We just celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary.    We were sent 9 cards (how odd!) and we were able to go out for a Chinese meal at a local restaurant which has become our favourite.  Crispy duck, mmmmmmm!  We also had a great gift from a dear older friend which I thought would be fun to share.    

Every year we've known her she has taken a lot of pleasure in finding us something relating to the 'name' of the anniversary.  So one year we had a bag of sugar: Sugar anniversary (6th), and another I remember getting a pair of purple woollen gloves - very nice, but odd in August!: Wool anniversary (7th)

Last year she told us she was looking forward to this year, but we weren't to look it up!  Amazingly I managed not to.  (Sometimes being able to 'Google' something so easily is a pain!)

So, to this year and according to her list, which I see disagrees with one I just looked up!, the 9th anniversary is Copper.

We had 4 gifts which we had to open in a certain order.

The first was this:

Coppers! (For those not in the UK we have 1 and 2 penny coins, which we call coppers as that is what they used to be made of.  Now they are made of copper-plated steel.)

The second was this vase, made of copper.

The third was called 'More coppers!' and included 3 cut out photos and this lovely 'Camberwick Green' 'Copper'.

The fourth box contained a brand new penny.  It's rather special because after nearly 40 years the Royal Mint have updated the design on English coins and this is one of the very first in circulation.

This is the 'official' look of all the new coins.

What a wonderful thoughtful gift.  I know she will have had so much fun thinking it all up, and we had a great time opening it all!