Paula Bennett was all smiles and bare feet in the sand at her wedding last weekend to an old boyfriend. She looked thrilled to bits.
But back home (his) in Australia, his until-recently lover is most upset and wants us to know. "Within 24 hours of him meeting her again, he told me basically he and I were over and he was going to go back to New Zealand with her," she said.
Until then she'd thought he was The One For Her.
Now she's left with nothing but his dog and no doubt the fading scent of his toothpaste on her pillow, and a sock (his) with a hole in it wedged under her clothes drier.
To become the solo mother of a dog is a sad thing. Feeding a mutt costs a fortune and who's going to foot the bill?
And there's nothing more poignant than an old sock, so I wish her better things.
You hear these late-flowering romance stories all the time, especially now that the internet makes infinite human connections possible.
I know one woman, about 80, who abandoned her husband of a lifetime to rush overseas to the brand new love of her life.
It lasted - oh, weeks.
I know another, whose rekindled ardour wore out in months (she was younger). A friend rekindled a past romance with a louse, only to prove he was still a louse, as they tend to be.
We all know these people, otherwise sane but desperate for the rush of lust you feel when you're young and unwary, and which you inevitably live to regret.
It's better left to occasional daydreaming, surely.
Think of Roger Kerr's embarrassing carry-on with former Act MP Deborah Coddington.
Think of Don Brash's public romantic problems and those of so many middle-aged men desperate to produce sprogs again with women their daughter's age.
They rush at it like lemmings and what happens next? They're snoozing in front of the TV news, worn out, a delicate trail of dribble welling up at the corner of their mouth, while some harassed young career woman (the new wife) cleans up after the toddlers and rues the day she bought the whole creaky package.
I'm happy to see a couple of old flames once every five years but the idea of picking up an old romance with them again, like some dropped stitch in a piece of knitting, holds no appeal.
Besides, there must have been a good reason why you split up the first time; some suppressed memory of rage or humiliation that would suddenly surface, and blow the whole edifice of rekindled ardour to bits.
I trust this won't be the case for the minister; that she won't be another high-flying woman formerly on a benefit - Christine Rankin springs to mind - who believes she can have it all, true love, a demanding job and a joyous blended family.
But I'm not in the business of waving magic wands and a lifetime's cynicism is a habit that's hard to break.
Her new husband may be a good bloke and all Ms Bennett believes him to be for all I know, and they may be happy ever after.
Either way, to paraphrase Janis Joplin, they might as well get it while they can. Why not?
