Emma: Match.com alert: EmEJ has winked at you!
Emma: Did you say you were a writer?
Thomas: RE: Did you say you were a writer?
Emma: Hello Mr. Writer
Thomas: Greetings Miss Vet
Emma: [subject blank]
Thomas: RE: beech woods and kittens
Emma: The Owl And The Woodpecker
Thomas: Over Sea, Under Stone
Emma: What a coincidence…..
Thomas: Calling flat number 1-9. Calling flat number 1-9…
Emma: Good evening, Mr Thomas,
Thomas: Good morning, Miss Emma,
Emma: Thomas it is then!
Thomas: Milk, no sugar, and possibly even black and in a glass…
Emma: Well Hello Mr Shepherd,
Thomas: Life’s what happens to you when you are making other plans
Emma: Positive Mental Attitude!?
Thomas: Positiveness is what you need *cue trumpet solo*
Emma: Oh, dedication!
Thomas: Oh, perseverance!
Emma: A message from the very scary Emma….
Thomas: A message from (normal is boring) Thomas…
Emma: A message from Paparazzi Emma (I like that, it sounds good!)
Thomas: Hoping that I don’t get stage fright on Saturday after a build up like that…
Emma: You bloody well not get stage fright on Saturday!
Thomas: Maybe now isn’t that best time to tell her I’m actually mute!
Emma: From a Confused psychopath of Amersham.
Thomas: Umm, must remember to bring my pepper spray along with me…
Emma: Tommorow never knows…..
Thomas: …and where will be the day after tomorrow?
Emma: Today’s the day.
Thomas: Not just memories
Emma: Fit as a fiddle.
Emma: You just said I love you!
Thomas: RE: You just said I love you!
Emma: Another World
Thomas: Peculiar as a Piccolo
Thomas: but a good world, I hope?
Emma: To my blue eyed boy
Thomas: It’s not easy being blue; being the colour of so few ordinary things…
Emma: Now then, Are you paying Attention?
Thomas: It’s the Muppet Show tonight!! {cue fanfare}
Emma: Anticipation, excitement and Butterflies.
Emma: Discraceful Behaviour!
Thomas: Utterly discraceful!
Emma: Sunday, the day after yesterday.
Thomas: The Whole Horse
Emma: And nothing but the horse.
Emma: Hello dearest
Thomas: RE: Hello dearest
Thomas: And not a papier-mâché horse in sight…
Thomas: So what did you say it was?
Emma: Tuesday, all day.
Thomas: Is it really Wednesday
Emma: Jobs, home, life!
Emma: RE: Is it really Wednesday
Thomas: Wednesday? Not anymore it’s not…
Thomas: Work to live, not live to work
Emma: Raining cats and dogs
Thomas: Cats and dogs? More like Cows and horses…
Emma: Contrasts….
Thomas: RE: Worry not silly boy
Thomas: [Addentum] Worry not silly boy
Emma: Walking, shopping, recycling and house hunting
Thomas: RE: Walking, shopping, recycling and house hunting
Thomas: Ronald: The Face
Emma: My address
Emma: AAAAAGH!
Emma: Surprise!
Thomas: Surprises are great!
Emma: Monday.
Thomas: RE: Monday.
Emma: Tuesday
Emma: A quick note to say…
Thomas: Little House In The Country
Thomas: [Additionally] Little House In The Country
Thomas: More of Monday
Thomas: [Additionally] More of Monday
Emma: Friday already!
Thomas: RE: Friday already!
Thomas: Thank you for the weekend

We walked up the length of St Giles to the reasonably new Mathematical Institute to see Creation Theatre’s latest site-specific offering of George Orwell’s 1984. You can see my review here. To lighten the mood pre- and post- show we enjoyed bumping unexpectantly into my old college friend Julie and her eldest daughter. She hasn’t changed one bit in the twenty intervening years – has it really been that long?!? – and makes me even more determined that we should meet up again properly soon.

^†It’s actually scientifically impossible to have too many books.

When I was little I think I (wrongly) assumed that every everyone got Valentines but me, but in all honesty I don’t think I would have known what to do if one had been sent to me. You see, not that I knew it then, but I have Aspergers, and for people on the autism spectrum the world of dating can be a minefield.

• How do you even meet someone on your wavelength in a world that can be socially confusing?
• How do you flirt if you are uncomfortable making eye contact?
• How do you prevent yourself from only talking about stuff you’re interested in?

I never set out to conciously write romance and love into my books, just as I never conciously set about writing characters with Aspergers. Completely unimportant to the story, but Ben in The End Of All Worlds is almost certainly on the spectrum. In my second novel, Mr Tumnal, Louis Tumnal definitely is. In his character you see both a character at odds with the world (not just because of any bewitchment by the Fairy Queen), and saved in more ways than one by the love of a girl he meets and with whom he somehow forms a relationship.

Today I wrote a love poem for Kathryn Summers from Louis Tumnal. Louis Tumnal couldn’t have said this directly, of if he did, his voice would have been a gibbering, inarticulate mess. But from his pen, in the first year after meeting, he could articulate exactly his feelings.

