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Engaged!

1 Jan 2008 - So this New Years I convinced Catherine that we had won two nights in London as part of a competition - little did she know the truth of the matter!

About 10 months ago I started planning my future. I'd been living with my wonderful girlfriend for a few years and everything was perfect, so I decided to start planning a wonderful proposal.

Research

On New Years Eve 2005 Catherine and I had a quiet night in and at the end of the evening I saw how captivated Catherine was with the fireworks. I'd been thinking for a while that, since everything seemed perfect in our relationship, it would be time soon to pop the big question - I wanted to make it special and the idea of proposing to Catherine at a big fireworks display at some point was born.

Afterwards I took a look into the best fireworks displays around the world but figured that it would be a bit difficult to get Catherine to an event in Buenos Aires or something, so I decided to put the situation on hold until I figured out how I would do it.

Being the workaholic that I am I kind of left things there for a while, trying to figure out if I could try and correspond a Summer holiday with an event somewhere, but no proper opportunities arose, so for most of 2006 I just kept the idea simmering.

2007 - The Idea Year

Some time at the beginning of 2007 I figured that London was probably my best bet for a secret fireworks proposal. I managed to bring up the London NYE fireworks display in conversation but Catherine was quite adament that she didn't want to stand in the cold for 4 or 5 hours to wait for the display - so back to the drawing board for me.

A little while later I figured that if I got a hotel room with a balcony that faced the fireworks I could get Catherine down to the fireworks so she could see the wonderful display, but wouldn't have to stand in the cold for 4 or 5 hours.

Whilst searching for the magical hotel facing the fireworks I discovered a Thames New Years' Eve Cruise - Champagne, 4 course meal and a great view of the fireworks from the ship itself.

Now I just needed to figure out how to get Catherine down there without it looking too obvious.

The Cunning Plan

So, in March of 2007 I started to piece everything together. I agreed with the company organising the tickets to fake a competition win (obviously I had to buy the tickets first).

I made up some ripping yarn about winning a competition aimed at company directors. I then spent many months trying to avoid talking about the competition or what I had to do to enter it so as not to get tripped up. The company even sent me the fake 'winners' letter with the evenings details.

The 'prize' was two nights in the wonderful London Bridge Hotel and New Years Eve on the beautiful Silver Sturgeon, with Champagne, wonderful food and a perfect view of the fireworks from by the London Eye.

Catherine was convinced it was a scam and that when we got down there we would find we had to pay for something, or speak to someone about a timeshare or something else; it all just seemed too good to be true. Luckily for me I managed to allay her fears and she was finally convinced (and committed) to the trip.

Getting Permission

I finally asked Pa Sull for permission a couple of weeks before Christmas 2007. I managed to get Jim to 'The Crows' for what everyone else thought was a couple of sneaky pints of Greenhalls before the religious Friday Chinese Takeaway.

Proposal

We did some of the tourist stuff on New Years Eve and then got back to the hotel with plenty of time to get ready.

This was when I started to get nervous: how do I ask her?, how can I keep her from finding the ring & it's giant box in my pocket?, how can I survive 6 hours on a boat when I suffer from seasickness?. Worst of all - how do I keep it together so she doesn't suspect anything. What probably made all of this worse was the fact that Catherine had made a couple of jokey comments about me proposing whilst we were in London...stress, stress, stress!

Anyway, fast forwarding to midnight; I managed to stave off seasickness and we got a perfect spot on the boat to see the fireworks. A minute or so after the fireworks I managed to get my words out and ask Catherine for her hand in marriage: I think I said something about 2008 being a great year, what with our baby and the such, and how I'd love to start the year on a high, so would she be my wife?

Catherine took it all in her stride of course: "Oh, shut up! Are you messing? Oh my God!". I then tried to put the ring on Catherine's right hand (an easy mistake to make in the heat of the moment!). I eventually got the ring on the correct hand & finger and a few minutes later (after asking Catherine again if she'd marry me - she hadn't actually answered my question, so I thought I'd best check!) - we were engaged.

Now just the trivial matter of getting married to worry about!

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