Fordyce Maxwell: We'd never made a big deal of anniversaries, but Paris was the last straw By FORDYCE MAXWELL Published on Sunday 8 April 2012 11:00 ISUGGESTED to Liz that we mark our wedding anniversary by watching the Dream Team at home to Clyde. Our brief discussion of that suggestion recalled a recent exchange with granddaughter Ebba when walking back from nursery. "There's the lake," she said. No, that's a river.  It's a lake. No, a lake stays in one place. A river flows from one place to another. That's a river. She was patient: "Look, there's two choices. And I say it's a lake. Welcome, Lake Tweed, and I plan to stick around until she goes into politics. Meantime, with my tongue-in-cheek suggestion about supporting the afflicted getting the treatment it deserved, we spent the day at the Alnwick Garden. It was a happy few hours. Given our track record for anniversaries, it was one of the best. On our first anniversary Liz had flu. On the second I was sowing barley until midnight. On a dozen subsequent ones we were usually lambing, had sows farrowing or I was out late on a tractor. On one when we weren't working and managed to arrange a meal at a recommended local hotel. We were the only diners apart from a sales rep who coughed and drank in a corner of the cheerless room. It was laugh or cry. I'm pleased to say we laughed, only slightly hysterically. The final blow was our 25th, a romantic few days in Paris. That was the year of the foot-and-mouth epidemic and in the six weeks before we flew to Paris I'd averaged 90 hours a week reporting on slaughtered animals, distraught farmers, panicking politicians and funeral pyres. The pain in a shoulder that I attributed to an insect bite as we drove to the airport turned out to be shingles. I spent five days in Paris taking painkillers to keep me upright for half the day then sleeping a feverish 12 hours, when we had imagined dining out and strolling by the Seine in moonlight. I'd almost forgotten - the Seine was flooded and the boat trip we'd planned was also off the list. We'd never made a big deal of anniversaries anyway - strange, that - but decided Paris was the last straw. Since then we might decide to go out on the day itself, if we remember or, more usually, have a pleasant meal in. But Alnwick Garden was a good idea. It's an early stage of the gardening year, but the recently planted cherry orchard was just coming into bloom, and in the walled garden a mature white cherry - called, touchingly, The Bride - was in stunning full bloom and worth the visit on its own. I took a photograph of Liz beside it because the same applies to her.