I was looking back over the past few Aprils in my diaries and in this blog; my real reason was to check whether spring had ever been this cold and this late, although we do seem to have reached something approaching a proper spring at long last.
Two years ago my cousins were gathering on Gabriola Island to celebrate the diamond wedding of my uncle and aunt. Now they are gathering again as both are ill in hospital - and he is very ill indeed. If you are of a praying disposition please remember Peter and Barbara in your prayers.
Re-reading my blog on their diamond wedding led me to wonder how many couples are together so long, or indeed celebrate their golden wedding? I have to say that my experience would suggest that such stability is almost a commonplace: both my older uncles and aunts celebrated theirs, while the two younger couples are already well past the ruby wedding mark and heading for gold (DV), while I can account for virtually every neighbour since my parents' childhoods in the 1930s, and the Parkers, Sparkes, Thompsons and Wringes all celebrated fifty years, while the Marfleets, Parsons, Vyses and my Turner great-grandparents (who lived next-door-but-one to my grandparents) all managed sixty. Even Tony (a longtime neighbour) and David must be heading towards fifty years together - they were an item well back into my childhood - possibly even back to the days when such relationships were punishable by law.
This is part and parcel of my whole life experience - friendship, like marriage, is a life-long commitment, parents remain best friends (and quite frequently neighbours) with their grown-up children, and dogs and cats grow old, smelly and loved in the care of one family.
If I wrote about this as fiction I would be condemned for writing about an impossibly utopian and idealised version of a bygone way of life. Realism, we are told, is harsh, brutal, dysfunctional and impermanent - and almost wholly outside my experience. I'm not saying bad things don't happen, but people always seem to be there in support at times of need.
lizdavies
We haven't necessarily reached the same milestones of marriage in our family, as folks unfortunately haven't lived so long; but the majority of us have also stayed married to their first spouse.
Ed's youngest sister reaches 18 years wed this year and the rest of us have all been together longer - our parents and grandparents stayed married and several uncles and aunts are notching up big anniversaries.