The blurt begins

Okay, okay, the time has come. The Story needs to be written. I think it may take a couple of posts, probably over a fairly long time, so bear (bare?) with me, okay? Also, I fear that writing it so far past the events may cause me to romanticise it. A bit. It is terribly lovely anyway, and really rather romantic.

Here goes:

The story begins, as all good stories do, a long, long time ago, in an enchanted forest in the grounds of a beautiful castle. Okay, maybe not that long. It was last August. The 16th, to be precise. I’m not normally that good with dates, but this happened to be one of my best friend’s (Pop) birthday, so it’s an easy one to remember.

And, well, it was more like a park. A lovely park, but not an enchanted forest as such. It felt enchanted that day, and does even more so now, at this present-day stage of the story. And, bugger it, I lied about the castle too. There are various lovely Victorian houses around the park, and some tennis courts, but no castle. The park is, however, watched over by the spectacular mountain of The City Beneath the Mountain fame.

It was a warm Sunday and we were all gathered to celebrate Pop’s birthday. The kind of August day that hints at Spring. The park was full of picnickers like us, and Pop had told me that a friend of hers that she had been speaking about for ages was coming along. She thought we’d get on like a house on fire.

So there we were sat, picnic spread like you’ve never seen, champagne with strawberries, sunshine, chatter, and I looked up at a particular moment and saw a person coming towards us. It may, well, have been the champagne, but I felt a warmth, one that was magnified on introduction.

It was a jolly party with lots of chatter between everyone and I, as predicted by Pop, got on very well with the person, making plans to meet up for a theatre expedition at a later date. Easy conversation, no innuendo, good company.

The sun moved off, away over the other little hill (the one resembling a lion, next to the one that signals) and off into the sea. It got cold, and we all headed off to our warm homes, having been reminded that Spring was not quite here yet.

It would be a couple of weeks until our next contact.