Snatches-of-Bliss-and-Are-You-Freaking-Out-Yet?

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* Welcome *

Changed da house,
Changed da look.

BTW, my bathrobe's usually pink
and we don't have a fireplace.
Other than that,
it's pretty accurate...

Psst...click the words above to navigate.
Best viewed, unfortunately, in Internet Explorer.

Monday, March 28, 2005

~ When I'm 64 ~

I got Welcome Home Flowers from Tony! After months of teasing him about surprising me with a bouquet whenever we passed a florist or the flowers at Woolies, he's gone and actually done it. On Thursday afternoon, having crashed out on our bed after unpacking a heap of stuff, I was delightfully awoken by a charming man in a blue shirt and grey pants, armed with a bunch of Pink Carnations. The best kind of welcome there is.

I should run off to Singapore more often. (Blatant protests from man in background.)

We took a 2 hour drive to Cowra yesterday to worship with the church there. This was something we had planned to do the whole of last year and couldn't; seeing this is the Easter weekend, we thought it was a good time to make the trip and take Monday off to recover. The congregation in Cowra is small and quiet, its membership comprising primarily of pensioners so our presence yesterday did help broaden the demographic by quite a bit.

After worship, we had bible study and lunch at Helen and Keith's house. I dare say that theirs was one of the biggest houses I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. From what I understand, they'd sold off their farm and bought a huge piece of real estate wherein they built this astoundingly huge home for their retirement. We calculated that the floorspace of their living room alone was as big as our current pad's. We have no idea how they plan to keep the house clean seeing how they're no longer spring chickens and hired help is always expensive. But that's besides the point.

Tony and I have barely started on the road to ever after, so it seems rather mindboggling to envision a happy retirement for ourselves like this one. We suspect that our dream retirement resembles that of Bob and Lynne's Manly pad more closely; somehow, being stranded in a gorgeous big-ass house in the middle of nowhere sounds less romantic and more like hard work.

Being in the company of Christian pensioners also drove home some sobering and heartwarming truths about marriage; they really are meant to last a lifetime. At one point, I was sitting at the dining table with Daphne and John on my left, and Diane and Peter on my right... and I just marvelled at their long-term romances. It's one thing to be surrounded by newlyweds still rosy from honeymoon blissage. It's another thing altogether to sit at the feet of 30,40 year old marriages and witness the affection of a man, clearly still enamoured with his wife as he sits at her feet and holds her ankle. Or hear a husband praise his wife's fine business acumen. Or watch from the corner of your eye as a wife quietly sits on her husband's lap as he gently holds her, as if still a little girl.

So much to learn! Methinks our trip to Cowra encouraged us more than our presence did them.

# posted by Velle | 1:53 pm

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