Just before Christmas I had a haircut: a cute bob, very French, very Louise Brooks. It was well received by family and friends. It worked with both a smokey eye/nude lip look and a flash of liner and a full-red-call-me-Marilyn pout. I was tres pleased. I was also pretty happy at the thought of a date with a prospective beau, v tall, v handsome, I'd met after, and I'm sure because of, the haircut. So happy, in fact, that I was still smiling after reading a text he’d sent while walking to the art shop to buy supplies to make Christmas cards with (4 years at art college not wasted……). I was doing the flash of liner and full-red-call-me-Marilyn pout look that day, the bob gleaming in the winter sun, and as I passed a man walking towards me……50-something, tall, slim, full-head of greying hair…….he smiled at me smiling. I went into the shop. I stood before a vast array of art materials making my choices when I realised the man from the street was now in the shop. I made my purchases. He bought a pen. We left together.
“Are you an architect?” he asked.
I’m not. He was. He asked if I worked near-by. I do. He asked if I go to the pub on the corner where everyone goes. On occasion I do. He asked if I’d like to go there for a drink, gave me his card, said give him a call. I didn’t.
That was then, this is a new year. The date that gave me a smile ended with a frown and so when I saw the architect’s card on my desk I thought, why not? Now, I did think it through, I did Google the practice, I did establish it was in fact his and I decided it was unlikely he was an axe murderer. I also wondered why he’d assumed I was single. And whether he was.
I called him. He did remember me. He was delighted. Happy new year....... We met that evening. In the pub on the corner. 6.30pm. He bought me a vodka & tonic. He was married. But his wife didn’t understand him. I did though. I finished my drink, suggested he explain the problems he had with his wife to his wife and got the bus home.
And this is a picture I once took of a boat on a beach in Goa.......just to remind us that somewhere else the sun is shining, the weather is hot, the sea sparkles silver in the morning and ripples gold in the evening........ and because now I can upload pictures I shall.......
Top tip: don’t talk to strangers……
