I try to be a good wife but, well, I don’t always succeed; the trouble is, that in trying to be a good wife, I may seem like a bad wife. I have always felt certain that any husband of mine would want to know his faults (as well as his virtues) and, on the assumption that no-one else would tell him, I find occasionally that I have to take on the onerous responsibility of pointing out some of his most annoying little problem areas.

Chris is a wonderful man and husband – as everybody keeps telling me (my mother adores him) – otherwise I wouldn’t have married him, naturally… and, being a bit of a flirt, I was very hard to pin down. However, now don’t be too shocked to hear that he is not absolute perfection (although my mum will disagree) and over breakfast this morning I felt obliged to inform him of a new fault. Actually, it’s not new but, for some unknown reason (perhaps my getting out of bed the wrong side) this morning I saw it as a fault.

I used to think that Chris’s ability to mimic others was charming, a gift even; but today, while I fuelled up with my usual dieters’ bran cereal with hot milk (to make it look and taste less like horse fodder), and Chris ate his lovely toast covered with lashings of butter and strawberry jam, I suddenly found him rather irritating. He wasn’t actually doing an impression of anyone at the time yet it occurred to me that he had taken on the characteristics (or foibles, as I saw them) of several other people.

“Do I know the real you?” I asked enigmatically (as a woman is apt to do when her hormones are a little off-beam – as I can see now).

“I should hope so after seventeen years together,” Chris answered, no doubt feeling hurt and shocked (and perhaps wondering how my hormones were faring).

He became quiet, after which I accused him of sulking, and he assured me he wasn’t, then kissed me before skulking off upstairs (which he always does when my hormones are up the creek). I came out to my studio to check my emails and download photographs, before setting to work to finish a water-lilies painting, when an email arrived from Chris; well, not so much of an email as a poem. And now I’m feeling contrite… because I do try to be a good wife. This is what he sent:

 
Hello, it’s me, your husband, here
at least I think that’s who it is
but sometimes things are far from clear
in terms of personalities

Am I the person that I seem?
You tell me that you’re far from sure
of who I am and what I feel
and if I’m less, or if I’m more

But let me tell you, sweetest heart,
I may, like blotting paper, soak
the ways and habits of a part
of all those friends and passing folk

Yet deep inside there’s only me
and, always there, lies love for you
and, Darling Angel, you’re the key
to who I am and what I do

So never be in any doubt
of who it is that loves you thus
the rules of love I never flout
IT’S ME WHO LOVES YOU, BETTER OR WUSS!!

Nevertheless, he’s not completely perfect – I assure you!