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The day after our wedding, we flew off on honeymoon. I had recklessly waited until two days before our wedding to book the holiday, in the hope that I would get some great last-minute deal somewhere.
Always a dangerous tactic.
I pretended to Shara that it was a surprise.
But, predictably, those “great deals” were a bit thin on the ground that week. The best I could find was a one-star package holiday, at a resort near Cancun in Mexico.
It was bliss being together, but there was no hiding the fact that the hotel sucked. We got put in a room right next to the sewer outlet--which gave us a cracking smell to enjoy every evening as we sat looking out at the…maintenance shed opposite.
As lunch wasn’t included in the one-star package, we started stockpiling the breakfasts. A couple of rolls down the jersey sleeve, and a yogurt and banana in Shara’s handbag. Then back to the hammock for books, kissing, and another whiff of sewage.
When we returned to the UK it was a freezing cold January day. Shara was tired, but we were both excited to get onto our nice, warm, centrally heated barge.
It was to be our first night in our own home.
I had asked Annabel, Shara’s sister, to put the heating on before we arrived, and some food in the fridge. She had done so perfectly.
What she didn’t know, though, was that the boiler packed in soon after she left.
By the time Shara and I made it to the quayside on the Thames, it was dark. Our breath was coming out as clouds of vapor in the freezing air. I picked Shara up and carried her up the steps onto the boat.
We opened the door and looked at each other. Surprised.
It was literally like stepping into a deep freeze. Old iron boats are like that in winter. The cold water around them means that, without heating, they are Baltically cold. We fumbled our way, still all wrapped up, into the bowels of the boat and the boiler room.
Shara looked at me, then at the silent, cold boiler.
No doubt she questioned how smart both choices had really been.
So there we were.
No money, and freezing cold--but happy and together.
That night, all wrapped up in blankets, I made a simple promise to Shara: I would love her and look after her, every day of our life together--and along the way we would have one hell of an adventure.
Little did either of us realize, but this was really just the beginning.
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