The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (219) Love at First Sight

 

September

 

Downshire is a relatively small English county but that didn’t bother its inhabitants, they may not have been the biggest, but they were in no doubt that it was the best, and that belief was no truer than on the eastern extreme of the Pepperstock Hills National Park, at the end of the Finchbottom Expressway, namely the deepwater seaport of Pipershaven, on the edge of Pepperstock Bay.

It was first established as a garrison town by the Romans during the reign of Vespasian in 70 A.D. as Piperis Stirpe Praesidio.

In the 21st century none of its Roman origins are any longer in evidence as the town had expanded far beyond the ancient confines and the busy docks would have been the envy of the Roman world.

However apart from being a remarkably busy commercial port with a substantial dockside, it was also home to the cross-channel ferry port, the RNLI Lifeboat Station, a substantial fishing fleet and small ferry service covering the two miles to the bay islands, Beaumont, and St Giles, running a daily schedule, weather permitting.

It was also the home of Merriweather’s Preserves an old family business established in 1879 by Sebastian Josiah Merriweather and currently run by his Great-Great Grandson Oliver.

The company had moved to their present location in Pipershaven in 1928, to the broad white building which was a prime example of the Art Deco style, with its angles, curves and symmetry, which was a stylish façade that did not go unappreciated by James Osbourne, one of Merriweather’s long established employee’s, but it was the curves and symmetry of another staff member that interested him more.

 

It all began, when James was just 22 years old, when he met Ava Adderley for the first time.

It was a cold grey Monday morning, so grey and dismal that it was clear rain wasn’t far away.

He was starting at Merriweather’s that morning and he had just stepped off the bus when the girl in front of him dropped her umbrella.

James bent down and picked it up and when he stood up again, she had turned around and he was staring into the eyes of an angel whose brunette hair framed the classical beauty of her face.

“Thank you” She said and smiled at him, and he was instantly besotted.

But as taken with her as he was, he was completely struck dumb and all he could do was return her smile and hand her the umbrella and that would probably have been that, had it not been for the fact that she was heading for the same building as he was.

Although he had never met her before it turned out that they were both new starters.

As a result they went through induction together, which took up most of their first day, but even given that amount of exposure, and countless opportunities to speak to with her, he still found himself tongue tied, so he missed his chance, because she was bound for accounts on the 3rd floor and he was destined for the production floor.

 

Their paths seldom crossed after that in fact, and when they did, it was always from a distance, until the summer of the following year when James was on Beaumont Island for a family wedding and was staying at the Beaumont Manor Hotel.