It's hard to believe it's been this long, but Sunday will be the 12th anniversary of the day I watched my beautiful wife walk down the aisle toward me.

I'm an analytical kind of guy, sometimes too much so! And I know you can't analyse romance (or shouldn't!). But I do wonder what's contributed to our continuing love and partnership. There are the cornerstones of course: a common faith, a close friendship that preceded the "lerve" (that's love in a bad US accent), the same twisted irreverant sense of humour and our unwavering belief that you work things through no matter how difficult (and I've done my share of making things difficult).

Then there are some other things: understanding each others' love languages for one. I'll probably blog about it some other time but for now visit http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/ if you want to understand what I mean by that. Another key is listening – as a man, I realise that one of my default settings is "distraction", so listening has been a discipline, but I think I'm getting better …

Anyhow, I started this off not to brag – but to express my wonder and gratitude for 12 eventful years that I would never have enjoyed spending with any one else but Neen.

Oh, and what's this linen thing?! What's with that? Who gets to dictate what we buy for anniversary presents anyway? And who wants linen?? I'm looking forward to the night out at the Comedy Festival (strange that our wedding coincided with that)…

Linen! Huh! … but then again … I could use a new pillowcase…