My Bag Is Now Catless

Well, thank chimpanzees for that.
Now you know about our engagement.

Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret like that, hmm?
Very hard.

Especially when you have a thin, thin, thin tiny weeny theatrical streak.
Ahem.

Thanks for the comments of encouragement and counter-phooey.
You're great.

So yes...the background. On coming back from New York, I felt that it would be remiss of me to tell my parents by telephone that Krissa and I were engaged. It lacks something. Text messages also seemed to be without a certain je ne sais quoi. It also wouldn't do for my family to find out secondhand.

Having plans I really didn't want to break for the first weekend after returning to the UK, I had to wait two weeks before telling anyone.
Anyone.

I mean, halfway through my time with Krissa in New York I had told my family and friends that I wanted to move there, ostensibly through a combination of Krissa, New York, Krissa and Krissa, so they knew something was up, but still.

Two weeks is a long time to sit on news that big.

We agreed to tell you lot about it when she was here in the UK, but, it has to be said, sitting down at a computer while she was here wasn't all that likely, so we did it on our first day of separation, and the broadcasting of our happy news was a big lift...and your support and congratulation has helped even more.

Hatfield is a very different place to the one I left last Thursday morning, heading for Heathrow. Being with Krissa on the Island was a real eye opener for me. I know Ventnor, my home town, so well that I hardly really look at it any more when I'm there, but Krissa was looking with a fresh and keen pair of eyes, and the place...changed because I was trying to see it as she was. The view across the Island from the top of St. Boniface Down was fresher and more involving because she was sitting on the grass by my side. Seeing rabbits scatter from the paths ahead regained some of the thrill of discovery and privelige it had in childhood, and the people and places which were obscure yet ever-present background to life on the Island for me I presented to her as gems and highlights.

On the way to my parents' house I asked my sister to make a diversion so that I could show Krissa the shell of an old manor in Wroxall - Appuldurcombe House. I haven't been there for years, but as we were driving across the Island it suggested itself to me as something she might like to see...the old grey stone and empty windows looking out through the trees across the fields of corn and Rew Valley to the Downs.

Everything seemed more...open, less old in the mind, and it is here in Hatfield now, too.

And my parents love her.