Remembering

It’s 21st July, 2025 – Fiddian’s birthday. He would have been 62 today, and on the 23rd we would have been married for 9 years.

I’m in Vietnam, travelling for work. I was only supposed to come for one week, but I extended it so that I wouldn’t be in the UK for these anniversaries. I wanted to be far away and distracted. But, of course, wherever I go, Fidd comes with me, and that’s ok. I talk to him in airport toilets, in stuffy conference rooms and on benches beside dirty rivers while I scarf down street snacks and sticky drinks. I can’t do what I used to do and Facetime him every evening to talk about my day, but I find he is still there when I need him, and that I am somehow continuing to have a relationship with him that grows and evolves.

I want to mark his birthday by writing about him. All my recent posts have been about me, and my grief and struggles. This one is going to be different.

I met Fiddian in 2008 or 2009. We were introduced by my then boyfriend, Josh, and we went on a double date with Fidd’s then girlfriend. I remember the first moment I saw Fiddian. He came down some stairs wearing a very cool red sweatshirt that said “Nagasaki Robotics” on it (I still have this sweatshirt and wear it sometimes). He was so handsome I almost couldn’t bear to look at him. By the end of the evening we were finishing each other’s sentences, and I knew there was something there, but we were both in love with other people, and although we stayed in touch and almost worked on a project together, nothing happened until 2010 when we were both single again.

One balmy day in April I opened up my Google Wave message account (only real nerds will remember Google Wave) and saw a message from Fidd that he’d sent several weeks earlier. He mentioned he was sad because his beloved stepdad had just died and he was single again. My heart flipped over. Why was he telling me he was single? There could only be one answer.

On our first date we met in Camden and walked up Primrose Hill together. He was wearing cycle cleats which made the walk a little tricky but we laughed it off. It was a beautiful evening and we had a lot to talk about. We ate a meal in a now defunct restaurant where we sat on very uncomfortable church pews. I noticed that he was solicitous and kind when he talked about his exes, and I liked that about him. He walked me to Camden Tube station and we had a very chaste kiss before both heading our separate ways.

The next day he flew to China for two weeks to work on a pavilion at the Expo. I sat in my garden for a while in the sunshine and thought about him and about my past and about the future. Later I walked for miles and miles through London. I knew my life was about to change entirely. It sounds kind of psycho in retrospect but while he was away I began to sort through and throw out a load of my old stuff, and to pack up what I wanted to keep in preparation for moving in with him. He hadn’t asked me to but I just knew. I knew in a way I’ve never really known anything else before.

Try as I might I can’t remember the exact sequence or details of the dates that followed when he came back. They are a hazy blur of happiness. I remember a green silk dress I bought that he loved; going to see a film at the Ritzy in Brixton with Tilda Swinton in it and him holding my hand. I remember his super cool Jaguar XJS and the way he drove it like a lunatic. I remember him falling asleep in my arms like a dead weight and knowing I wanted to always take care of him. I remember the look of horror on his face when he turned up at my flat with a van to move my stuff to his and realised how many boxes I had.

The first time I met Cyrus and Orla was intense and funny and went pretty well. The weather was sunny and we sat out in the garden and I gave Fiddian a pedicure, of all things, and made the kids laugh with my Scottish swearing. Fidd’s dad turned 75 not long after that and I went to the party in Wales and Orla was surprised and happy that I remembered to bring a party dress for her to change into. I was scared but enthralled to be learning how to be a mother as well as a partner. Life felt very rich and wonderful.

Why did we fit together so well? Both of us were struggling with life when we met and in desperate need of someone steady and devoted. Over time we were able to support and heal each other, each gently pushing the other to be braver, to be better. We didn’t complete each other, exactly; we shared a lot of interests and attitudes but were also very different. We were similar enough to recognise each other, different enough to excite each other, and equally ready to commit fully to being together.

I loved him for so many reasons, including his energy, his physical presence and mental agility. He was a proper nerd, but a sexy one. He would lie in bed, beautiful in his nudity, happily reading about the latest advances in microchip technologies or the perfect way to season salt and pepper squid. He had impeccable taste in art, an encyclopaedic knowledge of biology and physics and a bizarre penchant for Jason Statham movies. He listened to new music obsessively, filling the house constantly with “challenging” sounds. He drove too fast, drank too much and was an absolute idiot about money, but he loved passionately, cared deeply about his friends, family and the state of the world and threw himself into work and projects with an energy that inspired everyone around him. His instant devotion to me gave me the secure environment I needed in which to grow into myself and become a whole, happy person.

That first summer is hazy and distant but it set the tone for a chaotic, joyful and loving relationship which still continues to nurture and invigorate me today and hopefully will for the rest of my life. Happy Birthday, Darling Fiddian.