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Saturday, October 01, 2011

Traditionally, the first anniversary is paper, so I left Lisa a note yesterday morning saying I was going back to the conference. This year's trade stands turned out to be an ischemic wasteland when it came to free gifts and competitions. I came away with a couple of pens and a handshake. But the conference talks were much better on the second day. In addition to some interesting research on automated grading, we heard from a blind lady who put the other speakers in the shade by opening a window on the patients' experience of retinopathy. It was basically an insight into the sightless, from a woman with no eyes but great vision. She was entertaining, informative, and ended up having to be physically dragged from the stage before she told another anecdote. She gets my vote for speaker of the year.

In addition to her, I admired the vitalstatistics of this lady, who taught me a thing or two during a brief chat in the morning coffee break. She has some drop-dead figures, and she's not afraid to use them. I also liked the talk from Massimo Porta, who made a big entrance (that's an Italian joke) at the end of the morning about the history and future of diabetes treatments. Unfortunately I had to leave before he announced the cure, as I had a clinic in the afternoon.

I returned home at tea time to find two exciting-looking parcels waiting for us. The first was from my brother, and contained a birthday gift for Lisa, a birthday gift for Amelie, and an anniversary card for us both. The second was a sparkly gold box addressed to me and Lisa, and marked 'Extremely Fragile'. So I knew it must be to do with our marriage.

And so it proved. We opened it with great excitement, to find an exclusive gift from Jon & Steph Cheshire. They'd taken the paper anniversary quite literally by sending us a copy of the Milton Keynes Citizen. Naturally I was over the moon, as I thought at first it was the newspaper that the legendary Mick Kitson used to write for. Before realising that was the Leighton Buzzard on Sunday. Which is a bit like fish on a Monday. Probably best avoided.

Anyhoo, having settled down on the sofa to view my copy of Citizen Keynes, I eventually realised I was reading the packing paper, and returned to see what else the box contained. I'd ordered some anniversary truffles from Steph's sweet factory, but in addition to receiving those, I also found an exclusive piece of modern art...


That's now sitting in a 12" x 10" frame on our new bookcase. As the note from the artist states, "Art is an intellectual pursuit. It is not a handbag, it is not a chair. It is something else. So it is necessary to think, to ask questions and to understand". Although to me, it's all about flogging it for lots of money. Let's face it, it's a Cheshire original, featuring a superstar cat. It could be worth millions.

It being our first wedding anniversary, we'd dispatched Amelie to my parents for a night, to allow Lisa and I to go out for a romantic meal. So when I got home from work, I had a quick bath, put on my best clothes, and got myself ready for a lovely evening out with my wife. At which point we decided we were too knackered. So we ordered a pizza instead, and spent the evening at Asda, shopping for party food for tomorrow. I think it was a mistake to get married two days before Amelie's birthday.

7 comments:

Dave said...

I must admit I had to look up the word ischemic.  Wikki tells me that it means 'having or showing symptoms of ischemia'.  So that's something new I've learned.

I already knew it was Am's birthday tomorrow - i've got it on my list - so will be back here in 18 hours to wish her a happy birthday.  Assuming she hasn't got her own blog by then.

Phil's Mum said...

We said last year that it was bad timing.  Still, when you celebrate your Golden Wedding, Am may just about be mature enough not to mind her birthday being put in the shade.

Phil's Mum said...

I've just realised that really IS a picture of Chloe in that picture, isn't it?????  Well done, Steph!

Phil said...

It is. And what's more, Amelie's successfully identified the other figure. I'll let you know who that is tomorrow...

A Passer-by said...

And talking of identifying people, what did you do today?   Are you in this photo that was in a newspaper today?

<span><img></img><span>Sunseekers packing out the beach in Brighton on Saturday afternoon</span></span>

Dave said...

Happy Birthday <span>Amelie!!</span>

Phil said...

She's not up. You'll have to say it again later.