July
Flaming June had given way to a humid and oppressive July and Stuart Cameron and Deborah Woodward finally had a weekend on which they could get out and walk together.
So on Saturday
morning they were both up with the lark and set off to explore.
By making an
early start they hoped to get some exploration in before the day became too
oppressive, so they set off down an unfamiliar path and planned to explore
anything that even vaguely resembled a trail.
Later that day,
though not much later, Amelia Williamson met Victoria outside number 1 Stable
Cottages and gave her the keys and after about ten minutes she left Victoria on
her own enjoying her surroundings and then there was a knock on the door, and
her bed had arrived.
Shortly after
that Harold arrived with the van and they moved the rest of her furniture in,
and when everything was in, he left her to settle in.
And as she sat in
her armchair drinking her coffee she felt at home, which made her smile because
the cottage was the first place she really thought of as a home since she was a
girl and living with her parents.
It wasn’t a long
walk by their standards, and it wasn’t a particularly difficult one, but
Deborah and Stuart were both sweating profusely by the time they reached Armada
Head.
They’d chosen
that particular walk as it was close enough to the cliffs to get whatever sea
breeze might be on offer but there was also a lot of tree cover to offer them
some shade.
They hadn’t been
to that part of the island before and as they walked to the rocky outcrop and
took in the vista it took away what little breath they had left.
She stopped on
the crest to mop her brow and then she pinched the V-neck between her fingers
and shook it violently causing the material to ripple and thus cause a draft up
her shirt.
“Does that help?”
he asked
“No not really”
she replied, and they both laughed
Then they sat
down on a slab of granite which bizarrely felt cool despite the heat of the sun
and shared the bottle of water from Stuarts pack.
Stuart had taken
to carrying a pair of binoculars on his solitary walks and they were still in
his pack, so he took them out as well and they used them to look across the
water to St Giles du Cabot.
When they had
drunk their fill of the view they headed down towards the river where they
found a shady spot to have their lunch.
They were both
devotees of classical music and spent most of the time while they sat, talking
about music, favourite composers, performers and individual pieces.
There was common
ground on much but were diametrically opposed on others, for example he was a
traditionalist whereas she was very definitely not and embraced the modern
composers.
Their other
favoured topics were literature as they were both veracious readers,
contemporary and classics, or movies, and they both considered themselves to be
classic film buffs.
When they had
finished lunch and they emerged from the shade it had gotten unbearably hot, so
they went into Spaniards Creek to Jardine’s General Store and restocked with
bottled water for the walk home.
It was the first
of several stops on the return walk, they took advantage to any and all shade
as far as Norman Beach where they walked along the shore and cooled themselves
before the most difficult part of the walk which covered a one mile stretch
along the cliffs where there was no shade.
When they reached the next stand of trees, they instantly felt the
coolness of the shade.
By the time they
reached Manor Cliff Beach it was the hottest part of the day, so they removed
their shoes and socks and paddled in the sea up to their knees and waded all
the way until they climbed back up to Manor Cliff and the short walk home.
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