No Room For Flowers

Here is an oil painting showing a couple kissing. Where did this come from - a bit of luck and a couple stood outside a railway station. Over Christmas last year I spent a day in Liverpool searching for noteworthy graves and then walked down into the city. While standing outside Lime Street Railway Station a couple in their thirties were kissing and holding one another above two suitcases. The woman was adamant he didn't follow her through the doors into the station. She was tightly gripping some flowers.

"Trust you to be buy these today," she said, "Where I am going to put them? I've no room for flowers."

While their mutual concentration absorbed I thought how easily I could easy slide one of those cases away and, behind a corner, see if there was anything worth selling. However I thought to myself, "It's Christmas...the time of goodwill. I won't bother." I'm sure the gods have added one week onto the end of my life for this goblet of goodness.

The woman disappeared into the warmth of the railway station (flowerless - so she must have taken them with her) and I went to see the bits of slaughtered animals being sold on the outdoor market stalls. I never forgot that conversation - or the woman's big hair or the man's full purple corduroy suit - and am glad as it provided a title for this college-student-quality painting. I mustn't grumble though as it didn't veer off the path of progress and demand a repair. When I started the man was kissing the woman's mouth but somehow her veered right and now looks to be kissing her cheek. Also I noticed the woman's hair was too big and rather 1980s so I had to shear some off. In keeping with the painting's title I should have included some flowers but...er....in keeping with the title there's no room for flowers.

I can see this painting in your walk-in wardrobe. You could hang it on the wall near your drawer laden with bubblewrap thongs, fur-lined mole grips, and 12-peice rubber clamp collection. I can mail to you tomorrow after my Do-It-Yourself-Eye-Laser-Treatment class (you must attend with someone so they can escort you home but I can only afford to do one eye so I'll be fine getting the bus home.) It's yours for £12,000 including postage and this includes the chewing gum I stuck on the back of the canvas.