Supermarkets are great places to meet new people and get chatted up. Indeed, more than one of my past love affairs began quite innocently, yet warmly, over freezer cabinets containing pizzas, petit pois, ice-cream and the like.

“What do you think of these pizzas? Have you tried them?” asked a handsome stranger to the town some years ago (pre Chris – I mean before Chris and I fell in love, not before he was born!).

Anthony was tall, blonde, blue-eyed, tanned and single, and he had a dazzling smile. We sizzled so much that it was a wonder everything in the freezer hadn’t thawed. He was also intelligent, charming and interesting, and we were still there a half hour later; we had tried to part several times – one or the other of us had moved a step away as if to go but, unable to leave just yet, stepped back into the private bubble made for two. At last we parted, but only after we had made the arrangement to meet up again a few hours later.

But that was all a long time ago. It doesn’t happen these days, except when I go shopping without Chris, which isn’t very often, except from when I’m away in Australia, and then, I assure you, it is nothing but harmless fun – hardly any sizzling and no hardship in breaking away, at least from my point of view. That’s why what happened yesterday was so weird…

At the time Chris and I were in Tesco at Newton Abbot and we were starving (not the best place for an unsuccessful slimmer to be starving). Having been around the whole store once already, without succumbing to temptation, we had forgotten laundry detergent and somehow ended up back at the chiller cabinet that holds all things sweet and delectable. We stood there for some minutes debating which slice to indulge in – a cream one or a custard one? And whilst we leaned into the cabinet to inspect the goodies, somebody had come up behind us.

“What is she encouraging you to have?” asked a rather camp voice that we didn’t recognise.

We turned around, surprised but not alarmed, to find a stranger eager to converse with us. He was around my height and perhaps in his late forties; he looked a bit like Ricky Gervais, the old singer from the eighties, now turned actor/comedian. He was grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m encouraging her to have a cream slice,” replied Chris gallantly (though I didn’t need much encouragement).

“You’re such a nice looking, happy couple,” the comedian continued, “I left my friend over there (he pointed) and I just thought it would be nice to talk to you”.

He asked a few questions to which we answered a tad charily and then I asked:

“Are you a journalist desperate for a story?”

“No,” he laughed, “I’m a people-watcher, that’s all.”

We continued to humour the Ricky look-alike with the camp voice until at last we had run out of humour and there was a silence filled with empty smiles. I stepped sidewards to make to go when Ricky put out his hand for a handshake.

“It’s been fantastic to meet you both,” he said. “You look so attractive,” he shook my hand and turned to shake Chris’s. “Hasn’t she got a beautiful smile? Doesn’t she look naughty?”

“Yes,” said Chris now wearing a fake smile and a frown of perplexity and annoyance.

“Listen, you guys,” the annoying Ricky seemed intent on keeping us there, “Seeing as you’re such lovely people, how about hooking up with me later and coming out for a drink?”

For a moment we were too taken aback to answer and there was an embarrassing simpering on our part (well, what would you do?) while I hoped Chris would come up with a good answer. Likewise, Chris hoped that I would be quick-witted enough to come up with a response that would correspond with his own wishes.

“We don’t go out, do we Darling?” I tittered stupidly as I looked to Chris for back up.

“No, we don’t go out – we’re very self contained,” Chris smiled with relief.

Seconds later  Chris and I were in the aisles, heading for the checkout.

–  “What do you think he wanted?” I asked.

– “I don’t know but thank goodness you said no – I thought you might have agreed to go.”

– “Crikey!”

– “Do you reckon he was a ‘swinger’, as they say?”

– “No, I think it was a joke.”

We were at the checkout when Ricky and his friend came along with their trolley.

“Did you think I was odd asking you out for a drink?” asked the still grinning fellow.

“Yes,” I replied, “I think it was a joke – you just wanted to see what reaction you would get.”

He laughed but didn’t confirm my suspicions, except by dint of his lack of objection to my theory.

“We’re newly divorced,” said his friend, sheepishly, “But he’s been divorced for a while longer. He’s supposed to be guiding me but I’m afraid he’s not pointing me in the right direction.”

“No, it’s not altogether a bad idea, just next time, you might both do better chatting up single ladies rather than happy couples,” I said.

