It was time, I decided, to fix my marriage. I realised that I was becoming a laughing stock to the people I thought were my brothers, people I thought would be there for me when I needed them.

I called the counsellor, and lucky enough she was open for the week, and she was free until Monday. So I took that week starting at ten O’clock. I took my blazer and went to a manager, and told him, and then he gave me five days’ leave, because he knows what I was going through and he wanted me to fix it before I messed it up.

I rushed home as I really wanted to fix my life, and to fix my marriage. I got home and jumped out of the car, and I flew inside the house, “Baby, baby.”

She showed up, and she was shocked and surprised, because she never saw me at home at that time of the day.

“Is everything ok?” she asked.

“My love, now I know what I want. What I want is you, and what I need to do is to revive our relationship again, I want to bring our life back to normal, so I’ve decided we consult the marriage counsellor and lucky enough, we’re starting today at ten O’clock, as in ninety minutes my love, so I advise you to get ready because we need this first session, I really need it.”

She saw how serious and willing I was to make things up for us, she smiled and the tears were falling down her face.

“Baby, I’m really glad to see that you are trying to make things right between us, and I want you to know that I will support you and be here for you in each and every step we’re taking.”

And it’s where the camping idea came from, in our sessions, Pam the counsellor noticed that my wife was complaining about our time – that I don’t give her enough time at all, we didn’t do exciting things like we used to do before. I was afraid to lose some childhood friends and be left out from the things the guys did.

The counsellor decided to give us the task first and then she will continue with counselling when we back from camping. We loved it, because we never camped before, and so we went shopping for all the camping equipment we were going to need for our first camping adventure.

We used the list she gave us that have all the things we must have for camping. It’s what we busy doing right now. We are preparing for camp out.

“Babes what do we have in this rucksack?” I asked her.

“It’s boots, rain coats, blankets and camping bed,” she was reading from the list we received from Pam, the marriage counsellor.

“Oh we also need toiletries, towels and toilet rolls,” and she packed all the things we needed.

“And that’s it, this one is full too, we good to go.”

She was excited about our trip, her face and her energy said it all. She passed the bags to me, and I packed all the camping equipment in the van.

“I do have the torch, gas lamp, kettle with three-foot pot and my dagger for protection. I always carry this everywhere I go.”

She looked at it and laughed, “Really? Of all the weapons in the world, the bush knife? Come on.”

I put my dagger on the side pocket of the rucksack, and got in the van and drove off with my wife by my side.

“Did you call Pam?” I asked.

“Yes, and she supposed to send me the location, of where we’re supposed to go.”

She pulled out her smartphone and checked the messages and found the recent message from Pam.

“Oh there it is.”

She pasted the location on the vehicle’s navigation, and it showed us the destination.

“And it’s not that far from here you see.”

I looked and saw that it was showing 65 minutes drive.

She said, “So we’re not that far hey! Oh it’s my first time ever that I do this, camping!”

She screamed out with excitement, I laughed because it was pleasing to see her so happy like this.

She looked at me, “Why are you laughing, did you ever camp before?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, many times with my family, and I also did it with my friends.”

She was annoyed the moment I mentioned the word friends, she folded her arms and said, “Oh, friends, and you never told me about it?”

“Oh no, my love, that was long time ago, before we even met. You know what, let’s drop this thing.”

***

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