Married at eighteen, by that time we had already been together for four years. Our imagination didn't go beyond living together, forever. Well, we have, ever since, and now we're 78. I'm grateful he's still passionate about me.

But then, he is a man of varied and many passions; a collector at heart, given to enthusiastic admiration and acquisitiveness about so much. Which doesn't bespeak a vacuum of knowledge of whatever it is he happens to be fascinated with; he makes it his business to know the whys and wherefores of what takes his imagination. He schools himself. And I admire him for it; his labyrinthine mind with its incredible files holding the data he has amassed.

He's a man for whom the emotional appeal of aesthetic speaks loud. And, like many men, he has a fascination for the mechanical. For the arts, in their appealing breadth and width encompassing humankind's creative genius.

Among the many things that fascinate him are timepieces; clocks and watches. He has acquired over the decades many types of both, some of which have made their way as gifts to family and friends. His passion for them has never been quenched, and so since it's his birthday, another one chugged into view and was agonized over.

I was rather surprised to be advised that eBay considered my password to have 'expired'. True, its been ages since I last used it. So, it was a simple enough matter of imagining a new one, and the formula came swiftly enough to mind in its timeliness.

And so, voila! the deed was done. A unique and amazing new timepiece will shortly arrive.

My passion for him remains unabated; his curiosity about the world around us, his cerebral functioning, his reasoning, and his capabilities hold me in eternal thrall.