“I just wondered what Sara Jessica Parker smelled like these days,” he said as he sniffed a bottle at our local perfume counter.

Really?

He sings in a choir, works at a vineyard and can eat two whole tubs of chocolate ice cream after midnight on any week night, often many week nights.

In diverse ways, he’s perfection.

His capacity for kindness is on a par with his gargantuan chocolate-eating skills.

Where once there was a bag of chocolate bullets, all I ever find is a single bullet while vacuuming on any Sunday morning.

Where once there was a wheel of cheese, the master of illusion created a Trojan cheese…unwrap and all that was left was one-third of a small wheel, carefully repackaged to look like ‘new’.

(That effort took my breath away – because it was so bloody ingenious.)

“Aha, I see you’ve got a secret stash,” he said last week when he caught me hiding a jar of strawberry jam behind the bicarbonate soda and chicken stock.

I hide jam because he can also, spoon by spoon, eat a whole jar of raspberry or strawberry jam over two nights.

And, he can always find new ways to brighten my day.

On Wednesday my phone rang at 6pm from a number I didn’t recognise.

Mystery Man: “Hello, Danielle, I’m sorry I’m calling but I need your help? I’ve got a little problem.”

Self “who does this sexy voice belong to?” Embarrassed, I didn’t ask, but I was quietly thinking it was an innovative sales pitch.

MM: “It’s a long story and it’s capped off a busy day. Can you come and get me?”

Self: “Your voice is familiar, I’m sorry who am I speaking to?”

MM: “It’s me, Richard (husband)”.

I’ve been married to that sexy voice for 25 years.

“Your voice sounds different (like a younger, even sexier you), whose phone are you using (and, can you keep it?)?”

He was up at the vineyard, where a heavy door had closed and shut him out, leaving his phone, wallet and keys locked inside the cellar. He’d waved down a passerby to make his “mystery” call.

When I arrived almost an hour later, his hands were purple but his smile was broad.

He’d found one of his very favourite things; had picked and eaten a swag of blackberries.

By 10pm we had seconded a spare key, driven back to the vineyard, collected his car and it occurred to me that he would never go hungry.

I’ve come up with a jaunty little French name for the new hotel that will be built in Cimitiere Street. I call it En Tas de Merde, because it’s big and brown.

Last Monday Launceston City alderman left their mark on our streetscape when they approved the hotel’s development.

I’d say the hundreds of people who come to the Harvest Market every Saturday do more for the Northern brand and visitor experience than En Tas de Merde, which will be built on the same site.

A building similar to En Tas de Merde was built in my home town, regional NSW, about five years ago.

There, hotel developers demolished a 1940s garage adjacent to a Federation police station, across the road from a park and opposite a pretty country courthouse for similar hotel and an Americana barbecue joint.

Perhaps Launceston is on the cusp of an economic boom?

Perhaps there will be many new buildings?

Perhaps we need to look at the streets of Burnie and Devonport and ask ourselves if it’s wise to destroy our internationally-regarded historic streetscape?

Merde!