Secret Note Night and the Northern Lights

I’ve not written anything about my love life recently, and when I say love life, I mean the intermittent saga of being widowed and single in your middle years and wondering if I will ever have someone special to share them with.

Granite Man was so long ago – sigh! ...because everybody needs a hero...

On-line dating seems like a non-starter. Scarily Honest or Honestly Scary

And yet I found some very depressing stats the other day that 60% of couples meet on-line these days.

Screenshots taken from a video on Instagram - so very random dates
My parents met in the late 60 - through family connections
Andrew and I met in the early 90s through church

I still think we should start a trend of meeting people in bookshops with the opening chat-up line being - “Have you read this book?”

Until that day a local bar, (well local enough to me but far enough away so I don’t run into people I already know or went to school with – that’s what school reunions are made for) holds Secret Note Nights for singles to meet up the “old fashioned” way, in person.

Originally this started as Single Social and I’ve written about that before… a message to the two men at the bar

There wasn’t a great deal of mixing at Single Socials but this new idea has injected an element of fun and causes much hilarity.

On each table is a small note book and pen, the idea being if someone catches your eye you can send them a secret note, delivered by the hostess for the evening – I shall call her Emma. 

With a glint in her eye and a way of getting information out of people, she can recite who is sitting where, what they do and where they live. She also mixes a mean cocktail – this woman has skills MI5 would kill for!

On Thursday I went with a school friend – we have known each other since we were 5 and have both been on our own for several years. We are not desperate for love but some kind of companionship would be welcome.

We chatted with a gentleman in our age bracket, invited him to join our long table but he obviously wasn’t interested in either of us, saying he preferred to loiter by the bar and keep his options open. Fair enough, it was a polite refusal – we ordered food and carried on our own conversation.

Until 2 young men asked to sit at our table. They were both good looking and utterly charming but alas of a similar age to our children.

However, the one beside me slid a note along the table with a cheeky grin.

PLEASE HELP I’VE BEEN KIDNPPED!

I thought for a moment and looked at the remnants of my cheese platter.

I can pay the ransom in half tomatoes and a piece of cheese.

He was very quick witted; I really admired his style.

            Throw in a parsnip, and you have a deal!

Then I wrote the line that perhaps betrayed my age.

            Is your name Baldrick?

We laughed and they did know who Baldrick was… maybe.

But I need someone who understands jokes about counting beans, Mrs Miggins Pie shop and why Bob and Bernard are such great names Darling. I want someone who will pander to my every whim as If I were Queenie.

We left and on our drive home, the moon looked incredible, a perfect arc criss-crossed with wispy clouds. I would have loved to stop and take a photo, but photos of the moon never look as magical as the real thing. Just a smudge in the sky.

And yet I came home to all these photos on Facebook of a magnificent Northern Lights display.

I went out into the garden and starred up at the sky. There was a slight pinky glow but I couldn’t be sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me. I remembered hearing you usually see the colours clearer through a phone lens, so I took a photo. It was RUBBISH! A totally black screen.

Feeling cold I gave up and went indoors but still couldn’t resist another peek, hanging out of my bedroom window looking northwards – I had to check that on Google maps first, my windows don’t face in the right direction, except a bathroom one with frosted glass that opens out to see next door and not an inch of sky in sight.

Defeated I decided to go to bed with a good book, but life would be so much different if I had someone else here. Someone who would encourage me to go out on a midnight walk around town together, even venture further into the countryside, holding hands, marvelling at God’s creation.

But I just have to face facts – some of us don’t get to see the Northern Lights, however much we pursue them. Maybe we are not patient enough, or circumstances conspire against us, we are just never in the right place at the right time.

You can live a perfectly fulfilled life without – even marvelling at the photos on social media. You can be happy for everyone else and their sightings.

At the end of the day, I am content that once I did see them.

We took a family day trip to Lapland at see Father Christmas when the boys were small. Andrew was working away that Christmas so this was a special treat. We never took photos but I do remember the colours dancing, the magic covering our family of four.

Maybe one day I will see them again but until then…

stolen from a friend on Facebook 

A Poem for those who find themselves single and middle aged!

I should be glad to be alive

But I hate being single aged 55!

