Since losing my beloved John suddenly in March this year, like others I’ve tended to dwell on the impact of his death.
As we all know it’s a terrible journey we are all on.
I’m now thinking of how we met and when I first realised that this man was going to be very important in my life and that I was quickly falling in love with him.
We met through a dating site on October 16th 2022 and had a lunch that lasted four hours. I played hard to get 
and didn’t get in touch for
another 2/3 weeks but we went on to have a few more ‘dates’.
Towards the end of November we met in Manchester on a cold, rainy afternoon and on the way his train broke down but he carried on getting a bus n taxi to meet me.
When he eventually arrived at the restaurant he sort of fell in for a huge hug which up to then we hadn’t even done.
Leaving after quite a few drinks later that evening he walked me to my train knowing he had a long journey back as the line still blocked for his train.
We had our first kiss goodbye on the platform and I knew then that we were on the cusp of something really special and sat grinning like a Cheshire Cat feeling very smug on my journey home.
I didn’t realise how deep we would love each other then but I’m sure glad he made it that day and didn’t just give up …
Happy happy memory…
Morning Mitzi.
Mine was a little bit longer ago. 
Jackie started work in the typing pool of the company, where I worked in late 1964. She was 16 approaching 17.
The typing pool was situated at the end of the large office I was in. It had a glass partition and when she came into the office on her first day, I said what most boys of 19 would say i.e ‘I fancy that’. Despite trying, I didn’t get anywhere with her. 
I played in a band and we did a few gigs in a church hall where she lived. In 1965 she won a local beauty contest and at one gig in the hall, I won a prize in the raffle. She presented me with one of those giant tubes of smarties they sold at the time.
I asked to walk her home after the gig. She said she was there with a boyfriend. I said to tell him that someone else was walking her home. To my utter surprise, she did!!
She only lived a few hundred yards away and as I walked out of the door, her boyfriend glared at me. I kissed her goodnight and asked to see her again, which I would anyway in work on the Monday, where we would fix up a date.
Things progressed from there. We got engaged in 1966 and married in September 1967.
My heart was broken on the 8th March 2025 
I will love her always and forever, even if I’m lucky enough to have someone else enter my life. 
Incidentally the man who was asked to judge the beauty contest in 1965 contacted me after Jackie had passed. He was an old friend from the 60s and I didn’t know he was the judge. He came along to the service we had in Wales
Mitzi, Well done, that is what I am trying to do and it is working, I am slowly getting out of this negative spiral. Of course I think about my Darling Elizabeth every day but try to be more positive like you
I try to Rob, but I often end up on this rollercoaster of grief. 
Still I’ll survive
hit a nerve there my lovely xxx wishing you all the love xxxx
a real love story