Text by Alma Barkman

I remember the way my heart leaped the year friend hubby came past the window on Valentine’s Day carrying a long slim package. He’s remembered! I thought.

Fully expecting a long stemmed rose, I was moved to tears – by a package of sausage casings. Can you think of anything less romantic?

To his credit, the timing was just coincidence. Not so his suggestion we wait until moonlight to jack the carport post back onto its footing after I had driven into it. “That way you won’t have to make embarrassing explanations to nosy neighbours and our teenage boys.” His sensitive solution worked. They never did find out.

What he has broadcast far and wide, however, is the time I wearily crawled out of bed to push him out of a snow bank. Pulling on my boots and throwing my coat on over my nightclothes, I stationed myself behind the back wheel to push – just as he spun the tires. Trust me. A plume of snow sprayed up under your nightgown at 5 a.m. is an effective wake up call.

Not that I’m sleeping beauty anymore. Curves have given way to bulges, negligees to flannel nightgowns. Prince Charming, meanwhile, drapes his long johns over the bedpost, props his bifocals beside the alarm clock and peacefully snores beside me. The pink slippers and cherry chocolates he brought me fifty years ago are but a memory, not an expectation. Romance has given way to reality, and the reality is that we need a good sense of humour to cope with life’s little foibles, because laughter is at the heart of every good marriage.

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