Seven days in the sun

Round 37: January 2045 (Summer)

Josh Royce-Nihill and Elspeth Romilly are 31. 

(Kit is 85, Max is 58, Zaria is 57, Sophie and Connor are 32 and Oliver is 28)

Narrated by Josh Royce-Nihill

Elspeth’s company, Hubris Games, started off the year by moving into their new offices. She says their building is absolutely amazing.

She really loves going to work now. They were all working on top of each other until now but she’s now got some space.

Honestly, I’m jealous. I should have studied coding so I could work there too.

At my work, we’ve got a coffee machine, desks and computers and that’s about it. Elspeth has a gym and nap pods.

She’s a lot happier coming home from work these days, as well as happier in general.

Elspeth really struggled after her mum’s death but she’s a lot better these days.

I know she still misses her but it’s not all consuming like it was right after.

We’ve been pretty busy lately, getting settled in our new house. It’s fairly small and the garden is completely bare because we can’t afford to do anything with it yet…but it’s ours.

We had no real intention of buying so soon but we started looking casually and this place came up. It seemed perfect, so we jumped on it.

We’re in the suburbs now, where I grew up and where my family still is. Visits are far more frequent now.

My parents come over but Grandma probably comes over more often. She doesn’t work, so she gets bored during the day. I have Mondays and Tuesdays off, so she usually drops by.

It’s mildly annoying when I want to spend the morning catching up on football games I’ve recorded or something but I try not to get too irritated at her.

She’s just excited that I’m within walking distance again. If Jessica ever moves back to the suburbs, she’ll do the same thing with her.

I am glad we bought, finally. We were content in our unit but it felt like it was time to do the grown-up thing and get our own place.

We were the last of our friends to buy a place and are now the last to not be married yet. Charlie and Camilla got married years ago and Oliver and Sophie just hit one year.

We see them a lot, because they live right across the street from us.

Most of our friends still don’t have kids but that’s quickly changing too. Connor and Lila could be meeting their baby any day now.

She’s not due for another three weeks but babies don’t always come right on time, so Connor is ready to go whenever he needs to.

He’s pretty nervous about becoming a father. He has six nieces and nephews, plus another three on Lila’s side, but he doesn’t feel that’s prepared him in the slightest.

It has all got me thinking about marriage though and I’ve decided to ask Elspeth to marry me.

It never really occurred to me that we wouldn’t get married one day - I always imagined we would. It was just a matter of making the decision to do it.

I was going to ask shortly before her mother died and then it didn’t seem like the right time. But it does seem like the right time now.

I took her to a local restaurant, Zoe’s. It’s not super fancy but it’s one we both really like anyway.

We finished our meals and then I just pulled the ring out and asked her.

Me proposing wasn’t totally unexpected - we’ve discussed getting married before.

But it was still exciting for both of us to actually make it official. It's been a long time coming.

We told our families basically right away. When we visited mine, Dad broke out the champagne to celebrate.

I don’t think anyone is more excited than Grandma though. She’s been waiting for me and Elspeth to get engaged for a while now.

She’s already at us to set a date, so I guess that’s the next thing she’s going to be on our backs about!

Fortunately for Grandma, Elspeth and I aren’t planning to drag our engagement out for too long but I promised she’d be the first to know when we decide.

We haven’t got an exact date yet but we’re looking at November or December. That should be enough time for us to get everything in order.


Notes:

• Title is from Seven Days in the Sun by Feeder
• So, there are nap pods at Elspeth’s working, though they weren’t featured in the lot tour. But I tested them out while Elspeth was there and apparently, you can’t nap on community lots! The same chair works fine at home. So I’ll have to track down a mod, because it’s annoying me too much that the option isn’t available, even though I’ll probably never use it.
• I decided to move Elspeth and Josh on a bit of a whim and decorated this place pretty quickly. There is one empty bedroom for an eventual baby, so they can stay put for at least a while. 
• Kit has had the “Relative Gets Engaged” want for forever. She still has it, so I assume she fulfilled it when Josh got engaged and then rolled it right back up again. Never satisfied! She also has a persistent want for "Relative Gets Married", so she really wants to see this wedding too. Kit also still wants another grandchild, even though her youngest child is 48. Remotely possible but vanishingly unlikely! 
• I'm still deciding on a date too but I'm thinking November is probably more likely than December. I'm trying to spread out my wedding anniversaries and I only have three in November. More than likely, there'll be a little mini-update on Elspeth and Josh in April, when Elspeth turns 31.