I suspect you know that by “it”, I do not mean something mundane like… a keepsake that went missing, or the ability and patience to knit a jumper (I never had that), or a fluency in another language (never had that either!). I mean the magical something, not entirely to do with looks, that some men and women have, which makes the opposite sex behave irrationally. Take yesterday, for example…

Unlike today, which is inclement, yesterday was cold but pleasant to be out in, and for a change Chris and I took a walk through the shopping centre of Dawlish. It’s something we don’t do often because it takes such an age to walk down the Strand, not that our Strand is a particularly long street, just packed with people who know me and want to chat (there is a little cachet -or is it chatet?- to being an artist in a small town). Owing to the cold, I was rather “rugged up” in various layers of thick clothing, so much so that I could hardly zip up my pretty white gilet, and I felt a wee bit puffed out like the “Michelin-tyre Man” (even more than usual).

We had not walked far (but we had been out for an hour), and we were in the midst of our tenth conversation, this time with an artistic local lady, when it happened… the most handsome man in Dawlish (after Chris, of course) who, unbeknownst to me, had been striding towards us, suddenly swooped me up in his arms, leaned me back in dramatic Hollywood manner and kissed me in the way that, when I was a child, I used to think was the proper mode of kissing – I was taken aback, quite literally. The lady waited until I was vertical again before smiling her farewell and pressing on.

“Hello, Chris. Sorry about that but something too powerful to resist came over me,” said the second most handsome man in Dawlish,

“I understand,” Chris answered, “but there’s no need to kiss me, a handshake will do!” he added as our friend leant forward to shake his hand.

“Well, I had better run, I’m going to be Father Christmas at two o’clock.”

He kissed me again twice before dashing off to find his sleigh. Well, he could hardly refuse me – it was my Christmas wish. Yes, he has “IT” too (as if you hadn’t guessed!).