A love story.

let us draw a veil over the last month and ignore the fact that there have been no posts on this blog other than a youtube video.
which, let's be honest, is not REALLY a blog post is it?
okay, moving right along.

and now,
somebody get their harp out and twang them chords that sound like time passing please.

ahh that's better.

NOW,
gather round and let me tell you a tale of love and romance that will warm the heart of your cockles.

my co-worker, whose name is betty but whom i shall call hetty for purposes of concealing her true identity and protecting her privacy, is a widow.
of about 5 years standing.
life used to be full and her cup ranneth over.
THEN.
but now, it's just a bit empty.

today, i realized the true extent of her lonliness as she showed me some old photos of herself on facebook where she was snorkelling or scuba diving ( i confess i don't know if there's a difference).
no matter.
i saw that she misses that life.
things have changed.
she used to have fun and DO things.
it's just different now.

i said, betty  "hetty, you need a man."
she sighed that yes, she did, but what were her chances as opportunities to meet men were somewhat non existent these days.
however, she said, a bit too hopefully, a drunken man HAD chatted her up last weekend at a family bonfire.
ooh.
i perked up.
do tell.
he looked like a mouse she said.
he had a long narrow face with unpleasant brown skin tones.
(caused by not standing close enough to the mirror during morning ablutions).
he had a long stringy beard which ended in a pointy knotted thing.
not the most endearing image i thought.
(as i pictured Fagin from Oliver Twist.)
but i held out hopes for  a warm pesonality or perhaps a brilliant sense of  humour by way of compensating for his dire lack of physical attributes.

he was drinking a lot and reminiscing in a loud voice about the old days when she was married to her now deceased husband.

'they were the good days eh hetty?' he called out several times.
'good times hetty! eh? eh?'
he would shout across the flames of the fire to her.
'hetty. you're looking good!'
"looking GOOD!"
'hetty, you are hard core eh?'

(apparently this meant that she too appreciated the outdoor life as did he.
standing around a bonfire in midwinter during the late evening hours is definitely hard core in my book.)
one point to him.

'hetty, you're a good looking woman eh? i remember you and joe (hetty's dead husband)
"you had good times eh?'
'eh hetty? GOOD TIMES!" he yelled.
'eh? eh?'
he said 'eh' a lot.
every time he yelled something at her, everyone else in the group would stop talking, shuffle and look at the ground.

he was, in fact, a hideous fella.
no redeeming characteristics at all.
ugly.
drunk.
obnoxious.
ahh, every woman's dream.
the hope of a desperate widow perhaps?

'do you want me to walk ye back to the house hetty? eh?" he would roar.

then, finally,  after repeating these endearments many times, even though she'd long since stopped nodding by way of acknowledging his comments, and was pretending she coudln't hear or even see him,  he yelled across the bonfire his piece de resistance.

'hetty? whaddya  weigh eh?'

??

be still my heart.
has ever  a more suave pick up line been uttered?
how she stopped herself from leaping across the great divide into his arms and surrendering herself to such warmth and charm i will never know.

she saw him again a few days later when he stopped by the family business to pick something up.
he looked right through her.
as one stranger to another.

we agreed that she may have to strike further afield in the quest to find companionship and a replacement for her former love.

love is a battlefield.
;-)