Baxter had long given up any ideas of a great romance.
He certainly wasn't waiting for white steeds or dashing rescues.
he just wanted someone..........
that he could turn to at the supermarket and say "did you see that ?" when something crazy happened.
Someone who would roll their eyes at the same old corny stuff that Baxter rolled his eyes at.
Most of the time Baxter convinced himself that the hole he felt inside was just a teeny hole.He told himself that he just needed to get out more.
So Baxter took cooking classes which he quite enjoyed. He loved the measuring and weighing and the fancy little icing shapes.
He loved all the accessories and heavy bowls and the floofy hats. In time, he perfected the triple-chocolate-slightly-leaning-to-one-side cake.
But Baxter knew that, no matter how delicious, no amount of triple-chocolate-slightly-leaning-to-one-side cake and no amount of cute cooking equipment was going to help.
Baxter joined a social dance group. It was meant to be very low- key and lots of fun-all ages welcome.
He realised that in a certain age bracket there seemed to be less men and more women. This , and Baxter's impeccable manners, meant that Baxter's dance card was very full.
Frankly , he found it quite terrifying.
Baxter soon found himself looking for reasons to stay home on dance night.
Any reason would do.
Baxter joined a running club, and he knew pretty quickly that it wasn't going to work.
How could he meet people when he couldn't even keep up?
Baxter felt old and slow.
He was sick of trying and sick of joining.
That night Baxter looked at the teeny tiny hole inside and he knew that in fact it was a really-quite-big hole after all.
Of course, what Baxter didn't know was that lots of people have really -quite-big holes inside just like him ,and they are all trying to fill them up with all sorts of stuff.
One unremarkable Tuesday, Baxter was returning some Tupperware to a friend when he met Lou,
They introduced themselves and Lou made a very daggy joke about Tupperware. Baxter couldn't help but laugh- it was a terrible joke!
A few days later, Baxter and Lou ran into each other in the cake shop. Lou enquired as to the health of Baxter's Tupperware collection and asked for recommendations for afternoon tea.
Personally, Baxter didn't think you go past a jam fancy.
On Saturday Lou called Baxter and invited him out for coffee
involved coffee, cake, company ...and a table in the sun.
They went to art galleries,
Lou even managed to drag Baxter along to a fancy dress party.
Where, after a few cordials, Lou took out the much-coveted Dining Room Limbo Championship!
Without even realising it, the really quite-big-hole inside Baxter got smaller and smaller and smaller
until one day - it was completely gone.