My friends on Facebook are having fun

But they're all in couples, in twos not just one.

Romantic dinners and hikes in the Dales

Cream teas, spa days and trips to North Wales

The closest I get is a trip to the SPAR

It's just round the corner so not very far

A BIG bar of chocolate, ready meal for my tea

Which I eat while I binge Grey's Anatomy

 

Perhaps I need a new hobby, should I join a gym?

A book club? A dance class? I could fit something in

It just takes too much effort to move off the sofa

Far easier to sit here, a permanent loafer.

 

I could scroll on my phone, do online dating

Read profiles fake yet FASCINATING!

I'll send a wave, a smile, whatever

I like to think I'm being clever

But not a sausage, no reply

I add a new photo - I really do try!

 

Maybe I'm just not the greatest catch

Perhaps I am part of a faulty batch

And sadly I'm now out of guarantee

As I climb the stairs, you can hear my knees.

 

But people find love when it's meant to be

Cupid's arrow may fly but it never hits me

Perhaps I'm looking in all the wrong spots

My What Three Words muddled, words/three/what????

 

So, I wrote these words to commiserate

With all who despair at the lack of dates

Except the ones in the dried fruit aisle

And I do hope my words have at least made you smile :-)

A message to the two men at the bar…

Just how do people meet these days? Don’t give me that cliched answer of online, it’s a horrible way to connect, in my opinion.

I want to meet the old-fashioned way; a man picks up my accidently dropped glove in the street, our eyes meet and BOOM – love at first sight.

Or in a bookshop – why is that NOT a THING? Perusing the aisles, steer clear of freaky horror and bloody crime sections, head straight for Romance? Fantasy? Probably contemporary fiction is the best and safest place 😉

meeting in a bookshop from the film Dan in Real Life 

I can only dream of meetings in these locations. I file that thought away in the “future novels I may never write” folder.

Hilarity aside I was delighted to discover that a bar, near enough to me, but just far enough away to not be totally on my doorstep, regularly holds a singles night. Cherry* (not her real name) who runs the establishment is a bit of a matchmaker. You can tell she is itching to buy a hat for her first successful wedding.

Fifth Sunday hats by Ben Marc - discontinued

I’ve been to two such evenings now but there is something distinctly lacking. Although the men have been making enquiries about the event few have the oomph required to actually show up.

Considering it is a “Singles Night” most people turn up with friends for moral support but only a handful of us there last night had ventured out completely solo.

Last night I got talking to Jayne* (not her real name) who I had met last month and we soon caught up with what we’d been up to since we last met. Last month there had been a table of us, yesterday  just us two.

We both agreed Matt Hancock is creepy, but otherwise our political views meandered in opposite directions. We talked about books, there is some common ground there but Jayne is a really foodie with an appetite for travel. I’ve not visited half the places she has and gourmet food doesn’t excite me in quite the same way.

I don’t want to diss the sisterhood but I really don’t want to be stuck talking to her next month, just because we are the only two solo singles! To be honest I’m sure she feels the same way.

If it were a date I would have moved on sooner, but you can’t really leave a lone woman hanging, it would be rude.

Cherry came over and told us the two men at the bar were single.

“We have two empty seats at our table.” How bold was I? We desperately needed a spark to keep the flagging conversation going.

“Shall I send them over?” I nodded, feeling giddy and I swear I was only drinking lemonade.

But the men dithered and took too long to make a move, ordering more drinks for Dutch courage, one disappearing outside for a vape.

Meanwhile Jayne and I had grown bored of each other’s company we finished our drinks, decided to cut out losses and left in opposite directions.

Should we have waited longer and given them more of a chance? They looked nothing like Matt Hancock which is a promising start. There’s always next month I suppose, If I can pluck up the courage to venture out once more, it really isn’t easy for any of us.

So, my message to the two men at the bar is if you come again and see a cardigan wearing, bespectacled middle-aged woman with pink hair sat in the corner, that will be me – please come and say hello!

The non-dating dilemma

Earlier this week I updated you on my #Stoma66 challenge progress so it’s only fair I update you on the other “project” I have on the go - the online dating.

