It's been an amazing year - the hardest of years imaginable but an amazing one. Not least because I never imagined I would be around to celebrate our first anniversary.
Thanks to Theresa May and her racist immigration policy, we wasted a whole year fighting the Home Office to stop them deporting her. A year when we couldn't travel or get married because they seized Robyn's passport.
When we won our appeal they put all kinds of obstacles in our way; when we managed to set the date we then had to postpone it for a month for The Home Office to make 'further enquiries'.
All of which meant that we had just five weeks to arrange everything - to book the registry office, the venue, sort out the cake and everything else.
So if you made it there thank you for coming. If you are one of the many people who couldn't make it because of the short notice, you know who to blame - Thesesa May.
And we did everything ourselves; from setting the tables at the venue and clearing up at the end of the night to buying the flowers early in the morning at New Covent Garden Market.
And the night before Robyn made up the bouquets and the button holes in the kitchen;
Here's a rather nervous looking groom waiting at The George for the bus to come and pick everybody up;
I polished up reasonably well, if I say so myself.
And here's our Routemaster bus and the tickets we made ourselves;
On the steps of Windsor Guildhall;
A dreamy picture of Robyn at the reception;
It was an exhausting day - I couldn't do it now. My only regret is that there was no chance for us to get a holiday afterwards because very soon I got too ill to go away ever again.
But I could have no regrets. I am the luckiest man in the world that Robyn was prepared to marry me. Marrying someone with cancer is no fun.
We have a few plans for today but whether anything works out for us - who knows.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
Wow, were we tired! It'll be a while before we get the wedding photos and I wasn't taking many myself, for a change.
We spent the day going round returning stuff, getting back deposits and paying some of the bills.
We spent lots of money and it looked good as you can see;
But maybe not as much money as we could have - it's been a struggle all the way.
Our friend Sherin took this picture while I was waiting for the bus to come. I look fairly ill, which shouldn't be surprising because we hadn't had a lot of sleep for over week. We did a lot of rushing about, we collected people from airports at all hours.
We both had upset stomachs, I was on antibiotics for my toenails which have been blasted by the Chemo and last week I had yet another dose of Chemotherapy.
Worst of all, I had no idea whether the bus was going to come for everybody or not and I was a bit frantic.
But I look fairly dapper, if I say so myself.
We spent a lot of time in charity shops over the last few months, trying to find a suit that was right. We even found a charity shop in Woking full of morning suits at very reasonable prices but neither of us wanted me in tails. I tried on some waistcoats but I never used to wear them anyway.
Eventually I got this suit for £17-99p at the Oxfam in Maidenhead - the day I did the article about the homeless protest organised by 'SL5', people who had grown up in the Maidenhead postal district but couldn't afford to live there after their shelter had been shut down.
We chose a colour for our wedding and didn't realise that it was actually "Bianchi Green" until it was too late - that's the special colour of a cycling team and very difficult to find in real life.
Imagine my surprise when I walked into a charity shop in Ashford and found a brand new silk tie in its bag and exactly the right colour for £2.
I wanted a proper formal hat - mine aren't right - and I really needed a new hat.
So I got mine down for £10 off the list price, at Camden Market after a right old haggle, because I didn't want anyone to think I was just a silly tourist now, did I?
Somehow it was right to buy my Walter White hat at Camden which means so much to me.
I'm wearing some brand new Doc Martens, with steel toecaps, which I bought five or six years ago for £5-00 - so they came in handy after all.
In real life, a button hole seems to cost £16 if it's for a wedding, less if it's not. We did 3 which more less covered the cost of all the flowers; the bouquet, remembrance flowers, corsage, centrepieces. They all came from New Covent Market in the early hours of Saturday morning and have filled the house with heady scents ever since.
Then there was the reception;
The sashes on the chairs came from a material shop in Southall, and we found the right colour nestling among the exotic colours and shimmering textures of sari materials.
We had to have candles and they were supplied by Tesco's.
The holders came from a million charity shops and kind of represent our lives over the last 6 months; usually bought while I was trying to get a suit.
Part of my problem in finding a suit is that it hurts so much trying them on in the changing room. I can really only do it once a trip - it's agony.
So most of the time I just walked on without trying out the possibles.
But each time I'd see a blue glass candlestick or a pretty vase and pick it up.
The square vase I bought from IKEA years ago when I bought a red and a blue one together because they looked like a three dimensional Mondrian painting.
There were three old bottles I found on beaches which had been sandblasted frosty by the waves and the wind but, miraculously, hadn't broken.
There were old 'Harvey's Bristol Cream' Sherry bottles that were my Mum's but I'd kept them because they were pretty.
There were bottles we bought when we went to Silchester, there was a 1930's bottle that was exposed by the floods of 2014 and a very old spirit bottle that may have belonged to my grandfather.
I wanted to put sea glass all around but I didn't have enough. But I had always wanted to work with molten glass and never had a chance. So over the years, I'd bought a number of bags of the glass pebbles people use for decoration from charity shops and there were enough to put them around everywhere.
Robyn made the place cards, just like she made the tickets for the bus. She also made coasters as a gift for everyone.
We searched, we haggled, we bargained.
We did everything ourselves.
Like I say, it's been a struggle but it meant that every part of our wedding was part of us.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
Robyn always wanted to have 'Mehndi' for her wedding, so last night the Mehndi artist came round;
It's part of Hindhu culture, a small cone of Henna is squeezed out to make out the pattern. You have to leave it to dry or overnight and then the henna leaves a pattern that lasts for a few weeks.
It's very intricate;
Robyn was fairly restrained because none of us were that keen but it's a really beautiful design;
And a reminder of the wedding for a few weeks after it's all over.
Meanwhile, there's 24 hours to go. We're both ill, I'm exhausted and more than a little stressed out. The last person has been collected from the airport, everyone is in a hotel or crammed into the house.
There are still things to sort out!
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
We had a busy day - we sorted out three things and then discovered about seven or eight new things we need to sort out to add to the list.
This was quite fun, though;
It's a huge struggle and, in theory, the government still has two days to 'interview' us. They can still stop us getting married.
Not many people have to fight like we've had to.
We're going ahead anyway!
As you can see, we were at a bakers!
There's a lot to do before the 28th June!
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
Robyn's been busy;
There are ribbons involved;
She's making wedding invitations;
It was all going to be a lot more complicated but I got more ill and then The Home Office made us cancel, so we're going for simple now.
Right now, the venue is booked and we have somewhere for the reception.
The 'Wedding' will take place at 3pm on 28th June 2016 at Windsor Guildhall and you are all very much invited.
Apart from anything else there's plenty of room - so come along! Everybody (apart from Theresa May) is welcome.
And if they won't let us get married?........ we'll be doing it ourselves.
The reception will be a smaller affair and you need an invite for that but at the moment there's a lot still to be arranged.
Meanwhile we spent most of yesterday up at Hospital again for my pre operation assessment - I'm having another operation next Friday. It's minor but unpleasant and it's not exactly what I needed right now.
Wish us luck!
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
