Feb Blog – Happy Valentines Day

My friend Estelle fell in love at fourteen, actual real love, she knew the first day she met Neville that they would marry and they did marry in their mid twenties. Neville and Estelle have never been with anyone else. It’s weird in this day and age, one woman for one man for always but against all odds and three kids later they are still together.

Estelle has been there for a teenage Neville through the death of two parents and her parents opened their home to this bright young boy and made him a part of their world because they too realised that Neville was a keeper. Neville is not only nice to look at (And I mean nothing by that Estelle) he’s funny and sweet and he loves Estelle with a passion rarely seen off screen. They know every single thing there is to know about one another, nothing is new and yet every time I see them together their enthusiasm for one another is breathtaking.

 

Estelle and Neville have no time for pretence what you see is what you get. They are in perfect balance she’s the fighter and he’s the lover. Estelle doesn’t take prisoners, nobody tells Estelle what to. She’s fought big battles with grace such as her father’s heart transplant, her second little girl was born with medical problems and she spent the first two years of the child’s life in and out of hospitals. In one year she lost a baby and then a kidney. And through it all I don’t remember having one conversation in which we didn’t laugh.

 

Neville is the heart of the family. He bounds in to every situation with a joy that elevates the people around him. He would cripple himself carrying another man’s load. Estelle calls him a sap and he maintains she’s heartless. They laugh together and at one another most days and even when she’s screaming ‘Neville get down those stairs, or I swear I’ll batter you’ at the top of her lungs, there’s a hint of something that suggests that although Estelle is well capable of battering Neville he’s pretty safe.

 

I was on the phone with Estelle after she and Neville took the kids to Euro Disney for a long weekend.

“How was it?”

“Magic,” She replied.

“Hotel?”

“A bit too posh.” She noted.

“Food?”

“Expensive crap we ate mostly in McDonald’s but the kids loved it.”

“Weather?”

“So cold I weed myself twice, I’m back in with the specialist next week.”

So the hotel was a little too posh, the food was crap, the weather so cold that it incited uncontrolled urination but the kids had a good time and Neville did too so it was magic. Estelle and Neville may not be Romeo and Juliet but just like EuroDisney they are magic. So to all you Estelle’s out there I wish for you a Neville.