Than you or your finery....

Is a line from this song I heard play yesterday. The woman singer of the band was perfect in every detail. Pretty, charismatic; Her voice steeped in English tradition.

So....instead of indulging my passion for the beautiful game, missing England beat Israel 3-0, I spent some time here.

Pip by my side, the sheer joy of engaging in live music again, after so long, was just lovely.

I would say, quite openly, if I had to chose between watching this lot and this lot with Pip, I'd struggle to pick a winner. Truth is, my recent weekends with her, both of us watching football and live music, have been just something and a bit of an eye-opener.

Other highlights of this last couple of weeks (as I predicted) have been both of us again, doing this, this and this.

Work again tomorrow and Pip has a job interview in a week for something very important. We've spent some time in preparing a wonderful presentation. Interestingly, we worked on this exercise together, like it was a test of how we function as a couple ?

Mostly ( I think anyway) the presentation experience was amazing, we do actually create magic whilst coping with hill-climbing too. We collaborate and talk through difficulties. We will achieve proper things together. There seems to be a weird certainty the sum of our two heads, working together in some way, will be greater than both individuals toiling seperately. We seem to be creative, combative, challenging, respectful, leading, following, chopsy, funny, assertive and very loving. It's an exhausting combination.

If the girl has concerns about this relationship, she hasn't shown them, or I haven't noticed. She's been of good behaviour and character in her dealings with me. I hope (in my turn) to have lived up to her expectations of me. I'm feel I'm such an ordinary old bear in some ways.

Anyway.....the best thing of all is that, yesterday, when we were watching a band who sounded a lot like this, Pip leaned across to me and said "I've worked out reason you were put on this earth bear......it was to put Rock and Roll into people's lives"

Pretty good huh ?

JVIP