2009 – The start of our love story

In January 2009, at age 28, I took a big leap of faith and left my cushy teaching post of 3 years at a small local private high school in Durban to go on an adventure to the United Kingdom. It certainly was going to be an adventure, as it was going to be my very first time going overseas and I was going alone. I only had two really good friends in England and that was it. Up until this point I had chosen to not have a boyfriend. I had only had a brief 3 week relationship in university, but in my eyes that really didn’t count. Don’t get me wrong I had loads of friends who were boys. In fact most of my friends were boys. Being very sporty and leaning towards being more tom-boy ish, I found it easy to ‘hang’ with the guys.

My relationship with God is number one and so I would only date someone who was also a Born-Again Christian and thus of like-mindedness. Finding someone who was not had the same beliefs, but that I was also attracted to and liked; and well, that liked me back too, proved to be a rather challenging combination; and so I found myself still single. To be honest, when I left for the U.K. I was actually in a very good space and was really comfortable and happy with being single. After all, I had God, my family, a group of awesome friends, my sport, work and social life to keep me busy. I was free to go where and whenever I wanted. Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted a partner and eventually kids, but I was fussy, knowing exactly what type of man I wanted to spend my life with. I didn’t think I was asking for too much really. He just had to love God. I also didn’t want to waste time dating whoever and my desire was to date someone with the intention of marriage. This didn’t mean I had to marry who I started dating, but I wanted to go into the relationship with only dating someone who possessed the qualities I wanted in my husband. So being stubborn and sticking to my guns, at age 28 I found myself still single. However, at this stage I had come to terms with possibly being single for the rest of my life. Had even thought about being a ‘cat lady’. Either way, I trusted that God knew my heart’s desires and that God’s will would be done in His perfect timing. Whether that meant finding my future husband later on in life or not getting married at all, I knew God was in full control of my life. Little did I know, that when I started to let go of trying to control my future, things really took off.

My one friend invited me to come with her to meet a group of her church friends. Literally one of the first people I’m introduced to is this really handsome guy, Martin. I clearly noticed he was good-looking (I’d be blind if I didn’t see that), but being very distracted with being in a new country, meeting so many new people and with all the beautiful sites and things to see and do, I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. I had literally just arrived in the country and was just enjoying my new life. Not too much happened that evening. I was introduced to him, had a very brief conversation and according to Martin, another guy there spent the rest of the time showing interest in me and asking me hundreds of questions hee hee.

Can’t remember why, but for some reason I cracked the nod to a farewell where I bumped into Martin again. This time we chatted a lot more. Could possibly have actually been most of the time I was at the farewell. Just before I arrived in the U.K. I had completed Ironman South Africa 2008 and so was at my fittest. I was desperate to keep up my fitness and so as soon as I heard Martin was a runner, I nominated him as my running buddy. Shame, the poor guy was pretty much forced to meet up with me to run; and that’s exactly what happened. We would meet a couple times a week to run around beautiful Richmond Park. Little did I know (as I didn’t really have my bearings and had no idea where places were yet), but every time Martin was meeting me at one of the Richmond Park gates to go for a run around the park, he was first cycling all the way from Putney to meet me there. I was staying in Richmond and so the park was within walking distance for me, but not once did he mention he had to first cycle 20 minutes before even starting our hour run and then 20 minutes to get back home again.