“You’re a lucky man,” said Bryn (for that was his real name), this time with the suggestion of sincerity on his face as he turned to Chris.

And for the first time I didn’t think. “What a weirdo!”

“You know how to get to Stokeinteignhead Village Hall, don’t you Chris?” Robert asked in a soft voice.

In fact, I could barely hear my brother (and my hearing is way better than Chris’s), therefore I wondered if Chris had heard Robert properly; but Chris nodded, smiled and answered in the affirmative, not that that necessarily means he heard everything (or anything).

For those of you who don’t know our area, Stokeinteignhead is a small country village, inland from the coastal road leading from Shaldon to Torquay, and it is about twenty minutes drive from our home town of Dawlish, where my niece’s wedding took place. We were about to depart for “the wedding breakfast” (although it wasn’t a breakfast at all, it being about four o’clock in the afternoon!); my mum, “Granny Porch” (not to be confused with the granny in Giles cartoons), went along with Chris and me in our car. As we neared Shaldon Chris admitted that he wasn’t quite sure where the village hall was situated.

“We can always ask someone,” I suggested.

Chris surprised me with a nod of agreement, which was rather unusual as he normally refuses to stop and ask for directions, and I wondered if he had heard me.

At Shaldon he took a sharp right turn onto the Coombeinteignhead road and I asked:

“Oh, are you going this way?”

“Why not? This is the way to Stokeinteignhead, it’s right next to Coombeinteignhead. Which way would you go?”

“I would have taken the coast road and turned right at Labrador to avoid the country lanes,” I answered.

“That’s the long way,” he said quite rightly, (but it does avoid the narrow lanes).

We passed through Coombeinteignhead village and soon we saw a villager walking along the road, and Chris, of his own accord, wound down his window and called to the man:

“Excuse me, but I wonder if you could tell me where the village hall is?”

“Follow this road for another two hundred yards or so and you’ll see it on your right – there will be a lot of cars parked there. I’m on my way there myself,” the man answered cheerily.

I noted that the man was not wearing his finery and didn’t look anything like a wedding guest; in truth, he looked more like a farmer out for a walk, and it crossed my mind that if he was not a guest then he must be a warden or a lonely chap who enjoys to see a bit of life going on in the village hall.

The village hall was exactly where the man said it would be and there were many cars in the car park. I looked around to see if I could recognise my son’s car, which was rather a long shot as I’m not good at recognising people’s cars – modern cars all look so similar these days – but, not surprisingly, I couldn’t see it.

“Is Jim’s car here?” I enquired of Chris.

“No, he’s not here yet. Listen, you and your mum can get out here and go on in ahead of me while I park – there’s no need for her to walk over the grass.”

As Mum and I walked across the tarmac running along the side of the hall a pleasant-looking couple, in Barbour jackets and tweeds, came down some steps. They were on their way back to their car. They looked at us and smiled and nodded their hellos.

“It’s a lovely day for it!” said the husband.

“Oh yes, isn’t it just?” we answered, as you do.

They were as fascinated in us as we were with them; I turned around for a backwards glance and found they were doing the same.

“Perhaps they’re just using the village hall car park,” I suggested to Mum.

We approached  the open front doors, from where we could see down the entrance passage and through the glass panels of the inner door leading into the hall. There inside, where we expected to see our beautiful bride and the party from the church, was a Father Christmas!

Mum slipped into the bathroom and some ladies came out of the hall.

“Are you coming in to our Christmas Fair?” asked one of the ladies.

“Sorry,” I replied, “but we have to join our wedding party at Stokeinteignhead Village Hall. We have come to the wrong hall!”

“It’s not far – why not come in to our fair first?” she asked laughing.

Whilst my mother and I chatted to the ladies, we were joined by the villager who had told us the way to the hall.

“I had a feeling you weren’t wanting our village hall, not in your wedding outfits…” he grinned and chuckled, as farmers do.

Other charming inhabitants of Coombeinteignhead came out of the hall to see what was going on and they made sure that we had the right directions for the right village hall, only a mile and a half away. We had a feeling that the whole of the small community would soon be laughing about the smartly dressed ladies who visited their Christmas fair whilst looking for their rather late wedding breakfast. Who needs Sat Nav?