A day I’ll never forget

THIS is, as the more devoted legions of my colossal fanbase will no doubt have noticed – my first column in a few months.

By the way, when I say devoted legions, what I actually mean is Brenda, from Beeston. Thanks for your message, Brenda, and I’m glad your dog is feeling a little better.

At the start of October, on a beautiful early autumn day, my now wife made an honest man of me.

Metaphorically speaking at least (insert your own jokes about journalists here), but I am now, undeniably, a married one.

Naturally – and usually helpfully – I received plenty of advice ahead of the big day, but by far the most common tip married people offered was “try to remember as much as you can, because it will be over in an instant”.

Sure enough, time – fuelled by adrenaline – warped as if into a vortex, and the wedding day which we’d thought about and planned for so long passed faster than Brenda’s dog used to fetch his ball.

Deep down, I know that, presumably because of physics, it’s impossible that all the day’s events took place within the same amount of time it takes to boil a kettle, but that is genuinely how it felt.

Just like the other happiest day of my life – when our daughter was born – I felt a heady, intoxicating mix of extreme nerves and sheer joy.

I could at this point make a footballing analogy by comparing marrying my wife to watching a penalty shoot-out in terms of tension melting into happiness. But I’m better than that.

Instead, I’ll draw an altogether more wholesome allegory. I wear a relatively old-fashioned wristwatch and at midnight each night a small dial ticks round with the date on it.

But the numbers on the dial go to 31, so every time a month has 30 or 28 days, on the first day of the next month you have to manually wind the clock forward.

After the ceremony, and after I’d managed to shake off the bulk of the confetti, I sat down to eat with the woman who just an hour ago had been my fiancée.

I looked down at my shiny new wedding band and realised that the date was wrong on my watch.

So I took it off my wrist to wind it, and as the tiny number ticked over I realised it was a date, and a day, I would never forget.

Friday, October 1, 2021. The day I married Sarah Walker.