126 Meeting up with a friendly couple, Monica and husband
Despite the events described in Episode 125, which I didn't make up, I can assure you, we went just once more to the next rainwear presentation in Northampton. I half hoped that my 'Kissing Lady' would make herself known to me, but I was out of luck. If she was there I wouldn't have recognised anyway. Perhaps she was, but only prefered other girls if they were unaccompanied.
However a nice couple we talked to on our first visit were there again. They hadn't gone on to that party afterwards and, as Jos and myself had agreed anyway, didn’t go on to any further party – they (and we?) were too 'respectable' for that sort of thing.
Instead we went out elsewhere afterwards for an evening meal with them, she (Monica) and I still wearing mackintoshes needless to say. We actually ( and luckily) got on very well with each other and agreed to stay in touch. They, again like us, had no wish to make contact with other enthusiasts in their home area and, until they met us, had carefully kept their special interest to themselves.
We never visited each other’s homes, or even knew each other’s home address, just communicating over the telephone, but we did arrange to meet up once a year in early Spring, always at a hotel at Skegness which was approximately half way between our home towns, they living near York and who they had also thought that Northampton was far enough away to avoid any embarrasing meeting with people that might know them. Skegness is a windy seaside resort, very “bracing”, as their poster adverts said in those days. Even nice enough in April when we decided was the best time to go, before holiday time and after the Easter holiday.
We go on a Friday evening and return after lunch on the Sunday, staying two nights in a local hotel. Monica, the other lady, and I are always able to wear mackintoshes for our opposite numbers to admire.
Monica has one of those slinky sexy black satin rubberised mackintoshes that I had never got round to acquiring. After a year or so of these visits, Monica acquired herself a second, this one in black (we gathered that they had a thing about black) taffeta also rubber lined. So if we got wet during the day, she had one to change into for the evening or, on one memorable occasion, lend to me to try on, provided they could take photos of me in it!
Jos had by now bought that SBR from the Bournemouth shop and Monica's husband had one anyway from the Northampton shop (hence the connection). So the two men wore, and still wear, those as much as possible over the week-ends. In the earlier days, we imagined that people is Skegness took us for motor-cyclists.
There was no wife swopping activity or anything remotely approaching it. It was just very pleasant to meet another couple with similar leanings and compare notes. They, curiously, had had no children either, so it was a bit of a relief not to spend time discussing each other's families, as is usually the case these days for people of our age!
We usually visit some local place of interest, even as far afield as Lincoln, by train and wearing our mackintoshes of course, which has attracted some interest over the years, (especially more recently when that sort of rainwear has virtually disappeared – comment added 2015!). On several of these week-end jaunts, when the weather has been too unpleasant to go further afield, we have taken the train or the bus to Mablethorpe, a town about 20 miles along the coast and visited their life-boat station where they are always happy to show us over their two life-boats and tell us about their recent rescues in return for a small donation to their funds, of course. We each found it entertaining, perhaps provocative, to travel and even join other guided tours dressed as I have said.
I showed Monica and her husband extracts from our journal and it was really nice to be encouraged by them to keep on with this journal. Monica wanted a mention in return for lending me the mackintosh for those photos and here it is, then – Monica! Even now a mention in the Index.
We never went to Northampton again and, they tell us, neither did they
"Now then, Kate, put it on back-to-front. I know you and Chris would like that!".
"Yes, hood up - of course. Wait a minute. Tie it in position, Chris"
"Super, Kate. Let's see how long you can stand that?"