‘Why didn’t I do it in the Maldives!?’ Coming back from the most amazing holiday we have ever experienced, with the most incredible women I’ve ever met kicked me into gear to propose. The plan took a few more months to spring into action as we navigated lockdown together.

The date was finally set, Sunday 8th November 2020, I planned to use her birthday as the cover story for the proposal. We had a nice Airbnb in the Cotswolds for the weekend and it would happen on Sunday morning. The plan was to stop at a fancy hotel for lunch and arrive early enough for a walk to a small bridge over a stream (picture-perfect setting), followed by a few extra days celebrating at the hotel.

Except there I was, driving off to the Cotswolds, ringless. Turns out buying a ring isn’t a quick process. Between my faffing over design and the post lockdown demand for diamonds, I wasn’t getting the ring in time. Lockdown was back, billed as a ‘circuit breaker’, so even if I did get it in time, we wouldn’t have been able to celebrate. Thanks for the advice Boris, I will rebook the hotel for the end of November and return to complete my unfinished business…..

A few weeks pass and the ring is finally ready. They tried to post it to me (Covid), which I point blank refused. Imagine answering the ‘oh what you ordered?’ to your overly curious, soon-to-be Fiancée! Instead, I jumped on my bike and told her I was off to the bike shop, returning with 1) unnecessary bike purchases 2) THE RING 3) a sourdough loaf & cinnamon roll distraction. The ring makes it inside, undetected.

Attempt 3

Ane & I have never spent a Christmas together (don’t worry, we will eventually). The idea of Ane spending her first Christmas in the UK forcibly was something she was not excited by and spend most of the Autumn repeatedly reminding me. When that reality became apparent she quickly backtracked, which presented me with a nice opportunity for a proposal attempt 3. She was clearly home-sick and Christmas in Norway is celebrated on the 24th of December, which seemed the perfect day to do it. We would be in Windsor and once again the plan involved a walk and a bridge (in Windsor Great Park). A great first Christmas together with my family celebrating.

On the last possible day they could, the Norwegian’s decided to open the border and remove quarantine hotels for Norwegians. The weekend turned out to be a mad 36 hours of flight booking, packing and scrambling to get Ane to the airport but she made it. Christmas was back to normal and I’m back to the drawing board.

Attempt 4 (My Favourite)

This one is solely her fault. Her parting words at Heathrow ‘I will be back for us to celebrate NYE together’. Perfect. Dinner at home > fireworks at midnight over London > down on one knee. I liked this plan and did start to get a bit carried away with making it special, private chef’s were allowed to do at-home dining & I was trying to get a Harpist on the terrace. Boxing day swings around and we are swapping Christmas stories, followed by ‘I’ve been thinking about NYE and the thing is, the restrictions here are much looser  -  I could actually go to a party at Kjersti and Luc’s. Do you mind if I stay in Norway?’

Attempt 4.5

This one barely counts, but we had talked about spending January in Norway if lockdown continued. I thought I should get a Norway proposal organised. We then realised that Norway was not going to let any Delta ridden Brits in any time soon!

The Newt

Over Christmas, I found this place. A Country Manor, with incredible gardens & the best cyder farm in the country — I struck gold. This was it - everything that Ane loves. I was cautiously trying to predict when lockdown would end. March seemed far enough away (how naïve of me!) and it was the first weekend available. The day before I intended to book it, The Newt announced ‘no new booking until cancelled trips have been re-booked.’ Fuck. Panic mode. The perfect place was slipping away from me.

They were really firm, I had to wait until all guests were re-booked. I tried everything. The routine started with taking the rubbish out, daily, and calling them out of earshot. I even found the CEO on Instagram and begged him to give me a room, still a polite no. No hard feelings Ed! After about a week, they said yes, I got a weekend over my Birthday — another great cover story. But it was 5 months away, should I really wait that long? It was a real struggle deciding what to do, but I decided it was worth it.

The plan was to keep it a surprise. In February, we are on the sofa and I get an email. Ane was looking for Airbnb’s to take me away for my Birthday and forgot that our Airbnb is linked to my email address… Crap probably should have thought about her trying to plan something. It was a good time to tell her I had a surprise weekend planned — she was so pissed off with me thinking it was a good idea to surprise HER on MY birthday she didn’t stop to question it, phew!

I had a good excuse to go to Somerset. Merlin Lebron-Johnson had opened a restaurant in Bruton (Osip, it’s great, go), we had been to his place in London a few times on Birthday’s etc. The plan was to go down and spend the night in Bruton, eat at Osip and stay in the hotel it’s attached to  -  keeping the Newt a nice surprise. I should also say it’s thanks to Merlin’s Instagram that I found the Newt (if you ever read this Merlin, Thank you, I owe you a beer!).

