"It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

...not that Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play - nor strictly 'today' as it was yesterday - but that two decades ago H and I were wed.

Bone china is apparently the gift of the occasion, on what basis I know not. Perhaps it is reckoned that after twenty years of marriage there will be precious little original wedding-gift crockery around (broken or hurled depending on the quality of the marriage).

And so how did H and I celebrate such a momentous anniversary? A day trip to some nostalgic venue? A romantic dinner out or even more romantic evening in?

You will not be slow in sensing some quite ponderous sarcasm in the above. For whatever we had proposed the Almighty disposed somewhat altogether differently.

The morning was to be taken up carting DJ [horse] to the osteopath - if you didn't you do now know that horses do osteopaths and osteopaths of a certain variety do horses. For their backs mostly of course, horses having large, complex and deeply vulnerable backs after all.

So off we set bright and early - E, DJ and I - in the horse-box jalopy, only to have said HBJ threaten to breakdown before we were two miles gone. Back to the yard therefore we limped, where plan B was put into operation. Self and H would limp HBJ to the garage for some instant TLC and repair.

Plan B proved a wipe out. Less than a mile into that one the thing died under me. Came to a solid and implacable standstill right by a convenient bus-stop. (Some waiting passengers did consider boarding, which clearly shows the sorry state of the local bus service.)

Plan C thence swung seamlessly into action - call the horse breakdown people. (High cost insurance, but a must-have in the world of horse.) About an hour they said and true to their word it was an hour we waited watching every passing motorist wonder who had decided horse-boxes should replace buses.

Give Plan C its credit, eventually HBJ was 'recovered' to the garage, H following on in the bog-standard jalopy to run me home. Garage mechanics ruminated along the lines of blocked fuel lines or filters.

Plan C though did not come without a price, one that I shared with Mr Breakdown - "I bet," I told him, "That my beloved spouse H will take the opportunity to remark when we are done at the garage 'Dearest, as we happen to be not some small mile from our very own IKEAesque store, shouldn't we brighten the day by dropping by and purchasing just a few totally unnecessary but irresistible items?'" (OK I invented the 'totally unnecessary' bit.)

Needless to say I won my bet, much to amusement of Mr Breakdown who was clearly tempted to suggest I'd been around the same woman for longer than was good for man or the beast in man - tempted but resisted.

So off to IKEAesque store for shopping and a luncheon. ('The Joy of Meatballs' - I doubt it would sell.) Home with packages just in time for Evensong and running E back to stable to feed horse.

Screaming row then broke out between H and E as to whether, in the absence of the planned osteopathic intervention, DJ should be ridden that day, her back being sore. H being of the view that any horse that is not ridden daily somehow goes at once into a steep decline. E, contrariwise, showing the wisdom of the ancients, maintaining that horses have lived happily for many millennia prior to the advent of man's riding them at all and that therefore the postulate of her mother was false, spurious and specious. (Not E's precise vocabulary you will understand.)

My contribution to this lively debate - aka toe-to-toe shrieking of a particularly shrill female variety - was to tell the pair of them to desist at once on pain of extinction and extermination. (And when I say 'tell' in truth it was more the manly bellow of the enraged moose than a quiet word to the wise.)

All parties thus thoroughly at odds with each other we later half-scowled our way through some rather pricey pink champagne purchased for the Great Occasion, before dispersing to watch respective must-see television: self to European Cup final and distaff side to sentimental film on the other channel.

Some patchy truce was achieved among the natives by bedtime, but not all-in-all the happiest of days.

Shame really, but at least no one was daft enough to play 'When I'm Sixty-Four' on the gramophone!