The first night we met, neither of us had any idea we'd end up spending our lives running a gift shop together.

Today marks 26 years since Simon and I married on 24th June 2000. But our story started seven years before. It was September 1993 and our eyes quite literally met across a crowded room. The room in question was the bar at Ranmoor Hall of Residence on our very first night at the University of Sheffield. A few days later, I wrote home to Mum and Dad. I didn't mention Simon. What I did do was start my letter with a list of instructions on how they should be running the shop while I was away!

We’d only opened the shop a year before. I’d been involved from the very moment mum had the idea. Helping build the display units with my dad, helping choose the products with my mum. It felt magical as I unpacked our very first delivery, priced it up and placed it carefully on the shelves. It seemed like a miracle when I actually first sold something to a real life customer. I’d spent every spare minute i had helping out around my A Levels, before heading up to Sheffield, and then my first thought on writing home was the shop too. I‘d had absolutely no retail experience whatsoever up til we opened, but for some strange reason, a few months later, I seemed to think I was in a position to tell mum and dad how to do it properly!

Every university holiday I'd come home and throw myself into the shop, sorting, cleaning, tidying and creating displays. Before long, Simon was coming home with me and together we'd work well into the early hours, trying to make the shop just that little bit better before heading back to Sheffield when term started again.

Eventually we graduated and, in another strange coincidence, despite studying completely different subjects, found ourselves graduating in the very same ceremony.

That summer of 1996, Simon came to visit again. We worked together in the shop again. We stayed up until the early hours again. But this time, term never started again.

We began looking at graduate jobs but, in the meantime, we threw ourselves into the business. By then, Mum and Dad were ready for a different lifestyle. Mum was still commuting to Loughborough College each day and Dad had already retired from teaching. If they were going to continue living at Narborough Hall, and for Mum to eventually retire too, the shop needed to become a genuinely profitable business.

So Dad and I sat down and did the sums. The business had to be able to cover all the bills and all the maintenance and all the mortgage. I said I'd give it a year. Once again, for some strange reason, I seemed to think I was in a position to do it. Simon was willing to give it a go too.

With degrees in Archaeology & Prehistory (me) and Law (Simon), we didn't have the first clue about retail or business. We simply cared deeply about this shop and were prepared to work incredibly hard.

We took action. We learnt from what happened. We adjusted. We improved. Then we did it all again. Little by little, the changes began to add up. One year became another, and somehow those first tentative steps turned into a lifetime.

Choosing the shop also meant choosing a different kind of life. While our friends headed off into graduate careers with sacrosanct weekends and even holidays plus sick pay and most importantly, a predictable salary, we chose something a lot less certain. We chose to give up all of our weekends, and we chose to give up getting paid at all!

For over a year, we worked for nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. I justified it to myself by saying that lots of people our age were travelling around the world and not earning yet either. But I wasn't even leaving my parents’ front room! Not quite the same adventure, but it certainly was character-building.

Turned out making retail work was exactly as simple as I thought (buy stuff and sell it for more than you paid for it), but it was far from easy. There were dozens of late nights, decisions to deliberate over and risks along the way. But what we gained has been priceless. Together we've built something we're incredibly proud of. We've spent over three decades creating, improving and curating a place that we genuinely love, and that we hope brings a little joy to everyone who walks through the door.

Today, our daughter works with us too, becoming the fourth generation of our family to work in the business. Seeing her become part of the story is something we could never have imagined all those years ago.

More than thirty years later, we're still doing exactly what we did back then. We still take action. We still observe. We still adjust. We still improve. And yes, we still occasionally find ourselves working into the night on projects, but there’s nothing more satisfying than opening the doors the next morning and seeing customers respond right away.

Looking back, it's funny to think it all started with two teenagers meeting on their very first night at university. Neither of us could have imagined where we’d end up. We're incredibly grateful that it brought us here. Three years at Uni together followed by 30 years running a business together. Today, we’ve been married for 26 years and are proud parents to two absolutely amazing young people. Not a bad result from a chance shared glance and a moment of real connection.