So, The end of may was literally beautiful with sunny, clear skies and the impending jubilee celebrations, I was kept very busy enjoying the family, and the most beautiful doggy in the world, Rosie:
Who also, by the way, might be the most cheerful and indeed cheerING dog there ever was, is and will be! no matter how long a day she has on her own in the house ( we all work now, so sadly there are plenty of days where she has no company until the late afternoon) she is just SO happy the very second you arrive home, and can cheer me up even after the WORST day at what we will refer to as 'the hotel' (where I work.....begrudgingly)
So, we had loads of lovely, warm, sunny walks, and Dan nurtured a new pomegranate addiction, which i approve of totally as they are YUM, and also from a snooty nutritionist point of view, they're veeeery good for you!
One of the loveliest walks that we do is down by the river near our village. There are deer there (i pledge a promise of pictures someday soon when I happen on them again) and normally other people enjoying themselves with their dogs and children, in fact on the sunniest day there were children swimming and playing in the river! I can't wait to have my own children so that I can share such simple fun with them! Often the simpler 'fun days' are the best! Here are my feet on sunny bare-footed walks:
I also, quite childishly, grew attached (although in the end managed to not take it home) to a pebble. I like to try and skim stones, but when I found it, it was so odd that this pebble was naturally striped that I kind of couldn't bear to throw it in the river.
On the 29th of may, which was a tuesday, I came home from work, and shortly after Dan and Maggie (dan's mum) came home from where they work. I was extremely tired, as my work is fairly physical and being a 'lazy student' it was in the first weeks rather a shock to the system! Dan asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I shot him what I can only imagine was a 'Do i look like I want to go for a walk?' look, but agreed a) because i can rarely say no to things he suggests and b) because his reasoning of 'it's supposed to be the last day of sunshine' seemed....well.....reasonable! Vitamin D, folks! anyway, we set off, with dan carrying a strange bag....very odd. Anyway, we began walking through some woods, and then up a hill which was beautiful and the sunlight was just that golden sunlight, when the day is drawing to an end.
To my great suprise, dan told me (once we had gotten to a sort of enclosed orchard area at the top) to go away and look through some binoculars he had brought with him, as it was very high up and you could see for miles in every direction. I accepted this offer, because I did kind of realise something was afoot here! When he came to get me, he walked me back to a fully laid out picnic! Complete with a proper four piece picnic basket set, which I assumed was maggie's until dan informed me that it was OURS and he had bought it! I got a little teary, just because I had been so tired and grumpy when I got home from work, and the gesture overwhelmed me, plus in the scheme of things, it doesn't take a lot to set me off anyway (I sometimes get choked up over adverts....the VW polo advert with the daddy and his little girl and the lovely, soft, sad music? forget about it, I'm all over the shop!) so we sat down to lovely salads and Moroccan followed by desserts galore! We had strawberries and....drumroll.....MACAROONS! Which happened to be White chocolate, Milk chocolate (which tasted like fudge brownie to me!) and strawberry.
While we ate, a butterfly actually came and landed on our picnic blanket! it was truly amazing, every time we disturbed it by moving, it would flutter up in the air, catching the light on its wings like something absolutely magic, but then it would come and land again, like it was just enjoying the sun with us!
I should have taken notice of this as some kind of omen, as what happened next was entirely gob-smacking and momentous and wonderful. Dan said he had one more thing for me, and I had to close my eyes first. Should I admit I was expecting a kinder egg? It was not a kinder egg. On our picnic, on the 29th May 2012, My partner of just over five and a half years asked me to marry him, with my grandmother's ring (already obtained from my dad, without my knowing!) and after being speechless momentarily (not a frequent occurrence) I said yes, and promptly burst into tears! Dan of course did not cry, but chuckled at my meltdown! So guys, these are mine and Dan's feet, the day we got engaged, and agreed to walk together always:
After he proposed and I had calmed down a little, we wandered around just enjoying what was left of the light, and by a rock, I found a daisy, which had already closed up for the night:
When The queen's diamond jubilee arrived however, the sun had left us. After driving down to where a local outdoor jubilee celebration was supposed to be held, and realising spirits had been dampened due to the weather, we decided that ours would not be, and we had our picnic anyway, me, Dan, Maggie, Rosie and the two cats Meg and Jessie, indoors. A good effort I think, and it certainly didn't detract from it at all! It was in fact very cosy, and lovely!
So guys, to sum up, this has been a busy and brilliant time in my life, and for this post I think we've nearly reached max capacity! I'll finish by saying my results from my second year of uni were so good that I literally cried when my parents read them out to me on the phone. A 1st class second year, literally. My confidence in myself which has never ever been very good took a severe knock in sixth form, so it shook up a lot of emotions when success came my way! I'll leave you now with a couple of stray photographs which still just capture the town of that sunny week in may. I promise, promise, promise to write soon!
J xx
