Lisnagun*

Tomorrow, Him indoors and I, will be celebrating the 19 th anniversary of our first kiss.  The chances are, that he will have forgotten, like he has forgotten many things including the date of our wedding anniversary and the exact type of saucisson I like.  He hasn't forgotten though, that 17 years ago, after he had driven me insane with playing the same phrase on the tin-whistle for  weeks ( I think they did some thing similar at the siege of Wacco) I referred to the said tune as "this silly little tune"...Ouch... I have apologized on a weekly base since, but he still bears the scars of my cruelty and his ego has never recovered ( ok, maybe it has but just a tiny bit).  My thoughtlessness is  paraded at the forefront of any sprouting row.  It is his universal excuse for just about any trespasses from his poor record on  socks to...mmm...let me see.. O yeah...forgetting anniversaries.

Anyway this year I will take it bravely and not over react.  Instead I shall remember that November night, when I took him, after far too many tequilas in Pa's, to visit Lisnagun, an early medieval settlement in West-Cork which was still being excavated.  Whether I  slid down  the earthen embankment graceful as a gazelle or, tumbled down drunkenly,  making outrageous claims such as : trust me I am a mountain climber,  depends on whose version you're listening to.  This is mine, so trust me, I AM a moutain climber.

I showed him around the wattle huts that were being reconstructed, I think he said something  relevant about medieval history,  the moon was but a nacred sliver...I said kiss me, he said are you sure?
At this point I have to add that he was, at the time doing a thesis for his master's in music and that the subject of his thesis was my then husband.   So, I  suppose, it was reasonable for him, to question the wiseness of this course of action.
Anyway, he did kiss me and that was the sweetest, tenderest, most beautiful kiss I ever had.  I fell in love immediately, left my husband two days later and  never looked back.
It's been anything but easy, especially the early days.  Our relationship did untold damage to his career as a musician. We had to fight some powerful demons (one day I'll write about them) together and we lost so much along the way, friends mostly.  But he has been a great father to our children solid and present (though he was but a child of 22 when  we first met and I, a brazen hussy, 11 years his senior) and to me, he as been the kindest, funniest and most wonderful lover.
19 years on, we are still in love, fusional and mad...
We live in the woods , under a silver moon" drinking each others 
 shadow"**

*Lisnagun, a tune he composed, has since become a bit of a classic in Irish music.  www.myspace.com/brendanringuilleannpipes  

** fabulous image from John's Spillane's cd "The Wells of the World" on which Him indoors played .