When I think of September

The lovely Lisa has set us a challege of writing a blog about what we think of when we think about September. This might not be what she meant but here goes.

The first memory I have when I think of September is of a friend's wedding where I first realised that I wanted to be more than just friends with the man who was to become my husband. Our friends had been trying to pair us up for about a year and I was furiously resisting! Unfortunately my change of heart happened just as he started dating someone else! But the path of true love doesn't run smooth, so it is said. About 3 weeks later we had a bit of a 'heart to heart' and I told him how I felt and the rest, as they say, is history.

My next September memory is of my wedding day 2 years later. I was to leave from the flat that we had bought as our first home. It overlooked Easter Road football ground the home to Hibs football team. When they were playing at home our street became a sea of bodies as eager fans made their way to the ground. As the wedding was at 3 o'clock, to allow for this crush, we arranged for the car to pick me up early. What we should have done was check the football fixtures first. As it happened, Hibs were playing away that Saturday and to avoid being the only bride in history to be really early for her wedding, the chauffer took me for a drive through the Queen's park in Edinburgh, which lies under the shadow of Arthur's Seat. It was quite amusing to be chauffer driven in all my finery being observed by tourists and picknikers alike.

Of course, not all my September memories are pleasant ones. Life is not like that, unfortunately. In 1983 I spent my wedding anniversary waiting to be admitted to hospital for a week of tests. Following the birth of my lovely son, a couple of months earlier,  I had become increasingly unwell, being unable to swallow food and even struggling with liquids. Eventually the doctors decided to take me in for investigative tests as, by this time, I kept passing out every time I tried to stand up. This week turned into 10 weeks during which time I developed a clot in the main vein leading to the heart and had a stroke among other problems I won't go into at this time. When this happened the doctors called my family into the hospital as I was so weak they didn't think that I would last through the night.  As I'm writing this blog, you can see that I did make it and 2 weeks later I was home, very thin (I weighed just 6 1/2 stone), very weak, but very happy to be alive and reunited with my baby. I was also now diagnosed as having SLE more commonly known as Lupus. This Lupus was to lead to other times in my life when things were not brilliant, but that is for another time.

My final September memory is of last weekend when I celebrated my 34th wedding anniversary. Can you believe that? I can't! Inside I don't even feel as if I'm 34 years old, let alone old enough to have been married that long. We started off the celebrations on Friday with a meal of Duck in Cherry sauce and a bottle of champagne. On the Sunday morning I came down to find a lovely bouquet of flowers in various shades of pink, my favourite colour. Then after breakfast we went to see Highclere Castle, the setting for Downton Abbey. We had been before to a Help For Heroes fundraising day, but hadn't been able to see inside the house on that occasion. Mind you I did get the chance to meet some of the cast of Downton and managed to make a fool of myself. by opening my mouth without thinking. But again that's a story for another day! After a lovely day out, we came home and had a Chinese take-away washed down with some Sauvingon Blanc to round off the celebration.

Hopefully there will be other September memories and I'm sure if I gave it more thought I'd be able to think of some more. but I think that this is enough for now. I must remember to make a note of all the points I've mentioned here to be explored further later lol!