The Look of Love? - T's Day 13 and a half A.S.

There are moments when you look at your other half and feel suffused by a bubble of total love (well, hopefully!). It starts in your heart, rises up and breaks somewhere around head level, normally leaving you with a dopey grin and an "ah, bless" sensation. This has often been the case with me and A - and generally I find it particularly enchanting when he is talking about art or culture or politics or religion and gets all involved and waving his hand around to add extra oomph to his point. Quite often at these moments he is wearing either a black or a white shirt. You should know at this point that I am a great supporter of all men having to go round in white shirts with puffy sleeves (a la Mr Darcy) permanently - if they throw in a waistcoat, tight breeches and some knee length leather boots then all to the good really, but I am sure there is some deeply buried genetic response to men in us ladies that responds to a stern face framed by crisp white cotton ... sigh! ;-) Still, I digress. Suffice to say that my bloke looks dashing and intellectual in either crisp white or dark black shirts. He is luckily, not one of those sartorially challenged chaps either - he will throw on a lovely shirt with torn jeans, a jacket and trainers, all topped off with his jaunty earring (so, Pirates of the Caribbean!) and wow - he's looking goooooood. Remember all this, won't you - it will become relevant in a minute! Yesterday was another good, if low key, day. I worked from home all day and finally finished the second design layouts of a coffee table golf book which has been dragging on and on - so that made me feel good. At the end of the afternoon A and I drove into town to pick up some bits and bobs from the supermarket and he walked, albeit slowly, round with me and said he felt pretty darned good still at the end. We had a yummy dinner of leftovers and a glass of wine and watched West Wing while the rain hammered down outside. It was in the latter part of the evening that I looked over at A who had repositioned himself to be more comfortable and upright in the armchair in the corner of the living room. He was wearing a pair of pink and black horizontally wide-striped knee socks, a navy and white horizontal pin-striped T shirt, a pale blue and navy vertically multi-striped cotton dressing gown left open all the way down the front, and, of course, a jaunty earring. What made the ensemble even more delightful was the fact that because he was going commando at the time, peeping out decoratively from under his Tshirt was the endcap and nozzle from his stoma bag and his "family jewels". Aaah, if only the camera had been to hand. It was then that it happened - the bubble thing - I looked at him and felt my heart swell with absolute love. No one could possibly love this man more than I, crazy striped outfit or not. That is a good feeling. One of the things that is interesting about getting cancer, or supporting someone through cancer is that it can strengthen bonds that you thought were impossible to be any stronger. It makes you appreciate all the little things that you love about your partner and disregard nearly all their annoying little habits as just irrelevant Mickey Mouse stuff. It sends you on a journey over which you have little if any control, but you do it together, and the love that grows from that journey will be bigger and better than any you have known. (Just for the record you should know also that if he continues to drop his towels where they fall after his shower, cut the kitchen worktop by using a really sharp knife to cut bread without a board underneath, etc ..... I will forget all this, if only for an instance ;-) BUT, goodness me, I can't wait to marry this man! Have a great day everyone - look especially hard at the white shirt clad men out there won't you?! ;-) T x