WE CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE BEEN MARRIED....

…..for 52 years and that it was two years ago that we were in Vietnam, on this very day, celebrating our Golden Wedding Anniversary at a plush hotel in Ho Chi Minh with our younger son and his girlfriend - a special gift from all our family.  Where do the years go?  

It was wonderful this morning to wake up and see the sunshine - at last - so we are hoping the weather is good for the weekend because we are going to spend it at another lovely hotel, the Donnington Valley, near Newbury, where a very good friend of ours is the Head Chef - so we are looking forward to some great meals - and I can tell you most definitely, that I will not be counting calories!!

I decided to make this collage of us, early in the day, so that we can enjoy the rest of the day together and as the Donnington Valley is a Spa hotel, there may even be some spa treatments involved, but I didn’t think photographs of that would be such a good thing!

Looking at these two photographs, I don’t think we have changed that much - perhaps our hair is a little lighter and we have a few more wrinkles laughter lines, but of course, inside, we are still the same - eternally young.  We have been through enough together to overlook what’s on the outside and know that inside there is still lots of love and more laughter so we go forward knowing that our love and faith has sustained us over the last 52 years and believe and trust  that it will keep on sustaining us in the years to come, whatever they may bring.

As husband and wife and also best friends, we have had some great times with our lovely family and fantastic friends and look forward to the rest of our lives together.  We believe that as long as we can enjoy each other’s company and laugh together every day, there is still a lot of life to enjoy although even after all these years, we still need to remember these verses, not just on special days, like today, but every day:

Love is patient, 
     love is kind. 
It does not envy, it does not boast, 
     it is not proud. 
It does not dishonour others, 
     it is not self-seeking, 
          it is not easily angered, 
               it keeps no record of wrongs. 
Love does not delight in evil 
     but rejoices with the truth. 
It always protects, always trusts, 
     always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
And now these three remain: 
     faith, hope and love. 
But the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13 : 4-8 & 13 NIV