It's been 53 years since Nambucca Valley's Eddie Addison first laid eyes on Enid Gorely.
"I lived at the very top of Kennaicle Creek and she lived at the bottom. So we always got the first go at the water," Eddie said.
Enid was good friends with Eddie's wife Joan, and likewise, Eddie had a great respect for Cyril Gorely.
After Cyril passed away a few years ago, and Joan not 12 months after that "Enid was getting pretty lonely, and so was I," Eddie said.
When a bus tour out west turned sour for Eddie, being the only solo voyager on board, he jumped at the cursory offer to accompany Enid on her next adventure.
"I thought phwoar! Enid Gorely, Wow!" he said.
Needless to say the pair hit it off: "the next trip after Tasmania I said to Noelene the organiser - 'well, we don't want twin share anymore'," Eddie said with a wink.
Last October the pair of lovebirds decided to make things official. Eddie was over the moon when Enid accepted his proposal.
"I couldn't believe my luck. I wanted to shout it from the mountain tops that I've got the best looking girl around," he said.
He wasn't kidding - at the Ulmarra Muster a few days later, he did just that, as town crier.
While she wasn't so keen on that very public announcement, Enid was head over heels for her fiancé.
"He makes me laugh. I don't think I've ever laughed so much in all my life. And he accepts me as I am," Enid said.
"What are you talking about 'as I am' - you're bloody lovely," Eddie interjects.
"She's a very kind person and she only sees the good in people. If she saw more, she wouldn't be taking me, that's for sure."
In February this year, and at the age of 91, Enid married her "toy boy" - 86-year-old Eddie.
Their families were behind the couple one hundred percent; Enid's daughters were bridesmaids, and Eddie's sons groomsmen.
She wore a champagne-coloured dress, and Eddie a red bow-tie.
And Enid was "given away" by her brother, Myron Kelsey, whose permission Eddie sought before he popped the big question.
"And I said 'even if there's a flood, you have to come to the wedding'," Eddie said.
Sydney was being inundated with floodwaters when Eddie married Joan in 1954. And the day Enid and Cyril were planning to tie the knot in 1950, Nambucca was hit with the biggest flood it's ever faced.
"And the way the weather's going that could happen all over again. Perhaps it's a good omen," Eddie said in the lead-up to the wedding.
Luckily the weather gods smiled upon the couple this time around.
However, rain or shine, there was no escaping the deluge of love.
About this story, by Mel Leigh Dee
I could have chinwagged with Enid and Eddie all day long. They both have a wicked sense of humour, and I left with a sore belly from all the laughter. I was particularly inspired by their attitude to life. While some might question whether its worth the bother and money to remarry at their age, they were defiant in their resolve to honour their love and 'make it official'. Plus Enid looked damn good in that dress!
"Everyone always tells you you're too old for things, but they're wrong - you're never too old to do anything," Eddie said to me.
I won't say that love made them young again, because I honestly believe that these two souls are ageless.
Mel Leigh Dee
Mel is a journalist at the Guardian News and is based in Macksville.
Mel is a journalist at the Guardian News and is based in Macksville.
