More information on the engagement!

Okay Natalie - here's a picture of us right after we got engaged last Thursday wearing your shirts! Our first photo opportunity and what a great time to put them to the test!

To all of you who don't know - Nat made us two shirts with pics of Tom and I on it - mine says 'I'm travelling with this hunk of spunk' and Tom's says 'I'm travelling with this sexy babe'! Hope you're proud of us Nat.

So the story of the day we got engaged goes like this:

We got up earlyish in the morning and got prepared for a big ramble across Dartmoor and a picnic awaiting us at the end. We got the dogs in the car and went to a spot where we could park near Sharp Tor (a tor is a big outcrop of rocks at the top of a hill in the moor) and we started walking. At the first tor there were lots of people around and Tom and I started looking for letterboxes (a hobby that people around these parts do - where they put a stamp in a box and hide them around the rocks etc). I found the first one and was very excited!

We walked onto the second tor, Yar Tor, and again, a family there at the top so we stayed for a little while looking for letterboxes before walking on to the final tor, Corndon Tor. We sat there for a while in the cool air and then i suggested to Tom that we look for some more letterboxes. Tom said 'okay, I'll go over here to look' and went around the edge of the rocks on the hill and I looked closer to where we'd been sitting. Only 10 seconds had passed and tom called out 'found one babe' and i raced over to see him. When i turned the corner around the edge of the rocks I was looking at the rocks that he was facing and couldnt see any holes to hide a box, so i looked at him, he was on one knee holding a small red box and it took me a second to realise that he was actually proposing. He says he really wishes he had a camera at the ready because my face was classic when i realised! I went onto my knees in front of him and he said 'i've loved you since the first second we met, will you marry me?' I said yes of course! Then i realised i hadn't looked at the ring so i pulled back and held out my hand and he placed my ring on my ring finger and it was an absolutely perfect moment and i felt such love and emotion. I hugged him so tightly and started to cry, really really sob, and he was crying too and we were engaged to be married.

How's that for romance?

We stayed there for a while, him telling me what lengths he'd been going to to hide the ring (and his meetings with the diamond dealer and goldsmith in his lunchbreaks - going to Indooroopuilly no less in his lunch hour!) and who he'd told (Foo you sneaky bugger - thanks for keeping this wonderful secret!) After a while a woman came walking along and we asked her to take our photo - was lovely to tell her. I loved telling her that we were engaged. No idea who she was but she was the first person to see tom and i engaged!

The rest of the day was lovely. We were driving through the moor and happened upon an old couple who had a flat tyre and tom changed it for them so they invited us to the pub for a pint. It was lovely to spend some time with them - Joan and John Hester - married 54 years and full of enthusiasm at our engagement. Here's a pic of them and us outside the pub:

So we're engaged and I've never been so happy in my life. Tom is definitely the man i can't wait to spend the rest of my life with and don't worry to all of you back home - we'll be getting married in Oz but not sure when - maybe April or May 2009! A while off yet but a lot of travelling and adventuring to be done between now and then. I won't be taking the ring with me, which is disappointing but i can't imagine how sad it would be to have it stolen!

Love to you all. Hope this answers some questions about the proposal. Best moment of my life.