Boy meets purl
Wool brought widowed Ian & Clare together
through – and me, him. Everything just felt so natural, so easy.” Ian’s wife Jane loved sunflowers and Clare suggested she knit a giant one in her memory. Ian offered to create a label explaining its significance.
He says: “After Clare drove off I knew something had clicked between us. In the coming days and weeks I felt so alive, so excited.
“After months of darkness, I felt warmth and light shining on me.”
SCARED
The pair emailed and texted regularly over the coming weeks, but the turning point was in May when they agreed to meet up.
Ian says: “I wanted to tell Clare how I felt, but was so scared of not having those feelings reciprocated, of frightening her away. We sat on a bench and I asked if I could put my arm around her and she turned to me smiling and said, ‘Of course’. I was on cloud nine. We spent the afternoon holding hands, talking about how happy we were, how this was going to last for ever.”
Clare adds: “Neither of us had been looking for love in any way and this felt so strange but so lovely too. We’d danced around the elephant in the room for so long and now this was real.”
The couple kept their romance secret until after Clare’s spectacular display at the Malvern show – with Jane’s sunflower centre stage.
Ian and Clare plan to move in together soon. She adds: “We regularly laugh so much we can’t talk!
“After Ken died I never thought I’d hear myself laugh again. Our love is better than any therapy. I’ve found my soulmate.”
Clare has raised £25,000 for Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court hospice in Cheltenham, where Ken was cared for. This weekend the garden is on show one last time at a hospice fair.
The garden is also shortlisted for the JustGiving Awards’ Creative Fundraiser Category. If it wins, Clare’s charity pot could hit £50,000 – in what would have been Ken’s 50th year.