It could also be a love poem from a few years ago from Me to my wife, Emma. Love you Emma. xxx

Then we had porridge for breakfast and she opened her big present, a Kindle Fire HD, which she loves, before heading out to join her mum, sister, niece and grannie at World’s End garden centre for lunch.

Back home in the evening we had the ceremony of her birthday cake – coffee and walnut – yum!

Five years later and I am employed again and we’re approaching our third wedding anniversary. We didn’t go into today aiming to commemorate this day but it has been a happy coincidence.

This morning we went to feed George and Gus Gus who we have been looking after this week and then we criss-crossed across Bicester collecting a parcel from the Royal Mail depot, going to the butchers, stopping off at Pets at Home to purchase an Arthur-exerciser (not that he has used it yet…) before finally ending up in Bicester for our vegetables.

This afternoon we went into Oxford to go to the excellent Romance of the Middle Ages exhibition at the Bodleian Library. I don’t pretend to have understood it all, but just see the early books – the illuminated manuscripts – including the first book ever printed in English was a joy. The narrative of the exhibition came alive for me as the chronology reached through to the current day. It somehow helped to see the ancient in context, when you can see the first draft scrawl of Philip Pullman’s The Scarecrow And His Servant (will the first drafts of Mr Tumnal ever there to be viewed in an exhibition?) as you see a collection of books by favourite writers: Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Kevin Crossley-Holland and Terry Jones and a description a 21 romantic hero – that of Harry Potter.

After the Bodleian, we had a potter around Oxford – where they were having a folk festival weekend and endded up having an impromptu fifth anniversary meal in the Golden Cross branch of Pizza Express.

    

A perfect day. A brilliant five years.

    

Sadly my weather order must have got delayed in the Christmas post for it was the wildest and wettest of weather with some massive puddles, torrential rain, bitterly cold wind and even snow! Still, we had a nice day out to the World’s End garden centre where we met up with Emma’s mum, grannie, and Helen and Lily for lunch, a nosy round the Christmas shop and then back to the Jefferys home for more presents and birthday cake!

~ Late morning, I headed out into the winter sun to the drive to Emma’s parents for her birthday lunch. After a scrummy caserole meal of pork chops, with meat that was just falling off the bone, we sung happy birthday and Emma had her cake…

…and then opened her present; an iPod – a bit each from all of us and my mum and dad. The music is back!

At five to three, two things happened. Fristly , after carefully working out the timing of the entrance music and the necessary signals between usher and best-man, Sarah announces taht she needs to close the doors to the main room soon. We resolve this but then came a dilemma. The hall still looked half-empty of guests but upon checking the seating plan I discoverdd that we were down on only four people: Amanda and Robert, Jane, and Steven. We held on for a few more minutes before I took my place at the front of the hall.

My brother starts the music – an excerpt from Vaughan William’s Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis. I am by this point extremely emotional and can feel myself welling-up beneath my eyes. When I see Emma enter with her DadI feel really puffy, and she is red around the eyes.

We are left standing a the front, but it is Emma that has to tell me to sit. Our superintendent registrar, David Wynne Roberts introduces the cermony, Em’s mum does her reading and the declarations are made, and Lucy plays the music brilliantly (the Third Entr’acte from Carmen – a haunting flute melody), my mum does her reading 0t eh whole thing passes almost as a blur. We kiss, we leave adn walk out into the sunshine. Deiniol hands me a Pimms; never has it been more welcome.

Our photographs are takien, with it not taking too long, allthough for us it did take longer as Phil took us about the estate for various one’s on our own, and then gently coaxed us to don our walking boots (Emma’s beneather her dress) and climb up the mountain for photographs by the wall that we built. Everyone was very amused by this idea but I think it was well worth it!

The main room was, by now, transformed fro the meal and beautiful. The meal was the best 0 everyone seemed to agree that it was the best wedding breakfast they had ever had (but then again, Blas ar Fwyd have served royalty, and by royalty I mean as royal as you can get!). We had bubble fights with the little’uns, particularly Aelfthryth and Edith (although we didn’t know it at the time but they kept on coming froward and going back to sketch us ‘from life’ for pictures in the guest book.

When the speeches came they were goo – even if David’s was a bit unsuitable for anyone still eating or digesting their food, as it contained stories of Emma and her vetinary exploits, like the defrosting a dead dog with hairdriers and boiling a cats hind leg!! My borther’s focused on my not doing things by half and involved him prducing a copy of Ruins of the Old which he threatened to, but didn’t, read from.

My own, succeeded in being brief (for me, very important) and getting a laugh out fo the thank you’s to the bridesmaids, and for my delayed (deliberately) opening of My Wife and I to the second paragraph.

And then to the music – wel, even I got up and danced for a bit. When I wasn’t revelling in the Welsh cheese board.

Alone in our room later, Emma had a final surprise for me in a wedding day card for me. Everything was just perfect.

This is fantastic news!!

^†This also makes it the one year anniversary of my camera and my bicycle.

