Hero Wife

A little tribute to my wife, who puts up with a lot.

We met when I visited an IT friend at his workplace when I got my first good career job nearby. She was working at his building part time to fund her PhD studies. I chatted to her briefly whilst waiting for my friend. I liked her, and I told my IT friend that she seemed to have gigantic cute eyes. Separately she was friends with his wife and messaged her wanting to know who he was currently meeting with. We went out cycling together as one of the initial dates – she had a cool old-school chopper bike. I promised her I would find some old pub with an open fire and a random dog walking around. By luck the first pub we reached had both.

Operating a lock while moving the narrowboat for maintenance

I wanted to make her life better, and that was tricky for us in the UK as house prices grew. I came up with some usual ideas such as when we moved onto a narrowboat to try and help save up for a house deposit. In the winter I used to have to wake up at 4am and climb over her in order to refill the fire and prevent the boat getting too cold. She liked having a little garden on the roof which was some growbags on top of a pallet.

We were a little sad to move off it and sell it.

We liked living in the boat together and it was very cosy, but it was also a harder existence.

Before we had a car: cycling along the coast to pick up the post in the next town north, during -14C conditions

We applied to emigrate to Canada, the idea being that we could maybe one day have a house in a rural area with a garden, but we weren’t getting picked from the emigration pool and after 3 years started looking elsewhere. My wife helped me narrow down suitable countries and was happy with the idea of Sweden which led to us both putting in the work to make it happen.

With snowshoes (snöskor), very tired and trying to get home before sunset

In the garden, I tell people that I build things and then my wife grows in it, such as the greenhouse or raised beds. But this is a bit of a generalisation as she enjoys building things too and I have small areas I look after, like the strawberry patch.

If I want to do something new, I come up with a few ideas and then I run them past her and we talk and try to find a common idea we both like. We talk through plans of the garden together and then say what we like and dislike. If we cant find a common ground then we sit on the idea for a day or week and talk about it again to see if we have new ideas or have changed our minds.

When living in small rented flats and the narrowboat there were a lot of hobbies we would have liked to have done but didn’t have space. With moving to Sweden my wife now gets to have a garden and to practise sewing. She now makes a lot of our curtains, repairs our clothes, and is making a patchwork quilt.

My wife is very determined. If she knows I am injured (I slipped a disc in my back at one point) she will take on all tasks in any weather. Today she has cleared the driveway of snow by hand so I can return home by car from a work trip. It’s a wide driveway.

Fighting to fix the greenhouse in a storm

We have similar values. For example that we both generally agree on doing the right thing to help other people, and don’t value money or status as the goal in life. I try to make sure I communicate well and improve as a partner. I try to ensure she has the skillset and pre-planned safeguards to live without me were the worst to happen.

I’m glad my wife is better than me at learning languages and I like her excitement when she returns home having explored a bit more and met more people. I like watching her learn new skills and learning more about the areas around.