ANNIVERSARY
Prompt - Anniversary : Write about the anniversary of a special date
Your calendar probably has a note on this date saying 'Battle of the Boyne (Northern Ireland)'. The Twelfth of July is a public holiday there. On the UK mainland it also has a significance, but only in certain places. Where it's either known for being the time for the Orangemen's Parades, or as The Bigots Day Out. But in this household it's known mainly as being one of our two anniversaries, and generally regarded as the more important of the pair.
The lesser date is in September and is the day of our wedding. But July twelfth still seems the more special commemoration, for it's the day we began living together. And we still feel the greater affection for that landmark twenty eight years later (and counting). Perhaps all the more so now when we feel a bit more free to celebrate without fear of unwanted interruption.
That's because we now live in Edinburgh. Had we instead moved to Glasgow it might be different, but The Bigots Day Out has no real impact here. No parades, flutes, drums, sashes and drunken zealots. Unlike Southport, the place we lived before. A quiet little seaside town, but, for some reason I never quite fathomed, invaded on that one day in July by red faced men in suits and bowler hats, wishing to celebrate their cultural inheritance. And unwarranted fanaticism. Most have come up from Liverpool, with the city itself managing to escape the excesses of the tanked up cultists. For one day Southport suffers.
The one day that means most to Barbara and I. But for years we decided not to risk going into town for an evening out on the day itself, for the risk of it being ruined by some dickhead bawling allegiance to Billy and Queenie. The move north resolved that problem, and now we are free to celebrate as we wish. Covid and lockdowns permitting....
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