THE longer the marriage lasts – and ours has just reached the 37-year mark – the harder it is to earn brownie-points.
The days when youthful charm was enough are long gone, along with the dark curls, bagless eyes, and smooth skin.
So, when my wife lost a treasured earring in the back garden a couple of days before our anniversary, I saw it as a golden opportunity.
After all, I’ve had a lifelong reputation for being considered a good finder, ever since Sister Mary Ursula told us at primary school to always pray to Saint Anthony – the patron saint of finding lost objects – if we misplaced something.
It always helped me find my tennis ball in the rhubarb patch when I was a kid, and it worked spectacularly when my son, Jack, lost an expensive AirPod in the forest during a Centre Parcs holiday a few years back.
Suddenly, here was another chance to prove myself…
My wife’s lost earring, in the shape of a bee, had been lost while she was messing about on the swing in our garden with our eight-year-old granddaughter. While Chloe was demonstrating an upside-down trick, she accidentally kicked her Grandma in the ear and the earring was jettisoned.
The trouble was that my wife had walked round the garden for a bit before realising the bee had buzzed off, so the search area was much larger than it might have been.
Nevertheless, I was straight down on all-fours – desperate to be the bees-knees – sifting like a Klondike prospector through the loose dirt under the swing. Without too much trouble, I found the clasp, but the bee remained missing, so I was only half a hero.
The search gradually spread out around the areas of the garden where my wife remembered walking but, when brownie points are up for being banked, I become a man possessed.
Over what felt like hours, albeit broken up into 30-minute shifts, I tested my poor old knees to the limit, sifting soil, stroking the lawn, and even peering inside various petals.
In the end, darkness fell, and I had to admit defeat, though I had one last thought – to put out an appeal on social media for a metal-detectorist.
By the following morning, a lovely fella called Eric had responded and said he’d be round with his equipment later in the day.
He duly turned up and got to work in the back garden, starting beneath the swing. Almost immediately, he got a ‘beep’ and got down close to investigate. “There you go – 20 pence,” he smiled, scraping the dirt off a long-lost coin and tossing it my way.
Fifteen minutes passed and there was another ‘beep’. The soil beneath the swing was gently brushed aside and there it was – the bee earring – in precisely the spot that I’d searched over and over again.
Well, as you can imagine, my wife was very pleased with good old Eric. The fact that a) I’d found the clasp b) it was my idea to appeal for a metal detectorist, and c) I now have no cartilage whatsoever left in my knees, were all conveniently brushed aside.
Eric went home with praise, thanks, and general ear-o worship ringing in his lug-holes – as well as a nice bottle of rosé wine for his trouble.
“Champion, the wife’ll love that,” he declared.
Do I detect a man in need of brownie points, Eric?
