Post 325: Eeek! I’m in pain again.
With a clean white shirt and my lovely old three-piece suit hanging up ready to be squeezed into, I head to the shower before getting ready for a day out at our great pals’ wedding.
I know this day will be a procession of hard, uncomfortable seats but I will smile and hope I don’t get into too much pain by the end of the day.
On other matters I haven’t heard from the bed delivery people in Ireland who might be able to salvage my thoughts of a holiday to see my many family-in-laws.
But as I struggle into my waistcoat that won’t button up over my all-bought-and-paid-for belly, I do get an email from the Irish hotel that will allow me to organise a bed for their biggest rooms.
The problem is that they’ve already refused us the weekend we would prefer (due to a big wedding at the hotel), so I suggested a week later which is now also declined due to a busy time.
But they do suggest their biggest three-bedroom suite at €1500 for the week for that second suggested week.
I’ve thrown the waistcoat down in a huff and gone for the trousers. I rest on the side of the bed to get my legs into the lovely dark blue strides. I stand and do a little jump as I breathe in trying to do up the clips around the waist belt.
Oh dear. They’re really tight but they’ll have to do.
And with the tie on I really look the part now — even if I feel like an elephant in a horse suit.
Do I really want all the trouble of organising the electric profiling bed at €1500 with the airport costs and transportation leaving us in Trim without a car to get to Navan?
I don’t have the patience for this.
I fight my jacket on and make my way downstairs and get the biggest cuddle from my Darling who looks resplendent in her long white dress with blue patterns flowing around the bottom of my tightish trousers.
She makes me feel a million dollars with the words:
“You look so handsome.”
She kisses my lips and calms my worries.
I say I’ve only just managed to get into the suit but she half listens and tells me what I want to hear again — that I look wonderful.
Just like the words to “our” song of many yonks ago —
Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton.
Off on a tangent as I’m apt to do, that semi-romantic song that lots of partners smooch to is a paradox (if that’s the right word), in that the words express the memories of a drunken night ending with “him” being rescued by his date yet again.
Not the romantic tone it seems to purvey so beautifully, in the repeating chorus of love in an alcoholic haze.
But looking back there have been many times when that exact same thing has happened in our long marriage.
Thus we live and love and forgive and love some more.
Whether that’s good or right is not the issue.
The issue is whether you say the words we all want to hear.
She thinks I’m wonderful tonight (today).
Thank you my Darling.
I grab the phone out of my pocket for a selfie to capture the romantic moment so we can keep that thought and feeling forever.
We are ready.
Soon we head out with the bride and groom who have arrived to take us away to the beautiful rooms in the town hall where the ceremony will tie the knot in our two pals’ lives.
We are witnesses to this happy day full of promises and futures — in the very same room where my Darling and I had our vows renewed only two and a half years ago.
We are early for the wedding so we trundle down the road for a coffee chat, calming nerves and drinking artisan coffee and tea until it’s time.
The uncomfortable car seats together with the uncomfortable town hall seats, coffee shop seats and pub seats later — where we had an amazing time in front of an open fire in an ancient hostelry set in the wilds of East Sussex — I held the discomfort in and ignored the pain.
After all, this was not my day.
This was our friends’ wedding day.
When we got home and had a cuppa and chatted until the happy couple left us to the big TV and my comfortable seat.
I knew it was not going to repair much but I sat for a few hours with my Darling watching this and that until she rang her sister in Ireland.
Not the sister that’s helping us with the arrangements for a holiday break soon but one of the others.
They talked over the complications we were having to which she offered her help in many ways.
Not least to suggest that August might be best for a visit.
“At Kevin’s year’s mass…”
At the sound of this hearty and innocent suggestion I totally lost it and my eyes poured with unexpected tears.
So much for yesterday’s mention that I haven’t cried for ages.
So much for me being able to control my feelings about Kev.
So much for my eyes that never stop stinging and surprising me.
I could do nothing but leave the room and head for bed with a tissue mopping up beneath my glasses as I headed up on the slow stair lift.
I removed and hung up the too-tight suit.
I tucked myself into my profiling bed.
I snuggled up and cried more.
I wondered if I was in fact wonderful tonight. I don’t feel like it.
My Darling came up after the call was over and held me tight and kissed me gently.
We are most definitely wonderful tonight.
Good night.
