This next part of the storey is a little unclear, but only in terms of the amount of time which had passed since Marie and I had started to see each other.

We had both continued to play out this cat and mouse game with each other and ,although we were in different parts of the country, saw each other as often as we could and spoke many times a day on the phone.

Although many of our work colleagues suspected that we were seeing each other, no-one knew for sure and we certainly didn't advertise the fact to anybody.  I think that this might also have contributed something to the excitement factor.  It may also have been an element of our relationship which we encouraged, although we never actually spoke about this to each other.

I remember that at this point Marie was no longer seeing her former boyfriend (Paul), but we were continuing to play out this masquerade of casual attraction to each other, without any open acknowledgement of our true feelings to either each other or the outside world.

I remember also that Marie had been made redundant from ICL in what seemed to be a contrived manoeuvre by her then manager and had found work at a new company near Reading.  This wasn't a long way from Windsor and we would meet up for clandestine lunches from time to time.  This would require me to rush from Windsor and drive quickly down the M4 motorway so that we could have more time with each other.  No-one at ICL would know where I had gone for lunch, I just disappeared for my lunch break.

During one of our telephone calls and for the following few, I do remember Marie asking me when I would next be down as she had something to tell me.  She was insistent that she didn't want to tell me over the phone but had to tell me in person.

I'm not the best person on the world to keep waiting where information of a personal nature is concerned and I would probably have pushed as hard as I could to find out just what it was that Marie had to tell me.  I imagine I would have been far too intrigued and impatient to wait until the next time I was going to be travelling down to Windsor to find out what it was.

And so it was that Marie called me at home one evening and told me her news.

She was going to get married.

I was absolutely stunned.  Who had she been seeing, long enough to agree to marry them ?

Well the answer was Paul.  But not Paul her ex boyfriend, as one might naturally think, but a Paul I'd never heard of and of whom she clearly had never spoken about.

It turned out that this Paul was an old family friend who she had known for some time as a friend of one or more of her brothers.  I'm still not too sure how long they had been seeing each other but I do remember Marie telling me that at that time she was seeking a little stability in her life, for a number of reasons and he simply asked her to marry him.

It was during this conversation on the telephone that I disclosed to Marie that I probably wouldn't have made her the same offer (of marriage) because I'd been married before.  At that time I was quite against being married again.  I had concluded that as it was so easy to get out of marriage I didn't see the point of having a piece of paper to formalise a relationship.  I wanted to be committed to a person because I loved them and not because there was a piece of paper formalising a relationship.

The next few months are something of a blur in my memory, but there must have been some period of adjustment before I saw Marie again.  I don't know whether I should have made her a counter offer of marriage, I know some of my girl friends told me that I should ask her, but somehow I was very uncomfortable with this.

I wasn't keen on being married again at that time of my life, and I felt also that I would have been coerced into doing something which I wasn't sure about.  In short I felt that the only advice being offered and option available to me was forcing me down a road I was unhappy about.

I wasn't unhappy about being in a relationship with Marie, but I was unhappy about the prospect of being forced to make a counter offer of marriage to her.

It was a very confusing time, but before too long we were seeing each other again and continued to do so right up to a few weeks before she eventually got married.

I went flying that day to do something positive and take my mind off what was happening 200 miles south of Manchester.  It didn't work.  I remember thinking that by the time I had landed back at Manchester airport the deed had been done.

Well it was obvious by then that things would have to change.  It had all been very exiting and a little naughty but things had changed now, she was married, she had made her choice and I must respect that and let her get on with her new life.  I resolved to put it all behind me and leave her to her new life.