Rings Around The World

Krissa and I are married.

Apart from some sort of surfie pendant when I was 19 and a St. Christopher up to the age of twelve, I've never worn jewellery of any kind before, and I am very aware of my wedding ring. Not that this is a bad thing, you understand - it is a constant reminder.

The last week or so has been truly wonderful, and I mean that without any sense of literal fuzziness - each day has been a cause for wonder. Last Saturday Krissa and I had a party at our apartment. It was a brilliant evening, splashed with speeches, sangria and samba, and then, on Monday the 18th of October, we drove downtown to the buildings and offices of New York City and had the ceremony.

Since then, every time I have looked at her, it hits me. I love this woman, and we have already started our lives together.

I've never been this happy.

The honeymoon was wonderful - we went up to Bar Harbor in Maine, and for as much of the journey as we could, we took Route 1 - the first US Highway - which runs from Florida all the way up to the Canadian Border. For our trip section it is now mostly eclipsed by the faster, wider, more direct Interstate 95, but a wonderful drive in Autumnal sunshine. New England really knows how to throw an Autumn. The trees were colours I've never seen before - stark bright yellows, rich and full golden oranges, and, well, er, green, which is a perennial favourite as far as trees go.

Bar Harbor was wonderful - a small town enveloped on all sides by Acadia National Park; rising grey stone islands topped which the autumnal trees were dotted around the coast. Our Bed and Breakfast was exquisite. The bedroom had an open fireplace and a bed so large that in the depths of night on a couple of occasions I gave Krissa up as lost.

We joined a lobster boat on a trip around the harbour and the surrounding offshore areas, spotting seals and picking lobsters and crabs from the ocean, taking photographs of palacial mansions perched on clifftops amidst the trees, and drinking in the seascape, the rushing wake of the boat and the mountains against the sky.

We took the car into the National Park and explored the country, laughing and joking in accents and jokes and songs along the pathways under the trees and beside the lakes.

En route we stopped over at Krissa's parents' house, and it has been wonderful (there's that word again) to be getting to know the new family I have joined.

The only thing lacking from the last week has been the presence of the rest of my family - my sister Jemma and her boyfriend Tom, (hi there kids, hope Gumbo is okay!) Mum and Dad. Although I know it isn't the same, through video and photographs and telephone, they were there, and here, with us. I miss them.

We are married, and the rest of our lives together start right here, right now, and stretch off as far as the eye can see, like the neverending horizons full of trees in New England. Like those trees, they are an enormous range of bright, brash, rich and deeply beautiful colours.

Having been married a week, some might say it is too late for cold feet.

I, on the other hand, may point out that winter is a cumen in, and I forgot to pack my slippers.