We started to become really good friends. Let me describe what type of person I was (and can sometimes still be, but I’m probably slightly less extra now). At this stage I’m leaning towards being more tom-boy ish (think I owned one dress and really didn’t like pink), as mentioned most of my friends were boys, I was incredibly sporty and competitive and a huge clumsy dork. A bit rough around the edges you could say. I loved to banter, tease and joke around, give everyone nicknames and wasn’t shy to tackle someone or give a little playful punch on the arm when playing around. During our run, Mart and I would often try have our own little sprint race. I clearly remember a number of times pushing (or trying to push) Martin into nearby bushes and I would definitely not hold back with trying to beat him when we were doing a little sprint race. My nickname for him was ‘Martinator’ hee hee. We were just ourselves and not trying to impress each other. I was just loving my new life, new friendships, places and experiences. This was all so distracting for me, that I wasn’t even looking for a boyfriend. From my end, we were definitely in the friend zone, but getting to know each other so well and even starting to hang out and see each other at functions and gatherings outside of running. Having mainly guy friends, I wasn’t new to having good looking guys around me who I was just friends with. This ‘running buddies’ setup went on from about the end of February till the beginning of May.

In May I had a planned to meet up with a close friend in Australia. She was coming from South Africa with her hubby and the three of us were going on a surfing-beach tour around Australia for 3 weeks.

It was while I was on this holiday that Mart and I started to realise we were possibly wanting to be more than friends. We both started to miss each other. We managed to message a few times, but signal wasn’t always the best when we were using international phones and moving around Oz so much. There also wasn’t WhatsApp back in those days and so it was rather pricey to text often.

Then the week before I arrived back in London, Mart went to Nigeria for a week for business. I cant remember why, but he didn’t actually tell me he was off to Nigeria and that meant no signal, no reply to my messages and thus no communication. This week kind of confused my feelings a little. I had just become aware that I had started to have some sort of feelings for him, we had been communicating ok ish (considering the circumstances) and then boom no replies or messages or communication for an entire week and with zero explanation. I admit it, my mind started to run wild. This made me think that maybe I just liked him and the feelings weren’t mutual, that maybe he had already ‘’run away” before we had even started or worse, I had chased him away. At this stage I had no clue about his feelings, but I knew I had started to feel something (dare I say I was liking him) and I thought this was his way of signaling that the feelings weren’t mutual. You know that classic saying; ‘he’s just not that into you.’ Not that I had made my feelings obvious at all, so not sure how he would have known I had actually started to like him he he, but I guess this was my way of trying to protect myself from disappointment (once again…I had been disappointed a few in the past) and to not get my hopes up. Hilarious! No communication starts driving my crazy and made me think about him even more. The penny had just dropped. I liked him. However with no replies I thought the feelings were clearly not reciprocated. Ha ha see how the mind plays games with you. I found myself thinking and talking about him a lot. I must have driven my friend dilly. I hated not being able to talk to and see him. Golly what was going on?! One minute we are friends and then next I’m here. How did I suddenly get here! Having said this, we both had no clue that we were both feeling this way about each other. I certainly was in some sort of denial and wasn’t getting my hopes up.

The day I arrived back in England, Martin phoned me. We spoke on the phone for over an hour. Being my normal open (sometimes blunt, but still in a kind sort of way) and honest self, I didn’t hold back from telling him that he had given me bat with not replying to my messages. I wish I could recall every second of this phone call, but alas I can’t. Somehow during this conversation, Martin invited me on our very first date. I’ll never forget our first date…a fancy dinner at a restaurant in Central London overlooking the Thames and then we watched ‘The Lion King’ at the theatre. On the 3 June 2009, while on the tube, Martin officially asked me to be his girlfriend. About 9 months later, Martin told me he loved me for the first time and on the 19 of December 2010 he proposed in the snow in the spectacular Richmond Terrace Gardens (that’s another story for another time). Then on the 13 August 2011 we flew back to South Africa to have our dream wedding with our families and close friends. That day the next chapter in our lives began. I love that our relationship started out as a strong friendship and then organically grew into something more. There was never any pressure or games, it all just happened so naturally. Who knew that I would meet my future husband the first week of landing in a new country. Who knew that I would have to fly half way across the world to meet my husband who I should have met in South Africa as were both athletes (so would have been in the same sporting circles) and we both lived in small coastal villages on the North Coast (I lived in Zinkwazi Beach and Martin in Umdloti). Only God knew!