The next day was one of reflection and I was left with a feeling of what might have been had I not dropped the ball.
How ironic it was that after all the young women Dave and Emma had put in my path over the years in the hope of finding me a wife, which I always managed to side step, I finally met a woman whom I didn’t want to swerve to avoid and the fates conspired against me.
I finally met a girl who was attractive, funny, intelligent, well spoken, had a sense of humour and good table manners (which was a definite plus) and who left me tongue tied like a lovesick schoolboy, someone who ticked all the boxes and quite simply bowled me over, and I blew it in the most humiliating manner.
It seemed like we had a number of things in common, we were both Christians, we both liked film and cinema, walking in the country to name but three and I was looking forward to finding out more about her and if there were any other boxes I could tick.
I couldn’t believe what a gibbering idiot I had been, I had been complimented in the past, more than once for my eloquence at such occasions and I had never been tongue tied before, well not since I was fifteen, and why oh why did I call her Angel and why did Dave have to blurt out my Christian name.
I didn’t even bother asking her out or getting her number there didn’t seem much point.
I did feel though that we had made a connection and that my overtures, for want of a better term, would not have been rejected out of hand.
I could still have gotten her number from Emma but how would I ever have been able to ask her out after she knew that my name was Gabriel?
So I resigned myself to the fact that due to some circumstances beyond my control and my total inability to string even the simplest of semi coherent sentences together she would be forever viewed as the one that got away.
So, I turned my full attentions to work and started getting things ready for my return to harness the next day.
As I was ironing myself a shirt the phone rang, I ignored it, it was probably one of my mates, who having heard the revelation about my name were just phoning to take the piss.
It rang again, I ignored it again, I knew it wouldn’t take long for Colin to spread the word.
It rang a third time.
“I suppose I’d better get it over with” I said and headed towards the phone.
It rang again before I got to it and the answer phone kicked in, my first reaction was good now leave your poisonous message and then I can delete it without even hearing it, but curiosity got the better of me so I decided to listen to the message and braced myself.
“Hi, oh dear I hope you don’t mind me ringing” Said a faltering voice “Erm, I got your number from Emma”
There was a pause then a nervous laugh.
“It’s Angel”
I quickly grabbed the phone and almost shouted “Hello”
If I had gone with my first instinct and deleted the message unheard she would never have called again I would still have thought of her as the one that got away and the remarkable year would simply not have happened.
Well thankfully I did and what a remarkably good decision it was.
The conversation began in a rather stumbling and embarrassed fashion, with lots of nervous laughter and hesitation but ended in a date.
It was decided that a meal would be best where we could relax and find out more about each other.
But where proved more difficult, we ruled out restaurants that used unusual eating utensils which excluded most oriental places and any French establishments serving escargot, the food had to be cooked which eliminated sushi, any food which the eater might end up wearing i.e. spaghetti, ribs etc. so we reached the conclusion that beer and pizza was probably the safest option.
The phone call lasted more than an hour and I was reluctant to end it, but my bladder had the last word.
As it turned out this one carefully selected date proved to be the last difficult decision we had to make together.
The first date led to another and then another and another, we dined at all the establishments we excluded for our first date and ate all the foods previously mentioned.
Between New Years and Easter we were rarely apart and we did everything together, bowling, swimming, walking, you name it we did it and we could neither remember the time before we met nor craved time to ourselves.
We were obviously regular guests at the Parkers where Emma would gloat shamelessly at her matchmaking success.
In April I had to go to the States on business unexpectedly for two weeks and Angela wasn’t able to get any time off at such short notice so I went alone and although we spoke on the phone and emailed every day I missed her terribly.
When I returned to home on the last day of April, she was waiting for me as I came through the gate and she ran to meet me and I took her in my arms,
“I missed you so much” Angela said
“I never want us to be apart again, Angel” I replied, then I knelt in front of her and proposed to her right there at the arrivals gate.
