Been listening to some Roy Orbison (sorry about YouTube's adds):
Pretty Woman - I've always associated this one with her.
- describes my feelings very well.
And a bit of Charlie Rich:
The Most Beautiful Girl In The World - ever since I first tasted her cherry pie
.
Story of the cherry pie? This is a very simplified version of what was a very complicated chain of events.
I knew her brother, we both worked at the same company. We often met up at a mutual friend's flat (apartment) in the evening. I'd occasionally seen this quiet little girl there, but she was extremely shy, was just there with her brother, I'd never taken a lot of notice.
One evening, she came in an hour later than usual, brought in this dish on which she'd baked a cherry pie. It was still hot, she cut it up, put it on plates, and passed them round - there must have been about eight of us there. I got the last slice. Well, I took one spoonful, wow, and did a double-take of her just as she was disappearing out of the flat. They say "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I can vouch for the truth of that.
Didn't see much of her for a while, though I was thinking about her a lot - I, too, was very shy. A week or so later, her car was misfiring, her brother wasn't about, she came round to where I was staying. A new spark plug had her going again. The next I knew, she saw me again one evening, invited me for a meal that she would prepare in her flat, a sort of "thank you". That meal totally hooked me. Later she asked if I would take her to the movies, so we saw "The Sound of Music". Not my cup of tea at all, but I didn't mind, I was in lurve.
Things developed from there. I did have some competition (another friend of her brother), but it all turned out extremely fortunately for me, though what she saw in me I'll never know. After some months I proposed, she kept me on tenterhooks for a couple of days, then accepted with the proviso that her parents approved of me (she's always been very old fashioned). So, met her parents - her mother approved of me because I complimented her on her cooking (not as good as her daughter's, but I didn't say that), her father approved of me because I'd fixed her car. At least, that's what I think. Of course, when he was younger, her dad used to ride a Brough Superior, and although I wasn't riding at the time, we did have some common ground, so that probably helped as well.
The rest, as they say, is history, except to say that her cherry pie remained as my favourite pud ever since.
Ok, thanks for listening, I'm going to try to cheer up a bit.
Yet more pics, China, 2007.
(Click on image for larger view)