Our 8 th Wedding Anniversary.

Winter Solstice.

Today is our 8 th wedding anniversary, we got married on 19 December 2001, it was a great day, we smiled all day and had sore facial muscles for ages after.

We were so excited; it was difficult to get to sleep the night before, so it felt like we were woken up at the crack of dawn by friends arriving from Germany with boxes of fresh bienenstich.

Another friend Grainne, arrived in her car to take us to the Westerpark Registry Office to get married; we got there only just as the bridge was opening.

I called out for them to delay for a moment so we could get to the ceremony on time, but the man operating the bridge pretended he could not hear me, nor could he see me..

Instantly I went from being a happy, smiling polite woman to a snarling fury, certainly told that man a thing or two and our friend too, as she attempted to video me shouting abuse.

Eventually the boat passed and the bridge opened again and we could get across, we were late but not too late so there was no problem.

There was a big group of friends waiting there to greet us, one of them Arjan, tried to persuade me to tip toe in to the registrar and get married while Richie was distracted greeting our friends.

The service was good, the registrar was a handsome man from Suriname, who told Richie he had to look after me well.

After the ceremony we went home with everyone who was at the ceremony plus others and had a lovely party.

Richie had cooked for about three days before our wedding and had made a feast.

There were quiches, pizzas and fresh bread, fresh salads, olive pesto, hummus, selection of cheeses, a whole stilton, homemade potato crisps, soya and Tempe crisps, olives, cashew nuts and anchovy and tomato flans, chocolate brownies (some with weed) and bienenstich and a large wedding cake.

I made one thing and that was a vegetarian pom, this is a Suriname dish with chicken and cassava and other vegetables, orange juice is used to stop the cassava from going brown, I made mine with pieces of marinated and deep fried Tempe and Tofu.

One of our friends asked me if I had cooked everything and when I told her that Richie had cooked it all except for the pom, she opened a bottle and proposed a toast to me for marrying a man that can cook.

There were lots of bottles of pink bubbly and red and white wine and beer as well as freshly made rum punch, using the Trini recipe.

Fondly remember one good friend Lee Bridges, the poet, eating Stilton for the first time ever that day; he kept saying Stiltoooooooon drawing the ton bit of the word right out.

It was a great party and in the evening we went to a friend’s bar called Finnegan’s Rainbow or Elbow depending on which window you looked at.

A window got broken and the sign writer, who had been smoking joints, wrote Finnegan’s Elbow instead of Rainbow because he thought it was funny.

Seamus, the owner, ‘’ the King of Ireland ‘’ married us again and gave us a scroll with his permission, as well as making Richie an Earl.

It was great over the top fun, then a bunch of musicians who often jammed together played for us, one was called T Bone and another was Hilton from the Animals, it was a brilliant party.

A fond memory now, one which is still vivid for us both.