Hello, I’d love a portrait of me and Joshua for our one year anniversary. Our story (skip ahead if you don’t need this and only want to know what to include): We met in 2013 when I was doing a Master’s Degree in Digital Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. I’m from Cape Town. Joshua (who comes from Leicester in the UK), was doing a PhD at Oxford at the time presented a module that was part of my course (he covered for someone else who was on maternity leave). I was staying at Goodenough College and he looked like an interesting guy, so I invited him as my guest to a faculty dinner at my college when the opportunity arose. There was an instant connection between us, but he had a girlfriend at the time and my heart was still broken from a previous relationship – so the timing just wasn’t right. We remained friends. I returned to South Africa later that year and we stayed in touch throughout the years. In July last year, he called and said he wanted to come visit me in South Africa. He arrived in September 2019. We pretended not to notice the chemistry for the first 4 days, but the timing was clearly better for us this time around (I think we were finally ready for each other) and the rest is history 🙂 He came back to South Africa again in December and stayed until March – during which time we realised that this is pretty serious. He went back home just before the SA lockdown, which kept us apart for 5 months. I have however recently managed to get a seat on a repatriation flight to the UK (it’s a very long story including loads of begging and a very expensive flight), but we are together again and my heart is whole. We’ve both met each other’s families and have survived being apart for 5 months. I think this is pretty forever-serious 🙂 Things you could include about Joshua: He loves cycling and building vintage bicycles. He loves music (we both do) and has various guitars, keyboards and other instruments. He used to be in a band. I’m attaching pictures of his favourite bicycle and guitar. He’s a sociologist and incredibly talented developer who is currently working for the University of Northwestern (remotely) building research software. He likes football (his team is Leicester City and their mascot is a fox). In Cape Town he played for the Badgers Football Club (a small social, mainly women’s club). He is very practical and likes doing things himself (for example, he built us an app called Macro Love that we could use to communicate during the pandemic – hence the name of the artwork), he is passionate about space (I think he would have loved to be an astronaut), and is interested in nearly everything (he spends hours watching YouTube developers about everything from how train engines are cleaned to how video games are developed). He’s also just a great guy who cares about the world and the environment. He lives in a tiny little village outside of Leicester called Billesdon. Things to include about me: This is harder 🙂 I started my career as a journalist and spent many years working as a journalist before pivoting to digital marketing. I currently have my own little digital marketing agency called Great Dane Digital and my biggest client is the Afrikaans TV Channel, VIA. I am very passionate about music, technology and travelling (who isn’t). I’ve become quite the plant propagator during lockdown, I like learning languages, I love running (especially on the promenade, but I’m so slow), reading, puns and spending time with my friends and family. Joshua loves Cape Town and is planning on moving to South Africa as soon as this pandemic ends and we are allowed. We both love music, technology, running together, hiking and travelling. Our one year anniversary is coming up on 27 September and Joshua’s birthday is in December. I’ve always been a fan of yours and Joshua loves art and design, so this will make an amazing present! Sorry for this loooooong ass brief. Please let me know if you have any questions or need anything else and please feel free to ignore all of the above and just do whatever you think will work 🙂 Thank you! I am extremely excited.
