George Lozanovski has been in love with his wife, Deborah, for 50 years, but he treasures it in days. And every day, it gets better.
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"It's absolutely magic," he said, "Absolutely magic."
Deborah grew up in Newcastle and remembers the young Mr Lozanovski as one of the handsome young Macedonian boys who used to hang out in front of his parents' mixed business shop on the corner of Darby and Queen streets. She was only 15 then and had just started her first job, and she remembers walking past the shop on her way to and from work.
"All the Macedonian boys would be hanging out around the corner shop with their hot cars," she said, "I never knew who I was looking at when I walked past."
"I had a bit of competition with my brother," Mr Lozanovski said. "Every time I saw Deborah walking up the street, I would tell him to go and fix the drinks or something, and I'd go and wet and comb my hair so that it looked pretty when she walked past.
"We were 15 then, and we're 70 now."
We're just like a couple of young kids enjoying life.
- George Lozanovski
Mr Lozanovski had only lived in Newcastle for around three years at that point. He was 12 and the youngest of three siblings when his family emigrated from Macedonia in 1966. His father had arrived three years before and taken work at the BHP coke ovens to scrape together enough money for a house deposit and airfares to bring his family out.
Mr and Mrs Lozanovski were married in 1974 on a sweltering February day at St Andrews Presbyterian in Civic Park.
The couple remembers the heat on February 2 being smothering. Mr Lozanovski had just recovered from surgery, but nothing would stop him from marrying the love of his life. They honeymooned for just four days at Coolangatta, travelling up in a borrowed Fairlane loaned to the young couple by Mr Lozanovski's boss for the occasion.
Children followed, and grandchildren too, and it was half a century of - in Mr Lozanovski's words - "absolute magic. "
For their '50th honeymoon', the couple travelled to Europe to revisit Mr Lozanovski's homeland, Bitola in the north of Macedonia. It was the first time he had returned since he was a young boy.
"It took me 58 years to go back," he said, "It was an incredible trip. We went to all of the Greek islands as well."
Mr Lozanovski worked a number of trades throughout his career, but the couple is perhaps most well-known for their lauded fish and chip shop at Marks Point, which opened in 1995. A close friend of the couple, Chris Osborne, wrote that "George's and Debbie's cooking was so well known in the district that people would come from surrounding suburbs to savour their fish and chips and hamburgers".
Mr and Mrs Lozanovski have since retired but still live at Marks Point, where Mr Osborne described them as the one-time 'unofficial mayors'. After half a century together, Mrs Lozanovski said she knows her husband better than anyone. Mr Lozanovski is as lovestruck as the young teen madly combing his hair before his crush walks past the family store.
"We always got on," Mrs Lozanovski said. We've never really had any major arguments. We've had our ups and downs, but we managed to pull through it. George has the gift of the gab sometimes."
"We're just great mates and partners," Mr Lozanovski said, "We're just like a couple of young kids enjoying life."
Poetry and emotion: Hunter pollies pour their hearts out
Love: that word that has confounded poets, killed romantics, broken hearts, mended them, filled them to bursting, and thawed the thorniest of souls from the thickest of cynical ice.
Love breaks chains, drives men mad, rouses both sorrow and joy and has inspired some of the most romantic words of all time, from the first chiselled phrases in the primordial stone to that one Tinder bio that was just enough to swipe right on.
But the course of love never did run smooth. On the one day a year when every heart is in the bow-sights of that treacherous cherub, we were reminded that while love might be the one universal emotion that every mortal soul shares, the poetry to wrap such a cosmic phenomenon into words certainly isn't.
"You are beautiful, like a work of art," wrote lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes on Instagram yesterday afternoon, "We're expanding the Newcastle Art Gallery, but it's you who has my heart." ... ooft.
Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery was not to be outdone in the competition of proving why politicians should maybe stick to parliament, posting alongside a truly magnificent artwork (worthy of Microsoft Paint) depicting her and Brad Pitt surrounded by love hearts: "While I won't be spending any time with my valentine today, he's assured me that the roses are on the way from LA. Thanks, Brad!"
But, wait! The lord mayor's not done: "My feelings for you continue to grow, and so do the 2000 street trees we planted in 2022-23" ... *fire emoji*
"Are you a new change room at Wallsend Pool?" the councillor wrote, "because you're really accessible."
Not the most moving of metaphors. But, look, never let it be said that Topics is a snob. We love love ... even if it doesn't so much pull on the heart strings as it does park a light rail car on them.
Jokes aside, Valentine's Day is a precarious kind of holiday however you phrase it. If we're lucky, we wake up on February 14 and fall even more in love with that special person. It's the day we hope to find love, keep love, or fall head over heels in love.
Love is tricky. It always has been. But, good on the region's pollies for putting their hearts on the line and joining the ranks of confounded poets.