'Den and I have been married before in a different lifetime'
But last weekend, Pauline lost her soul mate.
Dennis had been visiting a family caravan near New Quay, and had gone for a cliff-top walk. His body was discovered in the waters of Cardigan Bay below.
Pauline believes he slipped and fell to his death.
An inquest is still to be held.
But, as she prepares for his funeral just four months after their wedding, Pauline is remembering the laughter and the good times, and has vowed to carry on with their plan to establish a school of ancient cures in his memory.
And, despite the fact that he died only days ago, she hopes her thoughts of their brief time together will bring a smile to people's faces.
At their home in Swansea, she shows an inner strength as she talks of how they got together after meeting as work colleagues in the city's Cefn Coed Hospital.
Pauline, aged 55, was an admin assistant in the training department, while 58 year-old Dennis, or Den as she called him, was assistant head of IT telecommunication, a role he went on to perform at Morriston Hospital.
They met three years ago in the old staff smoking room at Cefn Coed, in the days before the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces.
Six months before, his wife, Val, whom he had cared for during her final years after she suffered serious injures in a car crash, had died. Pauline was divorced.
"In some respects, it was very strange because he had actually been based at Cefn Coed for about a year, and we had never met," she said.
"We were both smokers at the time, and they had a smoking room. I was always there, and he was always there. But we never met.
"It must have been about six months after his wife had died a colleague and I went to the smoke room for a cigarette. He was in there with one of his colleagues. The colleague I went there with had known Den for years, and introduced us.
I must admit, right from the word go I liked him a lot. From then on, we seemed to meet quite often in the smoking room. This is where fate takes a hand in some respects. He asked me out and I said yes. We had a walk down Mumbles, and it moved on from there."
They both worked in a medical environment, although were not medics themselves. But they found they had in common a belief in natural healing.
"I was already into nature," says Pauline, of Gors Avenue, Townhill.
"Paganism is a celebration of nature itself. It is a belief in nature and the natural order of things. Even what is called faith healing is all natural. That is how people used to heal.
"Today's midwives come from what were classed as witches. But witches in those days were herbalists. It is using the plants and trees to heal the body and mind.
"He was very surprised to find someone so quickly. As he said, he was hoping to meet someone eventually after his grieving period.
"So it was a complete surprise to both of us when we met. He discovered the true him."
Two years ago, Den, a father-of-five, and grandfather of nine, suffered numbness to his right arm. His spinal discs were crumbling and he was not getting on with the tablets he had been prescribed.
"He wanted to look for a different way, an alternative pain control," adds Pauline.
"He found hypnosis, so he actually did a course and he was a clinical hypnotherapist. He started using self-hypnosis to control the pain. From there he went on to acupressure and reflexology, because we believe mind, body and spirit are all linked.
"In holistic medicine you don't just heal one. You do the whole thing. He was off work for a year, and he was told he would not work again. Negative thoughts can harm the body. He thought 'I am going back to work'. He changed that belief. He was treating himself and it worked, it really did.
"He went back to work in March last year after a year off. He was still in pain, but in October he did a hypnotherapy course. From then on he practised self-hypnosis to keep the pain under control."
The couple found early on that they were on the same wavelength.
"The first time we met in the smoke room I think there was recognition for both of us because part of the hypnosis he had done was past life regression," says Pauline.
"That is, if you believe in reincarnation you have to believe you have previous lives. Sometimes, a problem from a previous life can affect you in this life. So you can be taken back to that life.
"You can put things into perspective. In some respects, I know Den and I have been married before in a different lifetime."
To her, he was out of something in Shakespeare with a ruff collar around his neck.
"That is how I saw him dressed," she adds.
"I know we were man and wife. It is amazing. I am a Pagan. Den was beginning to be in some respects.
"He definitely believed in nature. He liked nothing more than to go for a walk in the forest. I preferred the sea and sand."
Twelve years ago, Pauline wrote a book on one of her loves, dragons. It concerned the story of Madran the wizard whose family was killed by a dragon. He in turn killed the dragon, but ended up looking after the babies he had left behind.
"To most people dragons are a mythical animal," says Pauline. "To me, they used to be on this earth. That is why we have so many different pictures of them. Every culture has a dragon."
The book has not come out yet, but Pauline is hoping to publish it in Den's memory. He liked the name Madran, and adopted it as his wizard name because he wanted to dress up as one for their Pagan ceremony, called handfasting.
"I was dressed as a fairy," she said.
"It just seemed natural for him to dress as a wizard. Two months before the handfasting, he began making his costume, and he talked about a name. I said the wizard in my book was Madran and he said 'yes, absolutely fantastic'.
The couple got married at Swansea Civic centre on June 13, honeymooned at the family caravan and returned to be blessed at the Faerie and Elemental Festival in the Afan Valley a week later on the summer solstice.
"It was an amazing day," says Pauline.
"There were so many people. It belted down with rain, not that anyone cared. You have Mother Earth and Father Sky. They were invited as well. Father Sky was definitely part of that day because it rained for the whole of the day and for seven weeks after."
The couple, and Pauline's daughter, Sam Buse, were working towards setting up their ancient cures business. That will continue.
"He did all the training that he had done," says Pauline.
"I am doing crystal healing, colour therapy, anatomy and physiology. Sam is doing herbalism, counselling and anatomy.
"We will carry on. We are determined to help people. In some respect, if we don't open a shop it won't matter providing we are helping people. That is all that matters, and that is all that mattered to Den.
"There are so many subjects linked with healing.
"There are so many tools out there such as crystals, colour therapy, hypnosis, acupressure — which was the forerunner of acupuncture — and reflexology. Sam and I are going to carry on with our work and training. It was something we were going to do anyway. We are more determined now for his memory."
His funeral service next Wednesday at Swansea Crematorium will play out with Yellow Submarine from The Beatles, a colour and band he loved.
"He gave everything, 150 per cent, not 100," says Pauline.
"He loved life, he loved his family and he loved helping people. He was the life and soul. We would go shopping, and we would be walking along. I would realise he was not with me, and he would be talking to somebody.
"It had probably been half-an-hour. I would say who was that, and he would say he hadn't a clue.
"That was the way people were with him. He was very outgoing, very charismatic, very friendly and he always had time for people. He made the time, and I wouldn't have had him any other way."
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