{"id":6021,"date":"2015-04-23T13:06:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T12:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=6021"},"modified":"2015-04-23T13:16:06","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T12:16:06","slug":"10-years-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=6021","title":{"rendered":"10 Years of Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of my relationship with Mark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"BEAUTIFUL

BEAUTIFUL MARK!<\/p><\/div>\n

I count our anniversary from when we first kissed. It was a sunny day, we’d had a picnic at Kew gardens, and I think we both realised that our series of jolly outings was turning into something really special.<\/p>\n

\"playing

a picnic on Camber Sands beach, 2005<\/p><\/div>\n

A decade ago my arthritis was in full force but I always felt Mark was on my team. He understood when I was struggling, and endorsed my irreverent approach to being disabled. <\/p>\n

\"with

with cider and mobility scooter, WOMAD 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Mark was also there cheering from the sidelines when new medication changed everything for me in 2007 and I was able to run again… <\/p>\n

\"34

34 minute 5K run, 2007<\/p><\/div>\n

…and I’d been inspired to take up running because<\/em> of Mark. He did a half marathon in 2006 and I was so proud that I got a t-shirt printed with his face on it to wear whilst cheering. <\/p>\n

When I met Mark, he had two children – Jack and Sam – who were then 10 and 8 years old.
\nNow they are men.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, Mark and I went to the pub with Jack for farewell pints before he headed back to University for the summer term. We talked about films, politics, jobs, studying… and I remembered an Easter a long time ago when we iced biscuits together.
\nIt felt like ages ago. It was<\/em> ages ago.<\/p>\n

\"Easter

Easter biscuits, iced by Jack and Sam in 2008<\/p><\/div>\n

I am looking back with joy on many things.<\/p>\n

On fun times spent dressing up for Birthdays and New Year’s Eve in Weymouth (fancy dress is mandatory).<\/p>\n

\"Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk Mark and 80s Felix<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Lego

Lego Mark and Lego Felix<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Mark

Mark as a Rock God<\/p><\/div>\n

And on many joyous walking adventures.<\/p>\n

Like the time we decided to walk to Newbury along the canal towpath. (It’s about 20 miles; we’d done no training whatsoever.)<\/p>\n

\"20

20 miles in the rain for no good reason!<\/p><\/div>\n

Or the New Year we spent in the Highlands, discovering Munros.<\/p>\n

\"Glen

Glen Etive, 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

And doing The West Highland Way<\/a> together – an epic and marvelous adventure if ever there was one.<\/p>\n

\"Mark

Mark near Ben Nevis on the West Highland Way, 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

The longest walking adventure was Walk 2012<\/a>, in which we walked The Games Way – a 187 mile route mapped out by Mark in celebration of the London 2012 Olympic Games<\/a>. It was our own personal Olympics challenge and it was epic.<\/p>\n

\"7th

7th August, Hampton Court Palace, 2012, Mark and Hodge and I on thrones!<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m thinking about how animals have been important throughout the years. Few things are more joyous than finding an exciting caterpillar on a walk.<\/p>\n

\"friendcaterpillar,

friendcaterpillar, met on West Highland Way in 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

Or a greedy<\/strike> hungry sheep.<\/p>\n

\"SHEEPFRIEND,

SHEEPFRIEND, Sussex 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

Mark is the sort of wondrous man who rescues baby pigeons from canals, and who insisted on making a sacrificial kale patch last year so that the pretty butterflies bastard cabbage whites<\/strike> could thrive in our garden.<\/p>\n

Mark loves every living thing which is one of the reasons why I love Mark. <\/p>\n

\"Rescuing

Rescuing a baby pigeon that had fallen into a canal<\/p><\/div>\n

But the most important animal in our lives is Joey Muffkins.<\/p>\n

\"Joey

Joey shows us how to de-stress<\/p><\/div>\n

In 10 years of being together we have achieved things. I got a PhD, Mark got an MBA, we have worked on many jobs and projects. We have each taken 10,000,000 photos of Joey Muffkins.<\/p>\n

And we have learnt important life skillz. Like how to make beer and cider.<\/p>\n

\"sterilising

sterilising beer bottles in 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

\"making

making cider in 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

How to make cheese.<\/p>\n

\"making

making cheese in 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

…And how to make each other laugh.<\/p>\n

\"playing

playing “the wall ate my man” in Ireland, 2008<\/p><\/div>\n

In 10 years we have shared many important things.<\/p>\n

\"playing

playing Firestarter on Accordion, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Campfires and silly music,<\/p>\n

\"Hungover

Hungover in 2008.<\/p><\/div>\n

Epic hangovers,<\/p>\n

\"Venice

Venice in 2011<\/p><\/div>\n

Amazing holidays.<\/p>\n

And though we have had our fair share of ups and downs there is nobody I’d rather share my life with. I love Mark because he is sane, optimistic, devilishly handsome, clever, funny, supportive and brilliant; I love him because he is sometimes more of a feminist than I am; I love him because we can talk and laugh and dance and play together and because he is always up for an adventure. But perhaps I love him most of all because he is the only person I have ever met who is as silly as me.<\/p>\n

Here’s to you, partner; you are my no. 1 comrade xxx<\/p>\n

\"silly

silly faces at Breakfast in Amsterdam, 2014<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…of ten amazing years with Mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3055,636],"tags":[1943,3100],"class_list":["post-6021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-2","category-valuing-reality","tag-mark","tag-turbolove"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pmise-1z7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Mark.jpg?fit=950%2C632","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6021"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6058,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions\/6058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}