I got married a little while ago. In some areas it was a real eye-opener to me. I was now the one responsible for keeping my home up to scratch, and I suddenly found out just why my mother had insisted on making me do housework ever since I was small. I found I actually knew how to run a household and control finances. And there were the side benefits. Without going into any detail, let's just say that I didn't find my bedroom duties too onerous. I quite enjoyed them.
For the first couple of months we lived in Mike's unit but, while an excellent unit for a single person, two was pushing its limits. We talked it over and the upshot was that we wound up renting a nice little three-bedroom house. The place wasn't what you would call close to public transport, or schools, or shopping centres, or anything, really, which probably contributed to the lower rental required. This didn't greatly concern us as we both had our own cars and could get about OK.
One thing we were close to was a very nice park. It was just down the road from us, on the other side of the street. I'd been for several strolls through it, meeting neighbours there, getting to know them.
Nearing Christmas we learned that there would be a party in the park. Everyone brought food and drink and a buffet was formed, everyone just helping themselves. The park was well lit, so the party could go on for several hours. Even the kids would come along, quite happy to play on the kid's equipment provided.
The day of the party Mike and I wandered over to the park. I brought a nice casserole and Mike had a supply of beer. (What else?) We'd been lucky with the weather. While chilly, it was dry, not overcast, and there was no breeze. Quite a pleasant evening, in fact.
Typical of this sort of gathering, the men tended to congregate in one areas and the woman in another. There was quite a bit of toing and froing going on, of course, with a constant mixture of men and women temporarily invaded the other sex's domain before drifting back to their own.
Mike and I got separated early in the piece. Not that that worried either of us. We knew roughly where each other was, and couldn't really get lost.
One of the neighbours was a guy called Peter. I'd run into him several times and let me tell you, he was a terrible flirt. If there was a competition for flirting I'd enter him and lay money on him to win, no worries. I don't know how he did it but he could even make the words 'good morning' sound suggestive, and he was a past-master at innuendo. I liked him. He amused me.
He attached himself to me once I got separated from Michael, making himself useful by introducing me to the people I hadn't already met, all the time flirting with me. I didn't mind. I flirted right back. I wasn't taking him seriously, after all.
After a while Peter drifted away. I saw him a number of times during the night and he always seemed to be talking to one of the woman, eyebrows dancing as he flirted. Actually, I think those eyebrows were part of his flirting technique. They were amazingly mobile, seeming to dance all over his forehead. You could tell when he'd made a quip without even hearing it. His eyebrows would shoot up.
I started feeling hungry, looked around for Mike, found him and dragged him over to the buffet with me. We scraped up some dinner and discussed the party. We both seemed to be enjoying it. After having dinner and a drink together we sort of drifted apart again, chatting with various acquaintances.
It was starting to get quite dark by this stage. Fortunately the park was reasonably well lit. At about the time that I noticed that it was dark and the park lights were providing all the illumination I found myself momentarily alone. I'd finished chatting with one group and was moving towards another, wandering along on the outskirts of the larger party, so to speak.
That's when Peter popped up again. I bumped into him, literally, as he chanced to step out from behind some of the bushes. That's one thing I liked about the park. As well as the open areas it also had quite a few trees and some decent shrubbery. Anyway, it was a case of suddenly, there was Peter, and I was running into him before I realised it.
He laughed when he saw who had bumped into me. He caught hold of my arm and stepped back into the bushes, taking me with him.
"All alone at last," he said, smiling down at me.
"Uh-huh," I agreed. "All alone, except for fifty or so people standing just over there."
