Wedding anniversary

Twenty-eight years ago yesterday, Ali and I got married at home in our living room, with a registrar and about thirty close family and friends. We had lunch in a marquee outside (it just about fit on our back lawn ... just) with a buffet that we prepared ourselves. The day finished with a noisy, raucous knees-up for 150 people at a venue in town. No question of social distancing then!

Being our twenty-eighth anniversary, it was on the same day of the week (Friday) as our actual wedding day. A small discussion ensued about the twenty-eight-year cycle. There have been three other times when our anniversary fell on a Friday, but this is the first time it’s also been a leap year. With leap years in between, anniversaries on the same day fall at erratic intervals of five, six, or eleven years but they always come around again at year twenty-eight (except when the next turn of the century messes things up, but that’s another matter).

Of course, our celebration yesterday was of necessity a very small family affair. There’s a nearby Thai restaurant we like that’s still open for take-out. I checked the menu online and phoned through an order. I figured I should do that early and my hunch proved correct, it was a hour wait, but that was OK.

Looking for silver linings to all this, it was a quiet drive, parking available right outside. They were geared up to serve customers efficiently and I was straight in and out again, even though they were clearly busy with a row of bags lined up on the counter ready to be picked up.

And dinner was delicious. Thank you Sabhai Thai!