We were married in June at St Lucy’s Church in the village of Brookley, the rambling village was 15 miles inland from Sharpington-By-Sea, equidistant between the seaside resort and Pepperstock Green, and was where she used to spend the holidays when she was little, at the home of her maiden Great Aunt, Angela had often dreamed of marrying at St Lucy’s,
We were lucky to be able to book at such short notice, clearly the angels were looking out for us.
We particularly wanted to be married in church as we were both Christians, though we weren’t regular attendees at a particular Church, though we did become so at St Lucy’s.
Because her Great Aunt had passed away and there was no other connection to the village, we had to get a special license.
Dave was my best man and Emma was matron of honour and their boys, Jake and Kenny were page boys.
It was a small affair just close friends and what family we had, my brother Greg and Angela’s parents, mine were both gone years before.
But it was a wonderful day, one that we would never forget, then to follow that perfect day came an ambition fulfilled and a dream come true, for both of us when we honeymooned in Italy travelling to Venice on the Orient Express.
After the honeymoon we moved into my flat, a short term arrangement while we found a house, Angela never did find a place of her own, and had been living at her parents up until the wedding, where most of her stuff remained.
There was an old run-down farm with a derelict farmhouse that we often walked past on one of our many country walks and we had often wondered what it would be like to live there.
It was beautifully situated in a nice plot of land far enough into the country to be peaceful and close enough to the village to be part of a community, then one day I noticed it was up for sale, it was lucky really because I only drove past it because a bus had broken down on my usual route to work so I went cross country.
I called the agent, it had been empty for about ten years, when the owner, an elderly widow, moved into a home and with no next of kin to keep an eye on the property it fell into disuse.
Now upon the death of the old lady the farm was to be sold to settle her estate.
I arranged an appointment, but I kept it secret from Angela and I just told her we had a viewing.
“So where are we going first?” Angel asked as we were about to leave.
“It’s over Brookley way” I said vaguely
She was sat in the car flicking through a pile of A4 sheets containing estate agent’s blurb.
“Where are the details then?” She quizzed “I can’t find it”
“I must have left it at work, but don’t worry the agent will have a copy”
We had quite a few places to look at some Angela had chosen and some of mine, but the old farmhouse was first on the list.
As we drove down the lane towards the farm Angela asked.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s not far now it’s just down here I think”
And then we turned the corner, and the entrance was on the left.
On the right-hand side of the entrance there was a half rotten five bar gate leaning askew against a crumbling brick wall held in place by a solitary well rusted hinge and tied to the gate.
While on the left-hand side was a once sturdy signpost leaning at a precarious angle adorned by a board bearing the name of the farm, but it could not be read from that angle.
As I drove through the entrance into the yard Angela said
“It’s our farmhouse”
There was already a car in the yard which was unnecessarily flash and could only belong to an estate agent.
The door opened and a preening peacock of a man climbed out pausing briefly to brush away an invisible speck of dust off his sleeve.
I opened my door first to get out but by the time I climbed out Angela was already out fidgeting and transferring her weight from one foot to the other eager to get on.
The agent glanced briefly at the paper he was holding and enquired.
“Mr. Brophy?”
“Yes” I said and proffered my hand, which he inspected briefly then shook it limply in his clammy manicured hand.
“And this is my wife”
I waved my hand in the direction of where she had been standing but she had already bounded off like Tigger.
It took about an hour to view everything, the farmhouse, out buildings and the couple of acres of land.
The agent didn’t fancy leaving the confines of the yard presumably he didn’t want to get mud on his expensive Italian shoes.
So we explored the land by ourselves, we had both fallen instantly in love with the old ramshackle farm and by the time Angela and I had wandered back to the yard we had decided to make an offer on the place.
We both had good jobs, well paid jobs, and for a number of years earned more than we could spend and as a result both had substantial savings.
Plus Angela had sold her house the previous year and I only had a tiny mortgage on my flat so we worked out that we could easily afford to buy the farm, renovate the farmhouse for ourselves and convert the out buildings into another property which we could earn a little income on, either as a summer let or as a normal rental, provided of course we could get it for under the asking price.
