Glass And Peace

Chapter 2. Falling.

"Beloved partner, keeper of my heart's odd secrets, clothed in summer blossoms so the icy hand of winter never touches us. I thank your patience.
Our joining is like a tree to earth,
a cloud to sky and even more. We are the reason the world can laugh on its battlefields and rise from the ashes of its selfishness to hear me say...
In this time, this place, this way - I loved you best of all."

- Commitment Prayer of the Pueblo Native American People.

@DanHCI Daniel Repton - 5m
BREAKING - Android app for DineOut.com out next week, Carry your favourite restaurant guide in your pocket.
Follow me for details. #eatingout #restaurants

@DanHCI Daniel Repton - 3m
Weekend starts here! Booking holiday later if I can wrestle the various websites into submission. There should be an app for that!

@WebDevKRock Ken the Web Dev - 3m
Hey @DanHCI stop moaning and write it yourself! How hard can it be, scrape itineraries, combine durations, rank, present??? :)

@DanHCI Daniel Repton - 5m
@WebDevKRock Sure, if I had the time. Might patent and outsource it, all the cash for no work! lol.

@WebDevKRock Ken the Web Dev - 2m
@DanHCI not if I get there first! What are we calling it: Journey Ranker? Oo-er, sounds like @Wossy has a downer on Don't Stop Believing! :-P

@DanHCI Daniel Repton - 1m
@WebDevKRock stick to coding mate, I'll do the jokes. Routr, natch. Beers on Sat? Laters.

I swing into the empty double drive, grateful that I am home first. I can't have long, she sent her leaving text before I left the office. Meanwhile I got stuck again where the damn bridge came down last week. Despite knowing about the temporary lights for three days I still have a mental block against alternative routes until suddenly I'm stuck in the tailback, cursing my carelessness. No matter, I beat her home, and with the girls at their friends house for a sleepover, I just have time to set up the surprise and look nonchalant as she walks in.

I am aware of the predictablility of flowers - her favourite white lilies - and were they unaccompanied the effect would be minimal. However I'm hoping for better than last time: more than a half-smile and a quizzical look as she wonders why her often "thoughtless" husband has gone to all this trouble; I'm looking for genuine delight. Poetry is not my thing, I'm more of a folk-rock songwriter kind of guy, but I've given it my best shot. The music, ready to go with a touch of the remote, comes from our honeymoon in Tanzania. It's actually the genuine Sopa Lodge choir singing the songs we heard first on that night in '04, on our day, when everything seemed to happen just for us.

Maybe you've been lucky enough to have one of those days, where the world delivers joy minute by minute, personally, directly to you. We'd been on Safari since 8am and having ticked off Elephants, Buffalo and Lions we stumbled on a lone Black Rhino sleeping on the plain in the centre of Ngorongoro. Serendipity was clearly just getting started, however, as next the hawk-like eyes of our guide detected the last of the Big Five sleeping in a tree just 50 metres from the trail. Park rules prohibited venturing closer, but with Natalie's 300mm Canon lens and my 20x Zoom JVC camcorder we eagerly captured the Leopard.

On returning to the lodge we were stopped by the owner who wanted to personally thank us for our help - that morning I had sorted some network issue for him when his usual contractor had failed to turn up, rescuing the booking service and probably saving him a few thousand dollars - and would we please accept an upgrade to the Presidential Suite, and drinks on the house for the duration of our stay? Our belongings had already been moved, so we allowed ourselves to be gently shepherded towards our new quarters which were every bit as grand as the name suggested, with sweeping views over the caldera. I swear I could make out a herd of giraffe sweeping across the plain, but it could have just been brushwood and the effects of the champagne the proprietor had thrust in my hand on arrival.