A wedding can bring out the best and worst in people and families, something I have experienced first-hand on many occasions. It seems that there is some kind of chemical reaction that changes people when they have a wedding or participate in a wedding. It can be hilarious or extremely sad, but, rarely, any wedding goes down without some drama. My name is Russell Green, and this is my first book. I wrote this book during the lockdown, and what started as a challenge and something to keep me busy became something much more. I caught COVID at the end of 2020, and the first three months were hell. I spent all that time in bed not able to bend my joints, I couldn’t even put my feet on the floor without excruciating pain. When this passed, I developed a severe case of brain fog, unable to concentrate on anything, I lost the ability to read or write, I could see words but they made no sense.

When this passed, I found my memory started to get worse and worse, I completely lost all memory of my work, which for 30 years, I was in the art business, and it seemed as though someone had sucked all my knowledge out of my brain, and this has never returned. I was unable to return to work. My memory is stuck, and now I cannot remember anything that happened on my previous day, it’s like Groundhog Day. I record messages every night of my activities of the day and listen to the notes in the morning, but by that night, my memory had been erased. You cannot imagine how many things it prevented me from doing.

I needed to find things to do to keep me busy and stimulated. Someone suggested why don’t I write a book, something light and not something that needed my short-term memory. The idea came when thinking about one of my business partners and my mentor, who tragically died a few years ago. Often, I would think about him, and it made me smile when I thought about his napkin ring story (this will make sense later in the book). So that’s what I did. I made myself a short recording that I listened to every morning telling myself about the book, why I am doing it and where on my computer I could find it. It became a very long process as I could not start writing any day unless I had re-read what I had written, otherwise I would not remember it at all. I am the epitome of living in the moment or the day. Once I had written 30 chapters, it got harder as I had to read all the chapters before I could write the next chapter… but I did it, and here we are.

I’m married and have an incredible wife, daughter, grandson, stepson and stepdaughter, and a father of two grandkids. I am very lucky, they have helped me through some very dark times, and I have been blessed for sure. I really enjoyed writing this book and harbour a dream of renting an apartment in Florence for a year. Picture this: writing on my balcony, overlooking a bustling square, walking my dogs, cycling, and indulging in a nightly ritual of a bottle of red wine with a bowl of pasta. I playfully remind my wife about this dream regularly. It’s my way of giving her advanced notice, considering I’ve been sharing this aspiration with her every month for the past three years. The time to turn this dream into reality is approaching rapidly.