It would be a gamble and after years of playing safe and being sensible it wasn’t an easy one to make but because neither of us had seriously invested ourselves in a long term relationship before we went for it with gay abandon, so we made our offer to the agent.
“That may not be good enough there are other people interested” He said looking down his nose.
“In fact, I have another viewing this afternoon”
“Well actually that appointment is with me” Angela said sheepishly.
As we drove out of the yard I stopped just inside the gate when something caught my eye.
“Look at that” I said pointing out the window, from that angle I could clearly see the signboard that bore the name of the farm.
It read “Angels Farm”
“Well now we know it’s definitely meant to be”
So, our offer was accepted, it had taken one day to find the house of our dreams, but it was to be several months before we could move in properly.
The first thing we did after we sold the flat was to buy a second hand caravan that we parked in the farmyard which would be our home until the house was finished, as we had decided we didn’t want to move in until absolutely everything was done although that would very much depend on the severity of the winter.
All of our furniture and worldly goods were put in the barn which we were using for storage.
Now as an accountant and a software engineer, Angela and I were of very little use in regard to the major work that was required, but as project managers we were second to none.
We were very lucky securing the professional help we needed, so many of them were between jobs or had another job that had fallen through and were unexpectedly available.
We employed a constant stream of them, builders, roofers, plumbers, plasterers, electricians, telecoms engineers and tree surgeons, and apart from our talents for project management we were also excellent tea and coffee makers.
On the practical side we were gainfully employed with clearing rubbish and shrubbery from the site and filling skips with anything and everything.
To all intents and purposes, we dropped out of sight for the duration of the project and spent every available minute we had working on the farm.
Although we did make great use of baby brother Greg on several occasions, we were quite selfish and single minded really, but we were even handed about it and we ignored friends and family alike, and we did feel guilty about it but if we could get everything done by Christmas we would be able to see whoever we liked whenever we liked.
Angela did touch base briefly with her parents by phone and we spoke occasionally to Dave and Emma, but we didn’t see them after August.
Throughout October, we made great progress whipping a large section of the acreage into something resembling a garden and in November our hard work was rewarded when the turf was laid.
By the end of November, we were able to get into the farmhouse and start decorating while the professionals made progress on the outbuilding conversion.
As we completed each room the carpets were laid and then we moved the furniture in room by room, and we worked our way through the house and we were counting the days to when we could abandon the caravan forever.
We had both accrued quite a lot of holidays and lieu time over the last few years, so we decided to use them up for the final push which meant we only worked about five days in December.
Then on the twentieth of December with great ceremony (A recording of a fanfare and a bottle of Cava) we took up residence in our dream home.
The next morning when we awoke for the first time in our own bedroom it was with a certain smug satisfaction, after all we had achieved our target with four days to spare and a few pounds left in the budget, it was going to be the best Christmas ever.
“CHRISTMAS!” Angela shouted and sat bolt upright.
“What?” I said as she leapt out of bed
“CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS” she was shouting, and running around like a headless chicken trying to dress and run at the same time and she fell over twice.
I just looked on in amusement as she flitted from bedroom to bathroom in various stages of undress.
Then she stood in the bathroom door and said.
“We don’t have anything for Christmas, no decorations, no tree, no cards, no food, no presents, no crackers, no drink we have nothing for Christmas.”
Then the penny dropped and wiped the smile off my face, we had been so focused on getting in the house by Christmas we had forgotten about Christmas itself.
“OH GOD!” I shouted and then joined in the headless chicken dance.
So for the next three days we did battle at the mall amidst the throngs of Christmas shoppers and took part in the supermarket trolley dash filling the trolleys with enough food to feed a small army, then we wrote endless cards, wrapped the numerous presents, decked the halls and trimmed the tree.
So, by the time darkness fell on the third day everything was done and presents stood in neat piles ready to be delivered the next day.
I opened a bottle of wine and we sat on the sofa beside the glowing fireplace and I put my arm around her and asked.
“Can we be smug now?”
“Oh yes I think we most certainly can” she replied smiling then she turned her head and kissed me.
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