Well, folks, this thread has now gone sufficiently quiet that I can add my postscript to it!
STAND BY HERE GOES! OH WOW
Hi All.
Postscript’s postscript to everyone else’s post—on this thread!
Well, as stated, it was with reluctance that I left you all and trundled my way homewards quietly contented from a superb evening. Was it the Hayley factor again? Was I just having one of my good days (my energy levels are erratic and my doctor still hasn’t sorted out why) or was I on a psychological Hayley high?
I fell to musing on the pleasure she gives in all she does and how I actually felt uplifted she was back in the UK, never mind about the opportunity of meeting with her again… and what a time we had with her on this evening? I told her it was magnificent, ‘Oh I don’t know about that…’
‘Nonsense. You had an audience of two or three hundred and totally unfazed you said, “Hang on everyone, this isn’t right”. Coolly and calmly you fell to sorting it out with total self-assurance. You handled it magnificently and provided us with a most interesting insight into the work of a recording studio.’
One of the best meetings with Hayley ever… well, that June evening outside Cadogan Hall was pretty impressive to... and then there was…So I fell to thinking about the latest news I had at that time only cursorily gleaned, that she might have got her own flat at last and how, on some thread somewhere we had wondered how to handle the situation were we to bump into her in the course of sheer chance in the everyday world.
I think we came to the conclusion that we would just wave and make no approach. She was in private time etc and should not be intruded upon. Well, folks, the answer is, it won’t be you who makes the decision! She will. If she’s short of time, she’ll just wave an acknowledgement. If she wants to stop and chat, she will make that clear by moving towards you.
Richard has come the closest to meeting her like this, twice showing her where the stage door was, but that was still an ‘expected’ interaction. If Richard were not outside the stage door at any London function I am sure Hayley would wonder, ‘Where’s Richard?’
Am I right in claiming to be the first HWI member to meet Hayley in real private time? It was around an hour into my three-hour journey home that I pulled into a service station off the M4. It might have been Delaware, but it was the service area before the Hungerford turning going towards London. It occupies a small foot print as the main restaurant facilities are upstairs. It is one of the smaller, more intimate service stations and probably not to be recommended on tourist days as it would be easily over-loaded, although there is ample car parking space.
I emerged from the Gents into the foyer and was looking around somewhat bemused wondering what was available and should I explore upstairs when, out of the corner of my eye I was aware of a gaggle of girls going into the Ladies and thought I recognised one of them. I stopped in my tracks and took two steps back to look into the corridor leading to the Ladies rest room.
It would appear that Fiona must have seen me first because I just caught sufficient sight of her as she disappeared to realise it was her when Hayley, who must have been ahead of Fiona re-emerged. Fiona had obviously said, ‘Hayley, Peter’s in the foyer’ and Hayley had done a complete about-turn.
‘Hi!’ She says
‘Good Lord’, says I, ‘I’ve only just arrived’.
‘So have we’, she said. ‘I just needed to wash the chocolate off my face’.
It is hard to imagine Hayley at even three years old making a mess of her face when eating chocolate. Certainly there was not a trace of chocolate even on her lips that I could see but perhaps she had the sensation of stickiness around them and on her fingers.
As to what she was wearing I can only say that she was casually dressed. Wearing her leg-clinging jeans, I assume she was in boots and her top was long and flowing, black with a gold design over the chest and shoulders… I think. The overall effect was black but the jeans could have been a dark indigo—it was not a particularly well-lighted area. When admiring Hayley from a distance one naturally looks at her dresses. When you are conversationally close to her you forget everything else and look into her face, her eyes and on this occasion, since being indirectly invited to do so, her lips which seemed pristine clean to me.
‘You’ve been at the chocolate already?’
‘We shared it’, she replied—she had been handed some chocolate from Grant and, was it David, or MJ? It was interesting the way she said this. It sounded like a mild mix of guilty confession and quick duck-shoving of responsibility but that may be my lyricism flowing rather than her guile!
‘We’ve eaten one and a half bars!’
Now Guys PLEASE TAKE NOTE. Very important chocolate information coming up!‘The Lindt is pleasant but the Black and Green has that extra edge.’
‘I’m not familiar with it myself.’
‘You must try it, it’s lovely, I think they put in a little extra sugar to give the bite.’ So, there we have it, folks, despite all her healthy eating our Hayley does have a sweet tooth and, as Grant has already advised us, partial to Black and Green organic chocolate!
‘Who are you with tonight?’ Meaning Steve, Kathryn, whom?
.
‘Oh we’re all together as a group.’ This gave me the impression she was without management representation on this trip. It was just the players themselves.
I was tempted to say, ‘You mean you’ve forgotten their names again?’
I am sure she would have laughed and enjoyed the joke but she was so happy and bubbly and as equally as delighted as I at our chance encounter that I feared it might generate negative vibes at remembering that moment on stage when she forgot the names of her two new instrumental accompanists, so I chose not to play clever repartee with her and let the moment pass.
‘Well, fancy bumping into you. Thanks for a great evening and thank you for signing that poster from my friend in the States. I am going to photograph it and send that to him. He will be chuffed.’
‘Oh great!’ She said and on that we parted, she diving back into the Ladies and me to acquire an invigorating chilled fruit salad and bottle of sparkling water to see me manage the rest of my journey without further stops.
When I came out there was a camper-van a few spaces from my car but I would expect her to have been in a hired people carrier (she had said she had a professional driver) and in any case I did not wish to pry, so I assume it was not them, that they had left long before I did.
Peter S.
PS: [Of course there is a postscript to a Postscript post!] It has subsequently dawned on me that if we do meet Hayley in private time we ought to ask if we may post the fact. I didn't think on this occasion, but I'm sure this is a sufficiently innocuous meeting as to justify posting anyway. But points to bear in mind if anyone else is so fortunate as I.
my regular supplier having let me down I struggled to find the right sort. Green & Blacks would ALWAYS be my first choice, so if you're reading this Hayley, my apologies and I'll make sure you get the right stuff in future 
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