Guys 

Many years ago just after I had left university I found myself at the French Institute in Leicester Square where I caught a movie and it was there that I met a French girl named Pascale

It was a strange meeting as I would have walked straight past her (as you do in London) but she was being hassled by an idiot who threatened to follow her home

I soon told the guy that it would not be good for his health to continue but this had unnerved Pascale so I offered to accompany her back to her flat in St Johns Wood

As it was late I crashed on the couch and a friendship that has lasted to this day was born as we had something rather strange in common 

We were both identical twins 

 Pascale’s twin was named Agathe and obviously you all know Josie

We began to spend a great deal of time in each others company and she and Josie became firm friends 

The strange thing is that Pascale and I never became lovers

It just did not seem right to jeopardize our friendship with messy emotions.

I also grew close to her family and often Josie and I summered with them in Southern France where her parents owned a rather impressive villa that to my delight backed on to a railway

It was here that the genesis of my poem formed as if one sat around the pool in the evening luxuriating in the gentle southern breezes

Petals from the nearby roses and other flowers would fall and drift into the pool until they drowned.

These are the times that I will always remember as apart from the trains and being surrounded by beautiful women

Under the hot Mediterranean sun 

I was treated to the spectacle of the petals in the swimming pool during the decaying hours

And then things changed when Pascale’s parents divorced and the villa was sold 

Pascale and her sister moved to California with their mother and although both Josie and I were invited to visit them this never happened and we only corresponded 

It was in one of these letters that Pascale told me she was moving to the Philippines as she had met another teacher who had secured a position there.

For a couple of years we did not really speak to each other until out of the blue Pascale said that she was visiting London with her sister and wanted to see us both again 

There is a saying that French women like their wines age well and I find no reason to find this false as both Pascale and Agathe were now even more beautiful than I had remembered them 

This said life had not been that kind to both the sisters as their marriages had broken up and this had hit them hard

They told us that at present they were living together in LA although their mother was now in Boston 

Josie and I were both invited to visit them in LA which we are planning to do in September as friends should not drift apart 

Here is a thought if I had not decided to catch that French movie or if Pascale had not been hassled then we would not have met and four beautiful friendships would not have been formed 

And it is doubtful if I would have written 

A Million Roses Pink

Joe