Sally's Journal

I first saw Jez in 1994.

He was in a newspaper article pinned to the kitchen wall in my friend Alison's house. It was about 'Keele vampires' - he'd gone to the premiere of Interview with the Vampire with some friends in full goth kit.

"That's Jeremy" my friend's mother said. "Tori's boyfriend". Tori was Alison's older (and intimidatingly cool) sister. Her boyfriend looked even more impressive. In 1994 I was not cool, although I did own a pair of doc martens I had lovingly painted myself in glitter paint, including a gigantic sparkly silver witch flying through the air atop a broomstick, which I look back on with affection. I wore very bright tights to school and everyone thought I was weird. And not in a cool way.

The years went by. Jez and I didn't really know each other, although we were in the same place occasionally. I heard a lot of gossip about him. He seemed even cooler - very gothic, very charming, a bit of a womanizer.

I still wasn't cool, although my eyeliner improved and I acquired a pair of tight tartan trousers which I wore with more panache than I realised. Then Jez broke up with Tori at the end of university, and I moved away from Berkshire anyway to go to university myself. We lost touch.

Ten years later, we met again. This time it was in a pub in Oxford. It was at a live action role playing game. I walked in and a friend grabbed me.

"Who is that bloke?" she hissed. "The new one in the top hat. He's gorgeous"

It was Jeremy.

He was still too cool for me. Still rather gothic - he was wearing skin tight velvet trousers, a velvet waistcoat with bells on it and a top hat with bright scarfs wrapped around it. No shirt but a very impressive six pack. There was a little ripple of swooning women around the room as he walked across it. But I remembered him from my teenage years, and that was nice, and I'd only just moved back down south after many years in Scotland, was unemployed and bored and so the prospect of talking to anyone was good.

I asked him if he'd like to get coffee. Unusually, he wasn't in work the next day so suggested G&Ds for milkshakes. We met at 2 pm.

At 2 am we were still talking as we wandered around Oxford. We got locked in Christchurch Meadows as the sun went down and had to climb out over the wall. We sat on a bridge with blossom falling down on us and talked about bottling this moment. I remember feeling light headed, and oddly not insecure. It was easy and happy and right.

It hasn't always been easy or happy or right. God knows, we've had our ups and downs over the years. Some pretty massive ones. But somehow we've got through them. Somehow we've found our way back to each other.

We first talked about marriage within a week of getting together. But first it was too soon, and then there was drama coming from elsewhere, and then I was crazy, and then he wasn't sure, and then...

...well, there were always a lot of reasons. Looking back, though, I'm glad we didn't get married then. It took a while for us to be ready, to grow up, to find the life we wanted to share. It's only really been in the last two years that we've done that - thank you, Glasgow, and thank you Glasgow housing market - and now is, I think, the right time.

I don't find Jez intimidatingly cool anymore. He also would say he looks considerably less impressive without his shirt on, and I've not seen him wear a top hat in years. Less goth, more tweed now. But he still has the brightest smile and wonderful eyes. He's still my Jez. And I love him.

Countdown until we leave for the grand wedding adventure trip - four hours.

It's going to be fantastic.

A&E at 4 am is a surreal place.

pierot had an asthma attack last night, and so we ended up in A&E. Jez stabilised very quickly - pretty much as soon as they got him on a nebuliser - so I think we rapidly got moved down the priority list for the doctors and left to our own devices, sitting there, occasionally chatting about nonsense and listening to the chaos around us.

There was a policeman wandering around looking for a t shirt. Apparently someone had come in wearing a green t shirt which had then been taken off at some point in A&E, and he needed it for evidence. But no one had a clue where it had gone. I spent a while wondering who the Green T Shirt Man was. Was he some kind of murderer, with the blood of his victim potentially on his clothing to incriminate him? Was he a victim of assault who needed to prove contact with his attacker? The policeman seemed pretty calm and laid back about it, which made me wonder if the evidence was that important, or the crime that major, but he was still looking for it, slowly and methodically, three hours later, which made me wonder.

There was a woman who was brought in, lying on a stretcher with a towel pulled over her face. She was alive, but wouldn't take the towel away. She made a whimpering noise, and I wasn't sure if it was pain or just that she was crying. A little while later I heard hysterical crying from a couple of cubicles down and heard a woman crying "I just want to go home. I just want to leave. I want to leave" while one of the nurse's muttered to another outside our cubicle "it's a really nasty cut. The doctor opened it up, and blood just starting pouring out". I think she was talking about the crying woman, and I wondered if maybe it was self inflicted harm. Surely an accidental cut would be something you'd want looked after? But I'm not sure, and I've been wondering about what other reasons would make someone with a really bad cut want to leave A&E with such desperation.

There was one other woman as well who was being interviewed by three policemen, and loudly saying "I never..." while nursing a bruise on her face. I heard "he just hit me," once, and wondered how she got hit. Was it a random fight in a bar? Was it domestic abuse? I'm not sure.

I also got asked what ethnic group pierot was by the receptionist when he was being booked in and I was talking for him, as his breath was too short for him to talk. Apparently it's required for their forms (god knows why). I said "his father is Sri Lankan and his mother is German". She stared at me and then said "there's not a box for that. I can do Asian/White British". I said "that'll be fine." She frowned and then said "best just put Mixed: Other, coz he's not British".

I nodded understandingly. Sadly there was no box which said 'dubious foreigner' which I always think is the best description of Jeremiah.

We got home around 6.30 am, after briefly being locked in their carpark when the barrier refused to rise, despite having a valid ticket. We called for security, who didn't arrive for ten minutes. While we were waiting, the barrier just went up, apparently at random. I put my foot on the accelerator and got us the hell out of there.

I drove home through London waking up, with the traffic beginning to flow, and got home in time for a couple of hours sleep before jez had to go to work. And now I'm sitting here, almost wondering if it was all a dream...

And I am now awake, and can't get back to sleep.

I'm in an odd mood. I think I'm in a place of emotional flux and change. I've moved the last of my stuff out from my room in Oxford, and now I really am living with jez. It's not a temporary arrangement. It's long term, I've nowhere else where I live, and while that's nice, it's kind of scary.

We've also been looking at kittens. I miss having a cat. I really really do. On the other hand, now I've found a breeder who has said she'll reserve me a pair of kittens for November, I'm panicking. Kittens mean settling, they mean solidity. They mean not taking off around the world (although I've now tied myself down to two years of education, so I can't do that anyway) and if they are joint owned kittens, then that's a statement about the relationship.

Odd. And scary.