Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34Jim & Sofia’s Story “When I first met Sofia, we were sitting on the roof terrace of a pub in Brighton with lots of friends; I was asking her about a bangle she was wearing that had an engraving on it. Sofia studied poetry at University and the engraving was the first line of a poem by GM Hopkins - “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame”. To be honest, I had no idea what it meant, but I just thought that sentence had a beautiful rhythm to it. It really stuck with me. A couple of years later, when I was thinking about proposing, I did some research into it and loved the idea that the first few lines of the poem describe creatures and objects that are different, but bound by something totally out their control. I don’t think it was Hopkins’ intention, but isn’t that just a beautiful metaphor for love? So, when caught in the sunlight, a kingfisher’s plumage appears to catch fire much like a dragonfly’s iridescent wings do. When it came to getting a ring to propose with it seemed to make sense to get one each, one with a kingfisher engraved and the other with a dragonfly. She said yes, and we’ve barely taken them off since! Sofia studied poetry at University and the engraving was the first line of a poem by GM Hopkins - As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame “ ” 22