On this day nine years ago, in the company of family and dear chosen family on a spectacular autumn day, I married my best friend.

Today also marks the eleventh anniversary of HRH and I doing our first road trip together, one of the joys I have continued to experience with him throughout our marriage.

As for this year’s cool gift, I bought him a stunning hand-forged ritual knife from Helmut at the Hamilton PPD festival, the blade done in Odin’s Eye damascene steel and the handle made of antler from Manitoba. (He bought me a tiny knife with a handle in African blackwood and the guard in bone. True love in this household means gifting your spouse with a blade. Or a new gaming console.)

Ten years next year. I find it really hard to wrap my mind around that. We’ll have spent a quarter of our lives together.

This past year hasn’t been easy; in fact, I think we could safely mark it as the Worst Ever (and we’d survived some pretty depressing setbacks already). But there’s no one else I’d rather have spent it with. By hanging on and working together we’ve managed to turn things around so that now we’re looking at quite possibly one of the best years yet. And we have so many more years together ahead of us to just keep making them better. Thanks, HRH.