THE WEATHER TODAY...

…has been much brighter than it was 56 years ago when we got married!  Neither of us remember the sun shining on that day - and both our recollections are that it was cold and very windy.  In fact, I remember almost losing my veil on the way into the Church - see my extra collage.

The top shot in my collage today shows us in the car just after we were married at Immanuel Church in Swindon and the bottom shot is a selfie I took today - I guess not a lot of difference except the hair is much more grey and the years of different experiences and the joys and trials is showing a bit more on our faces.  But then, that's married life - weathering the storms together.

We have been out for a lovely meal - at The Weighbridge, which was part of the Great Western Railway factory, but is now an upmarket steak restaurant.  We both had steak, but I had a jacket potato instead of chips and a salad made especially for me by the chef - so the waitress told me - it was lovely to look at and very tasty.  I asked for it to be “undressed” and for some lemon to squeeze onto it and that was what I got.  So different and it looked so much more appetising than the one that was just “plonked” on my plate when we went out with our friends a couple of weeks ago!

We were very near to the McArthur Glen Swindon Designer Outlet, consisting of many designer shops that are in the renovated Grade II listed buildings of the Great Western Railway Works and, in fact,  is one of the largest covered designer outlets in Europe.

I suggested to Mr. HCB that we had a wander around there as we were so close by.  In 56 years I have never known him to be enthusiastic about shopping and today was no exception.  We did wander around and I said to him that it was good to be able to do it together and indoors although perhaps a walk in the sunshine might have been better!  It is a huge place, so I have done almost 5,000 steps, which is good for me.

It really amused me when I was  explaining that there were lots of new shops that I had never seen, not having been there since before the lockdowns, and Mr. HCB's response to that was "Oh, there's an overhead crane!"  Having been told all about the Weighbridge, whilst we had our lunch and how “the locomotives came into this building for weighing and balancing along a single track”, was I surprised?  Not at all.  In fact, in all the years since the Designer Outlet first opened in 1997, he has only been there about 5 or 6 times;  as he has often told me, having worked in the Great Western Railway Works for almost twenty years, he wasn't that keen to walk around there now!

To be fair, there wasn't much that I wanted to buy - I'm not a "designer clothing" wearer, but we did see a lady we knew, and I did buy two hand towels for the kitchen, which cost all of £2 each from the M & S outlet - talk about last of the big spenders!

It has been a very pleasant day and we have laughed about some of the wedding photographs - not up to the standard of today's photographs, but they still remind us of the windy day when we got married.  I can't remember taking any photographs of us when we were on our honeymoon in Bournemouth, but again it was very windy and rainy at times.

Hope your day has been a good one - I need to rest up this evening ready for my stint at Knit & Natter at the Community Fridge tomorrow.