(Part 01)
It was to a very successful organization that Staff Nurse Dani Carew joined on a bitter cold January morning along with another new nurse named Patricia Clerembeax.
It was four years to the day after Dr Claire Lutchford nee Andrews, took over the Shallowfield Surgery and in that short time she and her business partner Olivia Shenton had transformed it into the Dancingdean Heath Centre, which had continued to grow in stature which necessitated the expansion of staff numbers.
However while things had been going well for Claire and Olivia in the four years they had been running the Dancingdean Heath Center in Shallowfield, it had been quite a different story in those four years for Dani, she had had a succession of loser boyfriends and had decided she was better off on her own.
The final straw came when she overheard her then Doctor boyfriend bragging about their sex life to a group of colleagues which was when she applied for a new job.
She was a Staff nurse at the Royal Downshire Hospital in Purplemere and moving to Shallowfield to work in a Health Centre was as everyone told her a step down, but she didn’t care she desperately needed a new start.
It was just before Christmas when Dani moved into Flat 4, of East Cliff Lodge, overlooking the picturesque Teardrop Lake.
The view of the water from her flat was spectacular with its distinctive teardrop shape which gave the lake its name, surrounded by the ancient woodland of the Dancingdean Forest.
It was a modest body of water as lakes go, just over two miles long and almost a mile at its widest point, it really was a thing of beauty and was both idyllic and peaceful.
There was little or no noise pollution and although the lake was used there were no speed boats or jet skis only rowing boats, canoes, dinghies and skiffs.
Fortunately Dani was not the only new starter at the health centre or the only newbie to the area.
Patricia Clerembeax who was the new palliative care nurse, moved into number 2 a couple of days before her.
Both Dani’s and Patricia’s moves had been purely out of choice because they were looking for a change and not like many in their profession who had moves forced upon them due to cost cutting measures.
As they both moved in before Christmas and weren’t due to start work until the New Year and as they were neighbours the two new girls gravitated towards each other and became firm friends.
Chantelle Grimwood, who lived in number 1, also worked at the health centre, as a Doctor and she and her husband Richard volunteered to show the new girls around and help them get their bearings and settle in.
They were both dreading that first Christmas in a new place without anyone to cuddle up to, and they thought that all that time on their own would drive them crazy.
But they needn’t have worried for a second as Chantelle soon introduced them around to all the mad people they would be working with and they had so many invitations throughout December that they didn’t have a minute to think about being lonely, even in the quieter moments because they were too exhausted.
(Part 02)
After a very enjoyable first Christmas in her new home Dani was really pleased that she wasn’t starting the new job on her own and she knew Patricia felt the same way.
They both slotted right in at the Heath Centre and they soon found that the rest of the staff were just as friendly as the ones they had already met were.
Dani loved her job from the first moment she walked through the doors and she loved living on the Lake even more.
Her New Year’s Resolution was to adopt a healthier approach to life and walked a circuit of the lake every morning except on the weekends, on Saturdays she split her time between housework and exploring the forest as well as any one of a number of places of interest, two Folly’s, a Watch tower, Olwen’s Chapel, a waterfall, brooks, streams, a 16th Century Bridge and lovers leap, and Sundays after she’d attended church in the morning she watched old films on TV in the afternoon, after all she was 30 by then and couldn’t handle too much excitement.
Apart from enjoying the Lake and its environs she was fast becoming a regular part of Church life in Shallowfield and could often be heard in full voice in the church choir.
Dani Carew was a very pretty woman with honey coloured hair, she was five feet five inches tall, trim and well-toned and she was originally from Purplemere but she was a very girlie girl.
She had just turned thirty and had resigned herself to the fact that now she had reached that milestone she was never going meet anyone better than the losers she managed to attract while she was in her prime.
Apart from needing to be shown the inner workings of the practice, the processes and procedures, Dani also needed a guided tour of the area.
District nursing being part of her remit after all, so she needed to familiarise herself with the district.
First of all she bought herself an ordinance survey map of the Finchbottom Vale, between the Dancingdean forest and the Pepperstock Hills, which encompassed her territory.
The problem was that she couldn’t read a map, or even fold or unfold one.
She didn’t have a satnav in the car which would have helped to get her from A to B but that wasn’t an option so she had to think of another way to map out the district in her head.
Fortunately the other newbie Patricia Clerembeax suggested they get together, it was obvious really because they were both equally clueless about the area so between them they could get their baring’s enough to avoid any major faux pas.
They were both based at the Health Centre for the first two months and it took that long driving around in their spare time to crack it enough for them to be let loose on an unsuspecting Finchbottom Vale.
