Pink Cake 'ya berk!

Please look away now if other people being happy and in love isn't to your taste.

Today Steve and I were both very happy, even though we're apart. These feelings were based on a couple of emails where we laid bare our hearts and souls, and talked about writing, drinking, and pink puddings. Steve also sent me some photos of his very-bad hotel room.

In a park as Amy played on the swings I mused about some of the things that make me love my boyfriend.

They're in no particular order and I know there are many more. Only I had to help Amy on the monkey bars, which meant my thoughts were interrupted.

Stickers

When I was feeling down Steve drew a sticker of two balloons and he stuck this beside the escalator at Tooting Bec. Balloons floating together is one of our magic things - I saw that once and wrote to him about it. Steve's balloon sticker had two balloons and an arrow pointing at the tie that held them; this said, 'Knot tied very tightly.'

Couple-Age Database

I'm 37 and Steve is just 30. Sometimes the age difference bothers me. Which means that every time Steve hears about any couple where the girl is older than the guy he'll tell me about it. He has quite a list now, I think he keeps this in an Excel spreadsheet. I don't pay much attention... Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin is the only one of these I remember. Oh, and Steve's Gran's pensioner friend who lives in Knaresborough. She's 80 and her boyfriend's 70. That's nice. I usually just think, 'So what?' But still I like that he tries to reassure me in this way.

Squirrel Man

Steve makes a big effort with Amy. He makes this seem natural and not like he's making any effort at all. For a while Amy called Steve, 'Squirrel Man'. He played along good naturedly, drawing squirrel man cartoons for her. She often asks for him to read her bed time story to her. Steve thinks of me feeling left out, so the last few times he and I have both read the story to her, taking it in turns to read a page of 'Horrid Henry' whilst trying to outdo each other with the silly voices.

On nights when Amy's unwilling to go to bed Steve will sometimes take requests for drawings as a clever bribe. As I put Amy to bed he'll have to Google image search Sonic the Hedgehog or some other cartoon character, in order to fulfill his promise that she'll have a picture waiting for her in the morning.

Our Magic

I'm sure all couples have couple 'magic,' little things that have a secret meaning to them. Steve and I have bucketloads of 'couple stuff'. Balloons, pink cake, muffins, Innocent smoothies, 'der doop', 'ya berk'... Some come and go, and some have been around for a long while. If we find something that makes us smile, we'll use it again and again - it'll make us smile again, with the smile just a little stronger because it reminds us of happy times when it's worked magic before. So we have - silly places names, the word 'chipper', 'FD', mushroom hunting, :-) :o), cowboy boots, crisps & cup a soup, adventures on night buses, rain... And finding ever-more adds to the fun.

Late Night Long Emails

I never thought I'd find anyone who liked writing as much as I do. I've written long, happy, emails to a couple of boyfriend's in the past but Steve's the only person I've ever known who can match me for email vigour, and perhaps even outdo me... I start work at 7.15am each morning, he's used to 'Poker playing' hours, so often when I fall asleep on his shoulder, he'll persuade me to go to bed, and then go home and email me, just so I have a happy email to start my day. The night bus from Tooting Bec to Streatham is often the subject, and I joke about the adventures he has on the short late night journey. It' one of our 'couple things' - see above.

Other Stuff
I jotted down some other things - Not reading my blog, pouring me beers, Pants, Soldier things, Cooking... but then I wonder whether revealing all the special-ness of my love will make it seem less mysterious? Or maybe I don't have time to blog about all this, because I want to email him in a minute..?

Teasing
Steve has a funny view of the world, and I suppose I do too. The most important thing in our relationship is probably that we chuckle at the same kind of stuff. We have our 'secret code' that I mentioned, our couple magic, but none of it is ever very serious, all of it works simply, as a queue for a joke. We ordered chocolate cake once in a cafe, and got pink cake instead. This was at the Streatham cafe who's pretty pink cake is pictured above. So today I mentioned this, and we joked about pink pudding, and Steve sent me a photo of the pink pudding he ate for tea. Of course I told him this wasn't pink at all... And I know tomorrow he'll look for pinker pudding, and then we'll laugh about it some more...