April rolls around, lockdown was uneventful. Boris announces that hotels won’t open until 17th May. Fuck. Back on bin duty, back on daily calls to the Newt — ‘Don’t call us, we will call you’. I finally get through, next available weekend — Mid September, SEPTEMBER! A year on from picking the ring! It’s fair to say that at this point, I lost my shit. I was begging the Newt to do something and thankfully they did, turns out they were about to open a new part of the hotel and would let me book ahead of time. Thank god

‘when does it open?’

‘The start of June’

‘Book us in for the first weekend’

We are back on track, end of story right? ring = check, hotel = check, lockdown over = check. I didn’t account for one sabotaging Fiancée…

Ane wanted to go to Greece and our game plan of ‘get out the country as soon as borders open’ had worked pretty effectively every other time. I agreed to book a week in Greece, on the condition that we didn’t have to quarantine upon return (I was supposed to be proposing on day 6 of quarantine). Greece goes on the amber list and with it, comes the need to quarantine.

‘Ok, I guess we will move it to later in the summer’

‘Let’s think about it first’

This argument lasted a week and was causing me a lot of stress, neither of us was backing down. Each day, I’d go for a walk and have an argument-coaching session with either Eleni or Shiv to prepare. It peaked at:

 ‘Why are you so hung up on Somerset, it’s just a restaurant, it isn’t going anywhere.’

She is reasonable, she just wanted to sit on a beach, and I can confirm that there is no good answer to that question when you hide a proposal. I tried everything ‘Greece will still be closed’ and ‘the Covid tests are going to cost £750’.. Nothing worked. I finally had to pull the mental health card and tell her that I had a lot of anxiety about travelling (this was partially true, I did have anxiety but it was proposal related). We cancel Greece, back on track! The compromise was to head down to Cornwall for the week before Somerset.

Ane & I spend a rare weekend apart. I was off for a weekend of hiking in the Lake District and she had Kamilla’s hen-do. Clearly, at the hen-do she was complaining about A) not going to Greece and B) having this stupid weekend in Somerset that had no plans (to her knowledge) other than the dinner.

Charlotte had a wonderful suggestion, her Auntie lives around there and had recommended this place with lovely gardens and cyder tasting. It’s called…. you guessed it…. The Newt! I’m driving up the motorway and the text comes through — ‘Babe, I’ve found this amazing place, they do cyder tasting, it’s called the Newt. Shall I book it?’

Fuck again. How am I going to get out of this one? Before I even have a chance to respond, the joint account flashes up ‘The Newt’. At this point, James was laughing ‘I know this is really painful right now, but in time you will realise how perfect this moment is’ and he was right. But that didn’t solve my immediate issue.

On Monday I call the Newt:

‘Hi, slight issue, she has found you and booked a cyder tasting. Can you cancel it please?’

‘We can’t see either of your names registered’

‘Strange, I saw the money come out — let me do some digging’.’

I call Ane:
’Hey Babe, so tell me about this place you’ve found?’

‘You are never going to believe it! You have to be a member to get into this place, but Charlotte is letting us borrow hers, so we are going to pretend to be Matt & Charlotte for the day and then we just need to pay for the tasting’

‘Great…..’

Back on with the Newt:

‘Soooo she’s not normally like this, but she has skirted your membership fees and booked it pretending to be her friend.’

Luckily, they saw the funny side and we laughed it off. The one issue I’m left with was that cyder tasting was going to be my excuse for taking Ane to the Newt on Friday and now she thinks she has booked us in for Saturday. Deal with that later.

Later in May, Eleni calls and tells me Mum randomly came out with ‘of course Greg will tell us if he is going to propose to Ane.’ She knew I was and also knew I was planning on keeping it a surprise. I thought it would be nice to turn up engaged! She tells me to get my arse down to Windsor and tell the parents. Luck was on my side that day, Dad pulled through and our new car was ready to be picked up, a perfect excuse to go to Windsor. That evening was hilarious, we planned (and argued) about half the wedding that Ane didn’t yet know she was having. Mum announced she had a secret Pinterest board ready to go for it.

The week of the proposal!

Well done, you’ve made it this far. We aren’t through the speed bumps yet.

We are packing, Ane says ‘It’s the beach and the Countryside, I’m only going to take outdoor stuff to wear.’ My repeated hints of ‘maybe you should take something nice too’ doesn’t get picked up. I parade shirts, loafers and blazers around, claiming we have been in PJ’s the whole of lockdown. She unwillingly puts a pair of heels and a few smarter outfits in the bag.

Cornwall, a 12-hour drive to get here, a sign of things to come. The weather was better than Greece (most likely an exaggeration) — end of May Bank Holiday heatwave and the rest of the UK has come down to Cornwall as well.

