This is the sequel to “This is what happened and now you know”. To save you reading part of that again I have copied the following extract from it.

I worked for an American company in the UK as a design draughtsman in the machine tool industry and was in charge of a small competent design team but coming up to age 64 decided come hell or high water I was out of it at 64. I had been divorced 24 years and did not own any property and so basically just had my self to look after. Then I thought if I offered my services to the parent company for 12 months, passing on my technical experience I could kill two birds with one stone. Firstly if I was out of the UK for twelve months I would not have to pay any tax on US earnings and consequently would not have to pay tax on my US earnings either. I would also be able to travel the USA prior to going back to the UK. To my surprise the company accepted my offer and obtained my L2 visa for 2 years duration. I arrived in 2001.

I arrived on March 30^th with my return ticket to the UK for twelve months later.

I settled down into my job and got involved. Time went by quickly. I had been there about three months when somebody was retiring from the shop floor and there was going to be a presentation so off I traipsed with everyone else for the cookies and soda. As retirement presents go this was a good one being a tractor mower. I shook hands with the lady, wished her well in her retirement and returned to my office.

Four months later I was invited to the Alpha course and started to attend church. I went with my host and hostess. Belonging to the same church and un-beknown to me was the lady who had retired. The customary smile and nod of acknowledgement was made as she sat in the same pew but no conversation ensued. She was also attending the same Alpha course which was being held at the church. I did not know very many people on the course and when coffee was served for a ten minute break she sat beside me and engaged in casual conversation. Nothing wrong with that as the dialect always aroused interest and I had been invited out to dinner on more than one occasion to different homes. No harm in this as there was no attraction of any sort and I was not looking for a wife at my age.

Come Christmas my host who had been a VP of the company invited the Turning Section Foreman and his fiancée to a little soiree to celebrate. As I was the odd one out they were asked to bring a long a friend. Lo and behold it turned out to be the same lady. Still no problem with that as I have previously mentioned. We ate and chatted as you do and I was invited to her house, after Christmas, for a meal. So what I thought to myself, nothing wrong with that either after all there was no physical attraction between us and if there was so what I was going home in three months.

I arrived for dinner and was made welcome. She asked me what I wanted to drink and I replied a gin and tonic if you have one. No sooner the word than the deed. It was a new bottle of gin but had not been touched so I asked her if she drank it. No was the reply she preferred beer. She had asked my very good friends what I drank and her son had purchased it. The meal was turkey something or other and afterwards we sat down to chat she on the sofa and me on in the easy chair. We talked and talked and talked until it was time to go as we had been chewing the fat for something like 4 hours.

When asked by my friends the next morning how the evening had gone I said it was most enjoyable and thought she was a lady with a wide variety of interests which I found unusual. Well there was nothing more to it than that, an enjoyable sociable evening.

At the next Alpha meeting I did not feel at uneasy when I sat beside her having been invited to dinner. It was now close to two months before I returned to the UK and she invited me to dinner again on the pretext that she did not drink gin and she would have to throw it away. Well the first evening was very enjoyable so I accepted.

Same procedure, dinner, followed by more talking. I told her that I had been divorced 24 years and learned that she divorced 23years ago because of her husband’s adultery. She told me how she went to her husbands ”love nest” which was a property left to her but was looking for a buyer to take it off her hands. Meanwhile hubby and his girlfriend used it for their passionate affairs. Knowing they were not going to be there one Saturday she went round for a visit with a set plan. She entered the bedroom found where he kept his condoms and then proceeded to put holes in the end of each one and replaced them. What nerve I thought as I found her to be quite a quite and inoffensive lady and the last person I would have thought would have done something of that nature. I thought it was hilarious but she told me when he found out he was absolutely livid and knew right away who had performed the dirty deed.

Somehow I was looking at this lady in a different light. Slightly older than me but a lady with a lot of character. I always said that the beauty I was looking for was on the inside of a person and here it was. I realised that I was falling in love.  The more I looked at her the more convinced I became. Funny really when I thought about it because I thought I was in love when I married the first time but this feeling I was getting was something entirely different. It was just wonderful. I told her about my health problems and that it could be a short marriage. Two weeks later I proposed. Six weeks later we were both on our way back to the UK to get married in the Registry Office in Hinckley. Two days after our wedding we returned to the USA. I worked another 12months till I was sixty six as this covered me for health insurance until I had been married twelve months. I then retired.

When I proposed I vowed to my wife that I would never ever argue with her as I had had enough arguments in my first marriage to last ten life times.

Five years plus we are as happy as can possibly be, with not a cross word or argument in all that time. Arguing solves absolutely nothing in my book, a lesson hard learnt. We love each other dearly and I often wonder what my life would have been if I had not met her. I found out later that she is a lady with a strong faith and with a giving loving nature. A person fond of wild life, even squirrels, if ever Ray was to read this narrative. I can always remember someone saying to me there is someone out there for you but so what I was not looking. We fell over one another and I found that someone. Faith has been discussed a lot on BE but when I look at my life and what happened in twelve months that I was going to be in the USA I now know that it was all meant to be. The best years are yet to come and we intend to live them fully, together, as long as we are able.

May you all have the peace, joy and contentment that I have each and every day.