weather was damp and cold and dreary so we just went to a local garden centre and had tea and cake and I bought some plug plants for the hanging baskets. The sun did come out on the drive and there were early daffodils in bloom, the promise of spring.

Yesterday was my father’s birthday. He would have been 111! He died at 56 when I was 15 but I can really imagine him as an old man. He was very wise and gave good advice. When we married I chose the closest Saturday to his birthday. it was my way of having him at the wedding. We also filled the church with daffodils as March 1st is also St David’s Day. This morning I was thinking that if Dad were here now and was still able he would probably be pruning my roses. It was him that taught me how to prune them when I was 12. He loved roses. It was wet and stormy yesterday but today the sun was out so I spent an hour in the garden and made a start on them.

Today is my parents wedding anniversary. It is 84 years since they married. I can’t believe that. They had given up on children when I arrived in the 14th year of their marriage. My dad once told me that my mum was the best birthday present he ever had, what a lovely thing to say. They were a very close and loving couple, Hubby and I are not so much like that, more like best friends.

After my first real day this year in the garden I feel as though spring is just around the corner. The crocuses are out and the primroses I planted under the hedge last year are in bloom. I have planted some several times in the flower bed but they have never come back the next year so perhaps they like this position better.