Getting Back to Horses!!!

I've decided that I'm trying much too hard and investing too much time and energy into trying to find another partner through life.

I had a date a few weeks ago, exactly the same age as me and in the midst of a mid-life crisis. I tried to help him but after the umpteenth earnest discussion about the meaning of life I told him as kindly as I could that I couldn't help him with his mid-life crisis as I'm only just emerging from my own!!!

I had another first date today who I've spent quite a few hours on the phone to and he sounded ideal. He told me he was laid back and cheerful with a "wicked sense of humour." Today, before we even left the premises, he'd told me about the time he put a man in hospital for 2 weeks, and he told me about a second man he'd done the same to before our afternoon together was over!

Now call me old fashioned if you like but I don't believe violence is the way to solve anything. He also seemed to have a fairly low opinion of women on the whole and the alarm bells in my head were deafening!!! I spent most of the afternoon thinking that I could be doing something useful back here instead and the distance I kept between us kept getting greater the more time I spent with him!

He wants to see me again but there's no point as far as I can see. He told me that it was great that, after all I've been through lately, I'm still laughing all the time. It sprang into my mind that if I spent too much time with him that might change rather fast!!!

He did have a very nice dog though!!!

When I returned one of my friends was here with her mother who lost her husband at about the same age as I am now, after 32 years of marriage. I asked her, after so many years of feeling comfortable together, whether she had decided that trying to find someone else was just too much hassle.

She said that she had had other relationships but the trouble was that she and her husband had spent so much time laughing together and she couldn't find the same with anyone else.

I have a horrible feeling that I will be saying the same when I get to her age in 20 years time. David and I were always laughing about something and had so many private jokes going all the time.

It was a useful experience really as I'm starting to realise that another man would give me a whole new set of problems and demands on my time, so I'd have to be pretty certain he was worth the effort!!!

We went to a game and country show and it occurred to me, not for the first time, that Bella doing a liberty display would be one of the most engaging things there!

I have my pony, trained and ready, and my slogan "Dales Dare To Be Different" I'd be much better concentrating on working towards achieving my goals in that area.

A friend told me that a relationship with a man should be "the icing on the cake but not THE cake." I believe that's the right way for me to look at it and I haven't found the right icing yet by a long way!!!