You might think because I’ve gone all quiet perhaps I’m playing my cards close to my chest and enjoying a whirlwind romance away from prying eyes…. Hahaha

No such luck, sad to say the online “dating” hasn’t even produced one date. And this week’s potential matches are guys I’ve already looked at and rejected.

I’ve given up with “liking” anyone as it never seems to be reciprocated. Maybe I don’t really know the rules of this game.

I toyed with the idea of writing a message to a would-be poet, possibly even in verse to try and get a favourable response.

But in his profile, he said he imagined eyes meeting across the aisles of a supermarket and ending up frolicking midst the salad leaves.

Hmmmm – that’s not quite how I envisaged our beginning.

For me, we’d meet in a bookshop, somewhere between thrillers and romance. What first caught our attention was that we’d picked up books each other had already read. The meeting of eyes and minds an unexpected bonus.

Conversation would flow naturally as we discussed plot twists and much-loved characters, we’d recommend a book for each other and swap numbers arranging to meet in the near future, over coffee, maybe even dinner to discuss the stories further.

I’d dash home, devouring every word of the book he had chosen especially for me. Imagining him as the complex but sexy male lead character. I’d fall in love with every line.

Our once upon a time meeting would progress – hopefully concluding with an inevitable Jane Austen style happy ever after, a few minor ups and downs along the way but somehow even from the start we would know the trajectory our lives would take.

I thought online dating was the answer but maybe I just have to hang around in bookshops instead!

The thing is I thought actual dating might be fun, meeting new people, going out to new places, expanding my horizons with fresh experiences.

Turns out in the last few days I have filled up my diary with lunches and outings and I’m not sure if I can fit anything else into my social calendar.

At this precise moment in time of writing I’m content and happy with life, solo or not, of course this could change as quick as a click of my fingers.

Strangely this was my exactly mindset when Andrew left a note for me asking me on a date. Happy single with no time of inclination to invite a man into my life.

Perhaps the perfect man is right around the corner… I’ll bump into him, spill my orange juice, discover he actually OWNS a bookshop and have a surreal experience in his kitchen – hang on that’s the plot for Notting Hill.

But that all worked out in the end … and to quote some other favourite romantic films….

“… everything will be all right in the end. So if it is not all right, it is not yet the end.”

And how will it end?

“It’s a mystery!”

(Bonus points if you know where both quotes come from!)

Scarily Honest or Honestly Scary?

Well I've been trying this online dating malarkey for just over a week.

The online aspect of it is great, it's quite compelling scrolling on my phone and seeing just who is out there. I'm convinced I've found the right dating site to suit my needs.

As for the actual dating side of things.... well the nearest I've got to a date this week was a date biscuit! A bit like a fig roll, not terribly satisfying and won't go there again!

I've been pro-active, life's too short to sit here waiting, I've "liked" a few profiles.

No 1. Likes visiting the Edinburgh Fringe - well as a lover of the arts  I'm quite partial myself to a bit of drama, comedy and stand up. But the tragedy is he never responded to my wave....

Undeterred I moved on to ...

No 2. Can't remember much about his likes and dislikes but there was a gorgeous photo of him with smouldering eyes I could gaze at for hours. Set my heart a flutter but the feeling wasn't reciprocated.

Pushing the geographically boundaries further I found ....

No 3. Staunch Remainer and lover of Victoria sponge cake.  Maybe I could bake him a cake iced in blue with stars around the edge? A bit too quirky???

Still no reply - not a sausage!!!

Maybe my own profile is too HONEST. I did make it clear at the start that I was a widow and cancer survivor, but I did draw a line and stopped before explaining what an ileostomy bag was!

I think being a widow and cancer survivor shows real strength of character. But perhaps it's just a little too daunting for someone else to contemplate. Too much baggage?

Or perhaps the photos showing off my various shades of hair colour makes me look SCARY, too challenging?

Where is the man prepared and brave enough to take me on?

I was always told you have to kiss several frogs along the path to ever lasting love, I'm all puckered up but if the wind changes direction my face will stay in this distorted fashion. As if I wasn't scary enough! HAHAHA

As you can see I've not lost my weird sense of humour and if my adventures make you, my readers, giggle then quite honestly I'm happy with my lot and in no way scared of a solo future....

.....just wishing, hoping, praying and daydreaming that things might one day change!