My girlfriends and I have more fun, more adventures, more independence than ever before. And as for the sex …
I
met my boyfriend when he was playing Bach in the park. I was taking my usual jog past London zoo and around the Regent’s Park boating lake when I was stopped in my tracks by the most beautiful music. Wafting across the rose garden was an exquisite guitar rendition of Bach’s prelude in E major. When the final notes hung in the air like gossamer, I congratulated the musician. A twinkly-eyed bloke smiled up at me. “Ah, no bother,” he said in a soft Irish burr.
At the sound of his mellifluous, velvety voice, my heart beat so loudly I felt as though it was coming through stereo speakers. His eyes seemed to smoke their way into me. I stared at him for what I estimate to be about, oh, a decade, but was probably only two seconds, before asking him for coffee. Pathetic, I know. A romcom “meet-cute” like this is not just cheesy; it’s deep-fried Brie in a bechamel sauce on a bed of melted cheddar.
I was in the fraught process of divorcing my husband of 28 years and had been warned of the man drought. Yes, I could join a dating website, but any available fella would only be interested in a woman 20 to 30 years younger, friends counselled. To blokes my age, I would be invisible, immaterial, as relevant as Monaco is on world politics. Clearly, the only time I’d be naked in front of a stranger ever again would be at the morgue with a tag on my toe.
