August
At the
beginning of August one bright Friday morning the landscape gardening Thorne
sisters, Katie, Kerry, Georgia and their close friend, Village Postman, Jack
Gibbs, were driving up to Quarry Hill for the wedding of a friend.
The Wedding
ceremony was taking place at St Theresa’s and the reception was at the Quarry
View Hotel, which was where they were staying and all of them had targets among
the other guests, either rekindling with ex’s or dealing with unfinished
business.
It was hoped,
though none of the four had expressed it out loud, that with liberal quantities
of alcohol and dancing at the reception might get the job done.
They arrived in
Quarry Hill and drove into the Hotel carpark just before twelve o’clock and
they got their first look at the luxury Hotel it was not a particularly
esthetically pleasing structure and was typically Victorian however the
harshness of its hard lines had been softened by the matured shrubbery, but
they were not there for the architecture they had other fish to fry.
They quickly
checked in to their rooms and then made their way to the terrace to have a bite
of lunch, and they were pleased to see that the objects of their desires were
already sitting at separate tables, in that typically British way. Solicitor Kevin Dixon, Nursery nurse Hailey
Willmott, Rudyard Richmond who owned and ran the General Store in the Village
and the only one not from Pepperstock Green, Susie Bradshaw who was from
Pipershaven and was a Waitress at the Kissing Angel restaurant.
When the
Thorne’s arrived, they immediately drew everyone together, because they all
knew them so they all gathered around two tables and introductions were made
for those who needed them.
After lunch,
which was more indulgent than any of them intended, they decided to take a walk
round the lake in the Hotel grounds, to burn off some calories otherwise they
would have spent the afternoon dozing on the terrace.
When they set
off for the walk they were in a huddled chattering group, but it wasn’t long
before they spread out into a ragged strand.
Jack and
Rudyard were at the back about 20 yards behind Katie and Susie who appeared to
be getting on like a house on fire.
About ten
minutes later they were in sight of the lake and Kerry shouted back from her
place in the vanguard.
“PUNTS”
And Jack and
Rudyard started jogging towards her.
“What’s going
on” Katie said with alarm
“Were going
punting” Rud said and took her hand, and they ran hand in hand along the path,
and she exclaimed
“But I’ve never
punted”
“Nor have I” he
admitted
The reason for
all the excitement was because Kerry had once dated a Cambridge student and
spent some glorious summer days in Cambridge, and a disproportionate amount of
time was spent Punting on the river Cam and she often regaled them of the non-regulation
games they used to get up to on the water.
The Quarry View
Lake was not the River Cam, but it was uniformly shallow and therefore ideal
for Punting.
The flat bottom
boats available for hire were similar to the punts you find in Oxford and
Cambridge but not precisely the same.
However, they
hired four punts and divided up into teams made up of the respective couples
they hoped to be in by the end of the weekend.
Kerry quickly
explained the rules, of which there were few, in fact there weren’t any, the
simple object of the exercise was not to get wet.
A few of the
party had been on the water at one time or another, some more than others, but
Kerry explained that when they were punting the winners were the ones who
stayed dry.
“If your pole
gets stuck in the mud you let it go, if the situation arises then you stay with
the punt and not with the pole it’s simple really.” Kerry explained
Now having
stated that the object of the exercise was to stay dry, in truth what she
should have actually said was that the goal is to get your opponent’s wet.
“Once both
occupants of a punt have been dunked then they can take no further part” Kerry
added
Under normal
circumstances hostilities wouldn’t begin until all craft were out of sight of
the dock and the prying eyes of the boat keeper.
But on this
occasion Kevin missed his footing and fell in the river without even setting
foot onto his punt.
“God Kevin, you
rowed at university” Jack shouted “you should be more at home on the water than
any of us”
Once the
flotilla had travelled sufficiently to be in open water hostilities could begin
and against all the odds it wasn’t long before Kerry, the most experienced
Punter among them, succumbed to an early bath and they were down to three
vessels.
There had been
a number of harmless skirmishes when Jack, who was now the most experienced on
the water, narrowly avoided a ramming by Georgia’s punt only to find himself
heading straight for a weeping willow.
Susie panicked
and ran to the rear of the vessel and then she and Jack slid down the pole
together.
During the
ensuing laughter Hailey and Rudyard collided, and they both got dunked.
Katie stood up
and laughed like a drain before she shouted
“Abandon ship”
and jumped in and joined Rud.
“I’ll save you
captain” she said and wrapped her arms around him as they stood in the cool
water, him up to his thighs and Katie waist deep and they laughed in the summer
sunshine, which was when he kissed her.
As Rud stood in
the waters of the Cam kissing Katie his new girlfriend, Georgia noisily
declared herself the winner.
They spent the
next hour employing the Punts as they were designed to be used until their time
was up.
After they had
done battle on the lake and returned the Punts to the jetty they squelched their
way back along the banks of lake in high spirits.
Georgia, the
youngest of the Thorne sisters, had never won at anything before and was so
thrilled with her victory she wouldn’t shut up about it on the walk back to the
Hotel, so they picked her up and threw her into the water and her last words
before she hit the water were
“You can’t do
that I’m the winner”
As they got
closer to the Hotel, they could hear a happy chatter and the sound of glasses
chinking and then they walked around the side to the terrace where they found
it crowded with other wedding guests.
“Oh goodness
you’re all wet” the bride’s mother said, “What on earth has happened?”
“They threw me
in river” said Georgia indignantly “because they’re bad losers”
This
information was received with raucous laughter and not with the wave of
sympathy she had been expecting so she flounced off to get showered.
The rest of the
group decided to have a drink on the terrace first.
Over the next
hour everyone slowly drifted off in their ones and twos to get ready for the
evening.
Katie Thorne
and Rudyard Richmond were back on the terrace after dinner, and they spent a
romantic hour cuddling on a bench watching the sun go down.
“This is nice”
Rudyard said
“This is
perfect” Katie corrected him
So, half of the
group that had driven up to Quarry Hill on Friday had achieved their romantic
goal before the wedding bells were rung whereas for the other four, they would
have to wait until the wedding reception to ensure the deal was done before the
weekend was over.
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