Recipe for a happy marriage

The U3A brigaade weren’t going whale watching, after all (that’s what happened last year), but on a sedate adventure to Le Havre and back via Scilly. A wonderful trip, you would think, in balmy weather (or it was on Saturday when they left). But I’ve never come across such a disgruntled, unhappy lot. Intelligent, they may have been, but possessed not a scrap of common sense.

They questioned having to leave their passports in the purser’s office (standard procedure), moaned about having to take their own hand luggage on board, and we were all pleased to see the back of them. My smile was stretched to breaking point by 2.30pm, when I somehow managed to say to one particularly obnoxious couple, ‘have a LOVELY trip.’

The husband looked up at me and suddenly shut up. He could probably see the venom emanating from my nostrils.

I was telling Himself this on Saturday evening. Then, as things do after a much need visit to the pub, it turned into a Philosophical Discussion which went like this. (Stop reading now if you are easily offended.)

‘We come from a fairly doomed family,’ said Himself. (You can tell he’d had a few Large Ones.)

‘You mean you’re fxxxed?’ I asked.

‘Well, our home environment was hardly inspirational.’ He paused. ‘Meeting you was –’ he paused and scratched his balls. ‘I don’t want to drop myself in it,’ he said at last and took another fortifying gulp of wine.

I waited for him to do just that.

‘I think I was ready – like a piece of beef – for a different kind of life.’

‘A piece of beef?’ I snorted. ‘No wonder I don’t eat much meat.’

He looked up and those blue eyes twinkled. ‘I spent all my life in the sh*t, Flowerpot. Since I met you, these last 11 years, it’s just the depth that’s changed.’

I could see this conversation wasn’t going quite the way I had been expecting.

‘I’ve been in it closely up to my nostrils,’ he said, clearly getting whimsical. ‘Since I met you it’s got up to the top of my ears, but I probably got oxygen from somewhere.’

I giggled at the thought of him, like a pig in clover – except that it wasn’t clover of course. He caught my look and grinned. ‘I’m calling on my expertise for scuba driving,’ he said, slurring just a little bit as he poured himself another generous glass of wine.

‘Scuba driving?’

He grinned. ‘Yes, scuba driving. That accounts for my survival. Either that or I can hold my breath for up to 11 years.’

I can see the headlines now. SCUBA DRIVING! THE NEW SPORT FOR A HAPPY MARRIAGE!