Love Locks - 27 Years and Counting

I had seen love padlocks before, but never with the same intensity as in Paris...

Wickipedia, the source of all knowledge, says:

There are varied explanations for the origin of love padlocks. In Europe, love padlocks started appearing in the early 2000s.^[2] The reasons love padlocks started to appear vary between locations, and in many instances are unsourced. However, in Rome, the ritual of affixing love padlocks to the bridge Ponte Milvio can be attributed to the book I Want You by Italian author Federico Moccia, who later made it into the film-adaptation Ho voglia di te.^[3][4]
Similarly, an attribution for the bridge Most Ljubavi (lit. the Bridge of Love—now named after the love padlocks) in Serbia exists, where they can be traced to even before World War II. A local schoolmistress named Nada, who was from Vrnjačka Banja, fell in love with a Serbian officer named Relja. After they committed to each other Relja went to war in Greece where he fell in love with a local woman from Corfu. As a consequence, Relja and Nada broke off their engagement. Nada never recovered from that devastating blow, and after some time she died as a result of her unfortunate love. As young girls from Vrnjačka Banja wanted to protect their own loves, they started writing down their names, together with the names of their loved ones, on padlocks and affixing them to the railings of the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet.

27 years ago, in my fourth year of university, I met my husband.  We were besotted from the start and got engaged 2 months after we met and married 5 months later, on September 7th, 1985.

That seems like a long time ago....

Years pass and there are good times and there are bad times and there are boring times and there are funny times, but through it all, the times have been with him.

We are not, despite the speed with which we married (and for those of you "Anne" fans out there you will recall the infamous quote by L. M. Mongomery "Marriage in hast, repent at leisure"), a particularly romantic couple.  And we can be very hard-headed and disagree about many things (like one of us talks to much and one of us talks to little.  Guess which is which?) 

But we made two great adults and are still best friends.  And we share the same values.

So imagine my shock on our last morning in Paris when we went for a walk and he directed me covertly out to the Pont and handed me the lock with the two keys:

He wrote on the lock, we locked it to the bridge and through the keys into the Seine and kissed.  Pretty good after 27 years.  I left my heart in Paris and took it with me.  Quite an accomplishment.

We'll go back in another 27 and see how it's looking...  Happy Anniversary Barry!  Je t'adore!