Life doesn’t go in straight lines. It meanders like a river, which at times makes it interesting and enjoyable, but which can also send you plunging and swirling into chaotic and unchartered waters.

Until the age of 46, both of us were moving through life in the predictable and expected manner, carving out careers, raising children and taking few risks.

Claire, a Norfolk resident all her life, had brought up her family including three boys in the pretty villages around Kings Lynn. As a trained and talented graphic designer, she worked in a number of creative roles for local businesses and for the Norwich Evening News as a graphic journalist before setting up her own marketing firm with a colleague and friend. Working from home while her family was young, she later moved on to work with another Norfolk business leading their marketing team before taking up the role of managing director there. 

Ed meanwhile had zigzagged across the country during childhood and adult years, growing up in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, and working in Warwickshire, Devon and Lincolnshire. While working as a retail buyer and category manager he travelled extensively within Europe, the far east, and India, finally arriving at the same Norfolk business as Claire in 2015.

For different reasons, each of our marriages ended and we both saw an uncertain life ahead of independence and change. Neither of us was looking for, or expecting to find love again, and each of us presuming a more solitary existence. Each dealing with the loss of a parent, marriage breakdown, and the unforgiving pressures of senior roles at work, change was in the air for us both.

The river of life meandered once more and our new, similar circumstances drew us together. Bit by bit we realised something special could grow for us. And so, two people who had never envisaged a life together found each other, and in doing so, we found the love of our lives.

This is our story…

Claire Bretten and Ed Deane