Twenty one year old Benjamin Taylor lived with his parents in the small
country village of Mornington-By-Mere which lies in the Finchbottom Vale that
nestles between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock
Hills.
It is a quaint picturesque village, a proper chocolate box picturesque
idyll, with a Manor House, 12th Century Church, a Coaching Inn,
Windmills, an Old Forge, a Schoolhouse, a River and a Mere.
But Mornington-By-Mere is not just a quaint chocolate
box English Village it is the beating heart of the Finchbottom Vale and there were a number of cottages and small houses
on the Purplemere road and Dulcets Lane which form the part of Mornington
Village known as Manorside and the Taylor family lived in Dulcets Road
in a house called Green Fields.
He had graduated from
University earlier in the year with a degree in mathematics and his parents
hoped he would do something like Accountancy or even teaching but he enjoyed working with his
hands, particularly with wood so he got himself a job with Bespoke Furniture,
who had moved to Mornington Field.
It wasn’t as well-paid a job as his parents might have hoped for but the
money would get better because he was good at it.
Apart from the fact he had a job he was good at, that he enjoyed to
boot, he also got to stay in Mornington and he only had a ten minute walk to
work each day.
He really enjoyed his time at University in Abbottsford but the thought
of living and working in a town or city made his blood run cold.
Not that his time at University was spent in the manner of a country
boy, he lived life to the full and he enjoyed every minute of it but when he
returned to Mornington it was like being refreshed so it was always in his
plans to live there.
He loved living in Mornington it was his little slice of heaven he just
needed an angel to share it with him and he hadn’t met anyone in Abbottsford
that fitted the bill.
Ben had had more than his fair share of girls during his three years but
the vast majority of them he wouldn’t have wanted to take home for a visit let
alone as a life partner, they were too brash and vulgar and he set his target
much higher than them and when he did meet one that did measure up to his ideal
the mention of living in a small country village frightened them away which
established in his eyes that they weren’t made of the right stuff.
He did puzzle on the fact that if he hadn’t found a suitable contender out
of a pool of 90 thousand then he was clutching at straws if he thought he would
strike it lucky in the small body of water that was Mornington-By-Mere.
But he didn’t allow such thoughts to discourage him in his quest and he
had faith that he would find the one he was looking for, he just had to be
patient and keep looking.
What he didn’t take account of was that one morning as he was walking to
work the right girl would just cross his path without him even looking for her
and take him completely by surprise.
Ben Taylor first saw her one morning as he walked to work, she was a
little in front of him when she suddenly appeared as he crossed the bridge over
the River Brooke on West Gate Road.
He assumed she must have emerged from the Riverside path but wasn’t sure
where she had joined the path, but he fell into step with her and followed her
for part of the way up to Mornington Field at least as he wasn’t sure where the
anonymous figure that had fallen beneath his gaze was headed but as he was a
bit of a people watcher he decided to while away his walk to work by analysing
her, at least he assumed it was a her.
He noticed her feet first, clad in sporting wear, trainers or some such shoes
which were in fact sexless and indeterminate of gender with no distinguishing
features, the only possible indicator was that they were small, but that was
all.
Moving upwards he noticed the black trousers were baggy and gave nothing away,
as was the sweatshirt which was large, long and grey, Reaching down to cover
the wearers bum.
The brown hair was of medium length and of no particular style so could
therefore have been masculine or feminine.
Had the necessity not arisen for the figure to reach into their back pocket he
would not have noticed the shape of buttocks revealed, the movement of which,
as she walked, gave her away, she was most definitely a girl.
As he got closer the wind moved her hair and through the fine brunette strands
he glimpsed in the delicate lobe a simple feminine stud in her ear which
confirmed his suspicions.
She continued walking along West Gate road with head down Watching her sexless
feet, apparently afraid to look the world in the eye or perhaps afraid the
world would notice her, either one might have been true he thought.
When they went through the West Gate entrance and onto Mornington Field
she turned left and followed the road around to what used to be a hangar and
although he normally went straight ahead at that point along the old runway,
and it would take him out of his way, he followed her and was only two paces
behind as they turned the corner and he was level with her as they reached the kerb
and momentarily she looked up in his direction, to check if the road was clear
and he was able to glimpse her face, a pretty face, in fact a lovely face.
Briefly their eyes met, beautiful soft blue eyes, but he could not hold her
gaze and she looked back at her feet withdrawing again into her shell as she
crossed the road.
“I know you’re in there now” he thought to himself as the shy girl
withdrew.
He slotted in behind her again once they had crossed the road so he could see
which building she worked in as he didn’t know where she was going but he knew
it had to be on Mornington Field somewhere and as it turned out he only had to
follow her for another five minutes to the old South Guard House.
He watched her go in the door and then smiled to himself as the sweet
looking girl he was fascinated by worked for Crazy Chocolatiers.
“Well my hidden angel I will look for you again tomorrow morning” he
said to himself
As it turned out it was another week before he caught site of her again
but she was too far ahead for him to catch up but the next day he timed it
better but it was all a bit hit and miss and he could never get as close to her
as he would have liked and those were his only opportunities because Crazy Chocolatier’s
closed half an hour earlier than Bespoke so she was at home long before he even
clocked out and he still didn’t know exactly where she came from so it wasn’t
possible even for him to arrange to bump into her somewhere else.
So having identified his “Angel” he had great difficultly taking it to
the next level.
Apart from the obvious obstacle of not getting close enough to her, he
also found it insanely difficult to think of something to say to her which was
never an issue when he was at Uni, there he always knew what to say and he was
never knocked back, but after two weeks of “stalking” her he was completely
clueless.
19 year old Andrea Walker was an only child and lived in the house that
she and her mother Angela were born in, number 4 Dulcet Mill Lane, in the part of Mornington Village known as
Manorside.
She was a quiet shy girl and found it difficult to meet new people but
once the ice was broken people really liked her because she was such a sweet
natured girl, with a wonderful sense of humour and an infectious laugh.
But the biggest obstacle for her shyness was the opposite sex and no
matter how she approached it she couldn’t break the ice with boys which was why
she had never had a boyfriend or indeed come anywhere near to getting one.
But she would have liked to meet the good looking boy she kept seeing on
West Gate Road in the mornings.
But that wasn’t the only time she saw him because the girl from
Addison’s Bakers always parked outside Crazy Chocolatiers with the lunch orders
and she often saw Ben Taylor at the van with his work mates getting their
lunches.
One day she pointed him out to one of her workmates, Selina Tilley, and she said she knew him and she said he was as nice as he looked and
more importantly he didn’t have a girlfriend and furthermore he wasn’t gay, and
Andrea thought that that would do for her.
Alexandre Quarit, the owner of Crazy Chocolatier’s also lived in the Manorside
of the village in fact she also live in Dulcet Mill Lane and she was having a
BBQ and all the staff were invited and Andrea was the only one of the girls
that would be going on her own but she really wanted was to go with Ben Taylor
so she hoped and prayed that he would ask her out and she could suggest the
BBQ.
However as the week went on it was apparent that it wasn’t going to
happen so on Friday morning she lay in wait by the West Gate Bridge and as he
crossed she suddenly leapt out
“Do you want to go to a BBQ on Saturday?” She blurted out loudly which
stopped him in his tracks and frightened his to death in the process
“Oh erm yes please” he replied and then they both laughed.
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