Not this year though. I think it would be safe to say that it was thoroughly grey and miserable, and latterly, wet. Not that I had any worse a day for it. Emma came over for lunch. We laughed at my attempts at making Vietnamese rice bread (congealed wallpaper paste really, or baked flour and water – I’m not sure which sounds the more enticing… sic.) and had a nice lunch anyway.

Then we went into Oxford, to visit the Pitt Rivers Museum. In the end, after getting there, we decided there wasn’t time enough to devour its pleasures and so we would come back tomorrow. Instead we went into town, did a bit of pottering, bought a few things and returned home to get ready for our anniversary meal out.

It’s one year on Monday since our first date, and so tonight we went out to dinner, not to Pizza Express (as then), but to The Mole and Chicken, where we ate well – very well – and exchanged gifts. I gave Emma a couple of cds of classical music that she wanted, and she gave me a framed picture of the two of us.

Gorgeous and sunny and spring-like, I collected my car from the doctorsgarage, all nicely repaired and oil-leak free, and because it was such a gorgeous evening I stopped off in Somerton on my way home and went for a nice walk down by the canal and the Cherwell.

I left work promptly to get home and start cooking a special meal for Emma (skiving off band in the process). I was going to cook a three course meal but in the end decided that the timings were just too complicated in the time available, so skipped out of cooking my polenta and mushrooms recipe. I made a rather delicious potato and asparagus tart from my Jamie Oliver, and we finished off with a Gu chocolate desert (well, you’ve got to have chocolate on Valentine’s day). Then Emma and I exchanged presents and enjoyed a nice evening together.

Emma’s just left now to go home in order to get to bed to get to work tomorrow. I never really like it when we have to part, but tonight has been particularly bad. Maybe soon, we won’t have to say these goodbyes?

2. I propose a motion of incompetence in … our band librarian. After the Christmas concert in December, Alan collected in all the music pads. We all thought that this was to take out what we’re not playing again, and put in the new music for this term. But no. We all get to rehearsal tonight to discover that he hasn’t done any of that, and we have to hand out all the music and collect in all the old music before we can start playing. Useless! Absolutely f-ing inconsiderate of the irritating old fart. /rant

3. Because of wind band tonight I haven’t spoken to Emma tonight, and I miss it dreadfully. Going to bed now, I feel like there has been something missing in my day. Please, please, please can I get my job situation sorted so that we can think about getting a new place and making it our home.

Presents under the tree
Originally uploaded by shepline on 23 Dec ’07, 11.57pm GMT PST.

First Present haul
Originally uploaded by shepline on 24 Dec ’07, 12.03am GMT PST.

Barney unwraps his present
Originally uploaded by shepline on 24 Dec ’07, 12.01am GMT PST.

Emma loved her guitar from me, and she got me a really nice butter and cheese knife set – I’d been saying that I really needed a cheese knife… Meanwhile, whilst Barney was a little less impressed by his waterbottle and drink tray for walks and stuffed turkey (by unimpressed I mean scared!) Bella and Arthur have taken to the feather stick and toy mice.

Then we headed out to a very pretty Salisbury for the now-traditional candle-lit carols in Salisbury, and I made my pilgrimage to the papermaché crib, and took my usual photographs…

Nativity
Originally uploaded by shepline on 24 Dec ’07, 12.22am GMT PST.

Angel Gabriel
Originally uploaded by shepline on 24 Dec ’07, 12.12am GMT PST.

This morning, we went into Bicester. Emma has decided that she wants a new bike so that, a) she can use it to keep herself nice and fit, and b) so we can go for rides together. Umm… they had just the right kind of bike in the shop, and so, the deal was done and we left with a new bike. Actually we left with two bikes, as mine needed a new pedal fitted, and we drove back off home with my bike on the bike rack, and Emma’s kind of uneasily bungied to my bike. In a curious addendum to this tale, exactly 6 monts ago I bought my new bike from Broadribbs, just hours before my first date with Emma. On the day of our anniversary, Emma buys a bike from the same shop just hours before a celebration meal in Oxford.

Emma on her new bike
Originally uploaded by shepline on 21 Oct ’07, 5.55pm BST PST.

Six months to the day I bought my new bike and had my first date with Emma. Today, Emma bought a new bike (from the same shop) – early birthday and Christmas present combined – and we celebrated our six months anniversary…

Through a sunlit garden
Originally uploaded by shepline on 21 Oct ’07, 6.21pm BST PST.

We headed back through an Oxford, lit in the warmth and richness of a setting sun on sandstone against the clearest of blue skies. Stopping off briefly at Debenhams I bought myself some new duck feather pillows at the bargain price of £25 for 4! and we wandered up the road under an avenue of Plain Trees to the cute charm of Little Clarendon Street and our meal at the newly opened Strada restaurant. Emma loved the earings (now reveled), and the whole night just felt right.

Mine. All mine!
Originally uploaded by shepline on 21 Oct ’07, 6.14pm BST PST.

Emma, at our six month anniversary meal