An unassuming Tote bag full of shoes hides the ring. In an effort to not look too precious about any particular piece of luggage, I let Ane carry all of them to and from the car. I was probably a bit too blasé.

The other thing I’d been a bit too blasé about, was asking Geir if I can marry his daughter. I didn’t want to do it too early encase he was sat on the secret for months but I was definitely pushing it at this point. I failed to find that perfect hour to sneak out unnoticed and left it to the last minute, in the end I told Ane I had to do some work and left her at the beach. Geir, to his credit, knew what was coming. ‘Greg asking to FaceTime me, no texts from Ane’ He made me wait 15 minutes and I finally got to let him into the secret. His conditions were clear and fair: 

“You can marry her as long as you learn Norwegian & take up Salmon Fishing.”

Phew, he didn’t include ‘become a Liverpool supporter’ in there! 

We are on the beach the day before the main event. Ane turns to me and says ‘Tomorrow, I think we should spend the WHOLE day on the beach and leave for Somerset as LATE as possible.’ Here we go again. At this point I was exhausted, creative excuses didn’t come to me. I reply with ‘you are going to be a pain if I don’t tell you, so tomorrow I’ve planned a surprise and we need to be in Somerset at 2pm’. This is the first time Ane claims to have sensed what might be coming. At least it was an easy agreement.

The Day of the Proposal

What a journey, it didn’t feel real that today was FINALLY the day. We get in the car, giving ourselves 4 hours to do a 2 and a half-hour drive. All those people in Cornwall were also trying to return home. ETA ticks up to 15 minutes before we are supposed to be there and steadily gets worse. Ane had Waze & Google maps open on both phones and is choosing to navigate me down roads that neither app is recommending! To her credit, we avoided further delays.

I was doing breathing exercises in the car trying to keep calm, whilst also trying to repeat & practice my speech for later that day so it came out smoothly and accurately. The white lie that I had come up with about the Newt was that she had spoilt my surprise of the Cyder Tasting and instead I’d changed it to a Garden Tour + a picnic (Picnic blanket & tote bag serving as the perfect vessel to hide the Ring in).

We arrive spectacularly late, the Garden tour had finished. I say, let’s go for our own tour and have the picnic regardless. I did start to wonder what time it closed because we were now in late afternoon territory. We park the car, after driving non-stop and head to the entrance.

The final hurdle. To get into the garden’s of this place, you either need to be a member or staying at the Hotel. To Ane knowledge, we were neither, but the team had left a note saying ‘Greg Koumoundouros — Engagement. Let them in.’

“Hi there, we are a bit late and missed the Garden tour, we thought we’d come regardless and have lunch.’

‘Excellent, could I please see your membership card’

(Remember, Ane is standing next to me)

‘Oh, we aren’t actually members, but it’s ok, I’ve spoken to your colleagues and there is a note explaining the situation.’ PLEASE PLEASE pick up on that hint. Nothing.

‘I’m really sorry sir, you have to be a member to enter.’

By some miracle, Ane interjects with ‘Do you mind if I use the Bathroom’

Off she goes — how lucky is that! By this point, I can see the bloody note on the desk in front of this lady and point at it. She flusters.

‘Oh my God, there is a Ring, he is going to propose!’ I honestly don’t know how I would have got through this if Ane hadn’t gone to the bathroom.

We are in.

The rest is honestly a bit of a blur, I had been through so much to get here. Far too stubborn and persistent about this being the place, but it was finally happening. We get to the picnic bar — everything sold our bar a cheese and onion tart & a sausage roll. ‘We will take it.’

The gardens come and go before me, I’m focused on what happens next. We make our way up to the Molehill, I had scoured every inch of this place on Google Maps and let Ane pick where she’d like to eat from 2 options. She picked the best one. The view was the most quintessential countryside scene you could imagine, with a telescope at the top to enjoy all of the tiny details.

We set up the picnic blanket in the long grass, the family that followed us up the hill have now disappeared. I knocked my drink over (Great, nothing to cheers with after then!). It turns out, lying flat on your back isn’t an ideal set-up for a proposal. I also had the issue of a well-wrapped Ring at the bottom of the bag. A large Kestrel flies over us — I point it out and Ane follows its flight path over the hill and gives me a few seconds to move the ring under the bag so I can grab it easily.

‘Let’s take a photo, it’s perfect up here’ Ane springs to her feet. That happened a bit too quickly, I hadn’t mentally prepared but it was go time. She starts walking towards the edge for a photo, I take 2 steps forward and get down on one knee. Please turn around, I pray — shuffling forward as much as I can (white jeans were a bad choice). She finally spins around.

‘OH MY GOD, YOU ARE PROPOSING, WOOOOOOOO’ literally at the top of her voice!

Shaking and truly unable to muster any words, I finally say about a 10th of the planned speech and ask her ‘will you marry me?’