" Shara met me at the airport in London, dressed in her old familiar blue woolen overcoat that I loved so much. She was bouncing like a little girl with excitement.
Everest was nothing compared to seeing her.
I was skinny, long-haired, and wearing some very suspect flowery Nepalese trousers. I short, I looked a mess, but I was so happy.
I had been warned by Henry at base camp not to rush into anything “silly” when I saw Shara again. He had told me it was a classic mountaineers’ error to propose as soon as you get home. High altitude apparently clouds people’s good judgment, he had said.
In the end, I waited twelve months. But during this time I knew that this was the girl I wanted to marry.
We had so much fun together that year. I persuaded Shara, almost daily, to skip off work early from her publishing job (she needed little persuading, mind), and we would go on endless, fun adventures.
I remember taking her roller-skating through a park in central London and going too fast down a hill. I ended up headfirst in the lake, fully clothed. She thought it funny.
Another time, I lost a wheel while roller-skating down a steep busy London street. (Cursed skates!) I found myself screeching along at breakneck speed on only one skate. She thought that one scary.
We drank tea, had afternoon snoozes, and drove around in “Dolly,” my old London black cab that I had bought for a song.
Shara was the only girl I knew who would be willing to sit with me for hours on the motorway--broken down--waiting for roadside recovery to tow me to yet another garage to fix Dolly. Again.
We were (are!) in love.
I put a wooden board and mattress in the backseat so I could sleep in the taxi, and Charlie Mackesy painted funny cartoons inside. (Ironically, these are now the most valuable part of Dolly, which sits majestically outside our home.)
Our boys love playing in Dolly nowadays. Shara says I should get rid of her, as the taxi is rusting away, but Dolly was the car that I will forever associate with our early days together. How could I send her to the scrapyard?
In fact, this spring, we are going to paint Dolly in the colors of the rainbow, put decent seat belts in the backseat, and go on a road trip as a family. Heaven. We must never stop doing these sorts of things. They are what brought us together, and what will keep us having fun.
Spontaneity has to be exercised every day, or we lose it.
Shara, lovingly, rolls her eyes. "

― Bear Grylls , Mud, Sweat and Tears