Tinkerbell and the Croc

It sounds like a Disney film doesn't it? But actually it's the start of the story of how Dan, my boyfriend and I met.


I love telling the story of how we met. For some reason it has that air of fairytale about it and people are always in awe when we tell them (I say we, I actually mean I. He doesn't like to shout from the rooftops how soppy he is!)
When I mentioned in my earlier blog that I met a young man in Australia who completely changed my idea of love, I wasn't kidding. He turned it upside down and shook it very hard!

After Uni, as you know, I decided to go travelling and never on this earth thought I would ever meet anybody. The great thing about backpacking is you meet thousands of people, literally, from all different walks of life, different backgrounds, different religions, different countries. But miraculously in amongst all of this you occasionally find people you want to spend time with whether that be a work colleague (Rach Sears), a roomate (Katie Fowler) or a young man that goes by the name of Dan.

We met in the middle of a busy, smoky, drunken Irish pub in the middle of Darwin, the Northern Territory in Australia, funnily enough in the same pub I worked in at the time. We had this random guy sitting between us and we ended up talking around him for the best part of an hour until he got bored and walked off.


Anyway, to cut a long story short, we became inseparable for the time we stayed in Darwin. When it was time for me to move on, I couldn't do it so I changed my plans so we could spend another three weeks together. Soon enough, it was time for Dan to move on. After I waved him off on the shuttle bus (which was way cheaper than a taxi... and we were skint backpackers), I cried buckets.

When my visa expired after a year, I had to return back to the UK and Dan and I still spoke every day. His visa didn't expire for another 6 months and rightly so, wanted to stay and enjoy the rest of his trip. It was hard. The thought of not seeing him for 6 months was awful. I had no idea if we would last- we wanted it to so much- but we were backpackers. The words holiday and fling come to mind but we persevered and managed to do it. But one day about 5 months in, I couldn't do it anymore. I was only one month off seeing him but it was too hard. I think my family and friends had started to think he was imaginary- that it was all in my head and I'd had enough. I sent a massive long message to him saying to bloody hurry up or I was off!

One night I was on a night out with the girls and at stupid o clock in the morning, I decided to call Dan. What with the time difference it was their lunchtime- but there was no answer which was odd. I joked that he must have come back early.

And it turns out I was right. He'd only gone and cut his trip short by a month to fly home from Australia to surprise me...on Valentines Day. It's stuff you just couldn't make up.

I can now wholeheartedly state that I am, for once in my life, completely in love. Soppy as that may sound, it's true. He completely turned what I thought was love on it's head. I've had various relationships in the past but nothing has even come close to how I feel for him. It will be three years this June since we met in that smoky, drunken Irish pub in Darwin and you know what, I think we'll probably go back there one day.
Becci and Dan. Tinkerbell and the Croc!