In keeping with modern tradition, we met online. In one of her pictures, Kate was at a Northwestern football game at Ryan Field. Seeing a golden opportunity, I messaged Kate about my favourite Northwestern football players of recent times. Kate was impressed that 1) I knew what Northwestern was at all, and 2) that I knew players that she had never heard of (thanks, Greg Newsome II).

Our first date almost didn't happen, as a huge storm had been predicted for the next day, and Kate had to stay late at work. Having left early as always, I walked around for two hours listening to podcasts until Kate was able to meet me at the (then) Colston Arms. 

The photo here is the first photo we have of us together. I had just met Kate's best friend Sarah for the first time and she had insisted on taking it. At the time Kate was less than thrilled but now we're very happy about it!! 

An early issue that surfaced was the fact that Charlie is allergic to cats. This was a struggle, as I have lived with Ruby for almost ten years, and she is the Queen of the household. In early talks about our relationship, I was very clear that Ruby would always come first (a sentiment to which Charlie now agrees). 

After some searching, we found food that lowered Ruby's allergen production, which meant that Charlie could visit more often without spending the whole time crying and sniffling. 

Charlie looked after Ruby for two weeks while I was in North America, and after cuddling with her every night they became bonded. 

Now I have to deal with Charlie calling Ruby 'my love', a term that previously only applied to me (Charlie's note: sorry).

After a trip with my baseball team to Toulouse, France, I was hit with COVID. Feeling bad for me, Kate made me stay at her flat while I was sick.

At the end of my sickness, Kate and Ruby both realised that they didn't want me to leave (and nor did I!). As a result, we had 'a talk' and decided to live together!! 

The process took a few months - putting two people's worth of stuff in one flat is tricky when I have so much sports equipment - but it has been a dream ever since! Cooking together, sharing Ruby's responsibilities, developing new interests together and being around for each other all the time has worked perfectly. We can't remember what it was like before! 

Now for an embarassing story - I had been contemplating my future at work and considering potentially working in San Francisco with my collaborators there. After coming home from a night at the pub with friends from work, I blurted out that I thought that we would get married before moving away from Bristol.

While we hadn't actually discussed marriage together before, it turned out that Charlie had thought a lot about it and had said to his friends that he was all-in and excited to marry me one day. But, not knowing this at the time, when he agreed so quickly I was taken aback to say the least! After some (a lot of) tears and talking it through properly, Charlie found my high school class ring and did a mini-proposal on the couch. We kept it a secret for a few weeks while we talked through all the details then - despite a poorly timed black eye (see photo...) - we suprised our parents with the news at the same time - Charlie's in real life in Bristol and mine on Facetime!