Ruminations on love

I just fell in love with a strawberry blonde whilst having lunch at the View. At first attracted by her slightly husky voice, probably the product of her long Aquiline hooked, possibly broken, nose. Once she had gained my attention, through no intent I'm sure, I found it impossible not to steal glances. Thus was I able over the course of an hour long meal to witness the passage of attraction. You see at first glance, aside from her voice, she was not very attractive. Straight hair on the mouse blonde end of the strawberry scale, straight and severely tied back was not a winner. The already described largish nose only made a rather narrow oval face look narrower. Her mouth was awkward but it's hard to know why. Her best feature was probably her pale freckled but otherwise unblemished youthful skin. I was never close enough to witness the colour of her eyes and her fair brows and lashes offered no definition.

Nonetheless over the next forty five minutes as I was caressed by her attention commanding voice she turned into an irresistible beauty. Perhaps relaxed by the beer brought by her partner her previously awkward mouth relaxed and turned into the focus of her evolving beauty. The partner who was mostly back on to me seemed silent but on observation was obviously involved in the conversation. It was easy to feel that he was not a match for this commanding conversationalist but I resisted feeling jealous. There is a thin border between snatching glimpses and bald staring of which I am very sensitive but there's no telling when a stolen glance will be intercepted head on as at least once it was.

Her full face was broader than it had seemed in profile and her nose of which I may have seemed critical was, if not cute, certainly intelligent. I've been fooled by cute noses which can easily turn piggish I've learned to appreciate the large and crooked so strawberries nose would never alone have turned me off. I couldn't be sure in this one off stolen glimpse but the sense of proportion and spacing I was left with was heart warming. By now her speech, mouth and lips had become irresistible and whilst I could enjoy her voice surreptitiously I found myself longing for one of those perverts baseball caps or sunglasses to hide my sight lines.

Probably this is more a testament to the effects of alcohol, food and relaxation than to any heart breaking love and devotion for life ever after. I left the View at the end of this hour and retreated here to share with lucky you who I do really love for life ever after. With every hour that passes the memory of this love fades. The beauty of it is in the fact that it is possible that I can and do and always have loved just as you too do.

Postscript: I'm not at all happy with the name of my favourite local. No patron wants to be so loquacious as to call it the Warren View anymore than they want to call theirs The Duke of Edinburg rather than The Duke, Or The Ancient Britton, rather than the Britt. The choice then becomes that between The Warren, doh, a place where rabbits breed according to Macquarie Dictionary, well what else do rabbits do, or a slum to economise in words for their other definition. Makes you wonder about the parent who would christen their child Warren doesn't it. I mean some things are possible even for a Kevin, for a short time anyway, but a Warren, I don't think so.

As for The View, which I have chosen here, of what. Obviously if we had passage to the upper floors there are unencumbered outlooks over the greater southern suburbs for as far as your eyesight allows but these are not for us. Ours are views of one another, the strawberry blonde, the pepper tree, walls and sky. Of course we can call it the view but when a foreigner embarrassingly asks of what... The Duke's patron can say "of Edinburg" of course while equally those asked of the Britt can say, "the Ancient Britton". "Of where the rabbits breed" is too embarrassing and the view "of the strawberry blonde" takes too much explanation don't you think?

Robert