All these things that I have done

This weekend, we finally held our 10th anniversary party to celebrate 10 years of Alex and I being together. There's actually a month to go but this was the closest date we could get in a suitable sized venue so we figured we'll risk the dramatic irony of something causing us to break up before we actually get there :)

We actually met on my first Sunday in Oxford in my first year when I went to OUSFG freshers drinks. This was distinguished by squigglyruth and myself being rescued from Colin Jacks (who was going on about a book he'd written which I seem to recall being about the science of Dr Who or something like that) by Alex* and truecatachresis, me breaking (accidentally! - no really, I wasn't actually drunk!) 2 wine glasses, going along to the post drinks curry where I only ordered a coffee because I didn't have any cash and finally going back with Alex & truecatachresis to Alex's room in LMH to sit on the inflatable sofa, drink my first ever gin & tonic and play settlers (Alex dragged a random other girl called Anna out of her room for a fourth). I even won the second game! Then Alex & truecatachresis walked me back to St Hilda's.

We were naturally very intimate very quickly - I dozed on his shoulder during the first proper OUSFG meeting I went to while trying to figure out the Land of Oz and we were very huggy pretty much straight away. We seemed to end up going out without ever having any formal "asking out" per se so we ended up picking an arbitrary date in mid October as an anniversary date to celebrate. Still, if we break up before the start of October, you can claim back anything you spent behind the bar :)

I've been talking about us having a party for years. It started as a fairly flip thing, just something to say when people asked if we were going to get married but it gradually became something I did want definitely to actually do. I liked the idea of celebrating our relationship and having everyone come together but without the legalese of an actual wedding.

I got rather nervous last week that it would be really empty and quiet but in the event my fears were completely unfounded. It was awesome! I wandered round with an enormous grin on my face going "Everyone came! Everyone is happy!". concourse and Brother James played 2 kick-ass sets, including a live mashup (RHCP/White Stripes), the cheese song I would have requested if I had thought of it (Dancing Queen - thank you cleanskies for getting me up to dance!) and my absolute favourite original track of theirs (Joan of Arc). Loads of people either said "wow, they were brill!" or "where can I get their CD?!" as well, so I think everyone appreciated them :)

The whole thing seemed to go really fast and before I knew it I was hugging people goodbye and wishing I'd had more time to talk to them but I believe this is traditional for this type of event :) We both had such a fantastic time - thank you to everyone who made it! It was everything I wanted and really my whole day was pretty much perfect from shopping in the morning to collapsing on the sofa when we got home.

* I don't know why, but I never seem to call Alex by his LJ name (oxfordslacker). It just feels not quite right.