A year and a day

How could I have guessed a year and a day ago that agreeing to a friend’s suggestion that I should go for a walk with another friend of hers and his dogs, that my life was about to change completely? (My first answer to this question was: “What kind of dogs? I hate little yappy dogs.” Thank heavens there were no Chihuahuas or Pekineses involved.)

I knew who he was – the glassblower, half of an iconic couple, whose partner had died the previous year. He knew who I was – he’d seen me in plays. We did not know one another at all, but we hit it off.

Enough so that at the end of the walk I suggested dinner sometime at the island’s finest eatery. One dinner there led to another. After perhaps the third, he paid me a compliment so lavish that I couldn’t help saying, “Either I am being wooed or that was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard.” To which, much to my astonishment, he replied, “You are being wooed.” Blimey. (I guess the glow in the dark bud vase he’d presented me with in the restaurant should have been a clue.)

Weekly pool games started at the pub Thursday afternoons. Saturday evenings there was darts and dinner at his place. (He almost always beats me at darts, but then I almost always beat him at pool, so it works out okay.)

And somewhere along the line…

A month (!) in the south of France. We did more than survive – we thrived.

And now something that would have seemed completely impossible a year and two days ago – I am moving towards moving in with a man I wish I’d met 40 years ago. (Would have been tough, what with me living in London and him living in Calgary at the time.) I am savouring the prospect of falling asleep every night and waking up every morning in the arms of the loveliest man who ever lived. For the rest of my life.

Seniorlescence, eh? Absolutely, positively better late than never.