According to the website https://pridedates.co.uk/, Salisbury Pride was on the 28th June 2025. I was sure that I’d also seen it on Facebook.

I asked my husband if he’d like to go with me, or if he wanted to go on his own. As usual, I asked him a day or so before the event. He didn’t think that it was on this weekend and asked me to check. I checked. And checked again – yep! It was on!

Here’s the website: https://www.salisburypride.org/festival-info

The location: Bell Tower Green, which looks to be right by Salisbury’s magnificent cathedral.

Parking up, we walked the short distance to the cathedral, it’s spire poking up high above the city’s buildings. There’s actually a local law that prohibits building shutting that might obscure the view of the cathedral – and with just cause: it almost glistens in the bright daylight.

We reached the green next to the cathedral. No Pride.

The husband didn’t huff and puff as he usually would. Instead we slipped straight up Plan B: find anywhere to eat!

It seems that I, and whoever set up https://pridedates.co.uk/ both picked up on Salisbury Pride without thinking that there might be more than one Salisbury!

In the UK, we know that all our cities seem to be uniquely named. Just to compound the confusion, the location mentioned on the Salisbury North Carolina Pride website also matched the name of the location in the UK’s Salisbury!

Live and learn, eh?

That was easy enough as Salisbury has a number of good eateries. We quickly picked one and he had a fry up and I had Huevos Rancheros. It was a bit of a mis-selling because there was only one egg. Tasted good though.

Over lunch we chatted in an almost relaxed state. I had a lot of anxiety still, as did he (I think), but it was so lovely to be talking about things that were important (like feeling good in ones own body, shared experiences, and the kind of guys we fancy), without feeling like the world was about to end.

This was even though it really does seem that our marriage is over and out conversation seemed to support that assertion. It felt ok that.

After lunch, we wandered to the Saturday market. Every other stall was selling cakes – and we didn’t buy any!

We both felt the need for a coffee, so into a wonderfully air-conditioned Coffee #1 we went.

We were served by a beautiful trans girl and I chattered about my  mistake over Pride. It seems that I want the only one!

Again, in the coffee shop, my husband and I talked quietly. This time about how relationships both give us a reference to our identity, much like coordinates on a map. Bit they can also constrain us, like flies in a spider’s web.

My husband feels lost though – Relationships give us coordinates, like longitude and latitude for identity. But they can also trap us – like flies in a web. My husband feels lost now. No family, no friends, and now, not even me. Our relationship helped him know who he was..

While my husband was in the loo, his phone rang. It was somebody from the crisis team calling to confirm an appointment the next day. I already knew about it, so I confirmed the details. He was happy that I’d done that.

After our coffee, we returned to the cathedral green, where we sat under a maple tree and listened to the wind racing through the leaves. I could hear it start at the car end of the park and approach where we lay. It was strong, but welcome in the heat. It did, however, lift the skirt if my kilt up!

We didn’t talk. Now, just enjoying the quiet, occasionally punctuated by the four note Westminster chimes of the bell tower.

It was a peaceful day. Sad and happy. I have missed this kind of day out with my husband.

I said to my husband “days like this are special and rare,” and I felt teary as I said it.