Anniversary

It is the Communist and my mother’s wedding anniversary today, though neither of them knew it was January 14th today until I pointed it out to them. They were quite pleased, and glad that neither of them had remembered, or the other one would have felt bad.

So how many years have they been married? Well, fifty-something. What year were they married? – Er, not sure.

“So how old were you when you got married?”

“Well, twenty-five. Ish.”

We have this conversation every year. Once I worked it out that it was probably 1950 when they got married, in which case they have been married for fifty-six years, which is really rather a long time. They had their honeymoon in Brighton and I’ve always wanted to go there, but never have.

Anyway, fifty-six years (ish) of my father lecturing my mother about politics and shouting at her to shut the door, and my mother putting every vital piece of paperwork behind the clock and not dealing with it, and failing to make a decision about anything whether of trivial or major importance. They each get very worried if the other one’s ill, though, and there is a strong bond between them, albeit a rather strange one. They’re both remarkably open-minded about some things, and remarkably closed-minded about others. But, probably, we all are.