(Part 03)
The district nursing team had a number of regular home visit, terminally ill or housebound patients or those recuperating after surgery and they soon built up a good rapport with them.
As Dani’s background was as a Staff Nurse on a surgical ward in Royal Downshire Hospital she found going out and about in the community very liberating.
She enjoyed her time in the Health Centre well enough handling the clinics and such like but Dani really liked being a district nurse and in her first six months at the Dancingdean Health Centre she became a valuable member on the team.
When she was first put on the visitors list, one of Dani’s first patients was 31 year old Richard Lambert, a cancer survivor.
Richard lived alone in the small country village of Shallowfield and he turned out to be one of her favourite patients on her visiting rounds but he was also more of a challenging one.
Richard Lambert had survived his cancer but in spite of having had the brain tumour successfully removed and after all the following treatment leading to him subsequently being given the all clear, he was clinically depressed.
Having been assigned to the Lamberts, she began from the first day to try and bring him out of his self but it was to no avail.
What Dani didn’t know was that the reason for his depression was that he had been left impotent since the surgery and as a result he never left the house.
His wife Sarah was as supportive as she could have been but she had confided to Dani very early on that she was close to breaking point.
With Richard unable to leave home Sarah was the breadwinner which she did without complaint, but there were days when she didn’t want to go home and those days became more and more frequent until she finally gave up and left him and moved to Abbeyvale.
So for two months he was completely on his own so she spent longer with him each successive visit and he looked forward to her visits more and more.
Dani tried to make the most of her visits and lift his spirits but all she actually achieved was to make the fatal mistake of falling for him.
It was the first time she had let her guard down since she left Purplemere where Dani had had a succession of loser boyfriends and had decided she was better off on her own.
The final straw came when she overheard her then Doctor boyfriend bragging about their sex life to a group of colleagues and now she was doing it again, but she hoped not with another loser.
But there was no future in a relationship in which one of the parties refused to leave the house but she was clueless as to how she could rectify the situation.
She was fairly sure that he was attracted to her, she had caught him looking at her legs and bum enough times, but that might not be enough.
However by the end of June a decision made at the heath centre forced her hand.
(Part 04)
On Friday morning when Dani reported for work at the Health Centre she was told that Richard Lambert was being taken off her list and that day would be her last.
“Who’s taking over?” she asked
“No one” she was told “We’ve done all we can for him, there are plenty of patients who actually want our help”
As she drove to his house she decided it was time for decisive action.
It was mid-afternoon when Dani opened the back door and walked in the house.
“Hello” she called
“In the lounge” Richard called back
“Ah there you are” Dani said
“Hi” Richard said laying on the sofa watching something mind numbing on the TV
“Budge over” She said and sat on the edge of the sofa beside him
“I have news”
“What news?” he asked
“Today is my last visit”
“What?” he said with alarm
“They think you’re a lost cause” she said
“And what do you think?” he asked quietly
“I disagree” she said and leant in and kissed him slowly and deliberately.
It took him by surprise but he soon got the message and by the end of the kiss he certainly wasn’t impotent, not that Dani was aware of that.
But she was aware of his level of participation in the kissing so she stood up and said
“It’s going to be a nice day tomorrow, so if you want any more of that you’ll need to meet me at Shoe Buckle Falls at noon”
“But…” he began as she reached the door “don’t go”
“Tomorrow at noon” she called back “Don’t be late”
She was up early on Saturday morning and finished her housework so she had time to get herself ready and make the best of herself, Dani was a very pretty woman with honey coloured hair, and she looked at her reflection, all five feet five inches of a trim and well-toned girlie girl in a summer dress, nodded her acceptance of what she saw and then she headed towards Shoe Buckle Falls, so named, so legend had it, after a 17th century fugitive Cavalier who was pursued into the forest by parliamentarian soldiers but disappeared in the vicinity of the falls and all they ever found of him was his shoe buckle.
The falls were not grand or spectacular but they were nice enough.
The water tumbled and spilled over the rocks, gathering briefly in deep pools and then tumbling down again to the next pool.
It was dark beneath the ancient trees and refreshingly cool as the misty spray settled on her.
Dani sat and soaked her feet in one of the deepest pools.
She sat there for ten minutes and began to feel very foolish
“Why on earth would he come” she tough to herself “it was only one kiss, your good, but you’re not that good”
She took her feet from the water and dried them before slipping her footwear back on and stood up to go home and watch an old movie.
“Hello” a voice said and startled her
“Mission accomplished” she said as she turned around and saw Richard standing there.
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