Snippets of Downshire Life – Shrovetide – Collop Monday

 

Downshire is a relatively small English county but like a pocket battleship it packs a lot in, a short but beautiful coastline, a channel port, the Ancient forests of Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and manmade lakes of the Pepperstock Hills Nation Park, the rolling hills of the Downshire Downs, the beautiful Finchbottom Vale and farm land as far as the eye can see from the Trotwood’s and the Grace’s in the south to the home of the Downshire Light infantry, Nettlefield, and their affluent neighbour’s, Roespring and Tipton in the north but our story begins in the West, to the south of Northchapel, in the beautiful village of Chapel Hill.

There was an expanse of green at the center of the village complete with duckpond and a weeping willow tree.

On the north side of the green was the pub, The Woodcutters Tavern, and attached to the side of the pub there was a Stephenson’s general store and post office, across the green from the pub was the church, St Peter’s, with the vicarage to one side, and a row of shops ran alongside the road on the West of the green, Buckley’s Greengrocer and Fruiterers, Addison’s Bakery, Harvey’s Pharmacy, Bizzie Lizzie Florist, Mazzone’s Hairdressers, Harrisons Hardware and Boddingtons Butchers.

 

It was the third day of Shrovetide, known as Collop Monday, which was ironic for several reasons, firstly because it was named after Collops of bacon, which were traditional served on the day when it was known as Shrove Monday, and our tale is set in a butcher’s shop and the butchers name was collop, Terry Collop, and that day was of particular significance to him as he had a date that evening, his first date with Elaine.

He had been a long time coming and he had asked her out countless times and she had always said no, but he persevered, and he eventually got his reward.

 

Elaine Buckley was 28 years old, single and happy to be so, she had studied business at University, but after graduation she still ended up working in the family Greengrocers.

When she was in her first year at University, she had her heart broken very badly, and again in the third year, and the second time nearly cost her, her degree, so he resolved to have no more truck with love, and that was why she was single and glad to be so.

It suited her living and working in Chapel Hill as she could live at home in the flat above the shop and didn’t have to interact with people, other than the customers who went into the shop, and even then, she spent as little time as possible interacting face to face.

When she wasn’t at work she hid away in her room, it meant that she spent a lot of time on her own, but she didn’t mind that as she was happy in her own company and she was a voracious reader.

 

Elaine had taken a bold step by agreeing to go out to dinner with Terry, and open herself up for disappointment again, for the possibility of heartbeat, but she couldn’t help herself, she had tried to resist, she had rebuffed his advances so many times, saying no every time she wanted to say yes, but no one was more surprised than she was when she said yes, but once it had happened she found herself looking forward to it more than she could ever have imagined.

But if she was going to make the most of it she had to make the most of herself.

When she had no interest in relationships she dressed down to make herself invisible to the opposite sex, she found that if she made herself look undesirable men tended to leave well alone.

 

Not Terry Collop though, he saw through her disguise, he had also had his heart broken, just the one time for him though, but it had also left him cautious, but when he saw Elaine for the first time, he knew that she was his soul mate.

 

As it was five years since her previous date and she had been dressing down for all that time she didn’t have anything remotely suitable for a date, so she was in Northchapel all day shopping for girl clothes.

Terry spent his day fending off questions from his boss Jason Boddington, about where he was going and who he was taking.

 

Terry was sat at the bar of the Woodcutters Tavern a full half an hour before he was supposed to meet Elaine and he was ridiculously nervous, he hadn’t felt like that since he was 14 and he was waiting outside the bowling alley for his first ever date with Jenny Hack, however he was soon thinking it was a mistake to arrive early as his stomach was doing somersaults.

 

Elaine was second guessing herself and as she stood in front of the mirror wearing the outfit she had spent all day searching for.

Her long brunette hair was down, and her face was, subtly made up, it had been a while since she had bothered with makeup and the face she was wearing had taken three attempts, she wasn’t one hundred percent happy with the result, but she was running out of time, so the third one would have to do.

“Why on earth did I say yes?” she asked her reflection

“Because you wanted to” she replied out loud to the mirror

 

When Terry turned around and saw a brunette in a black skirt and pale-yellow blouse walking towards him, he couldn’t stop himself from saying   

“Wow”

And Elaine smiled

“I was expecting a tomboy” he said, and she laughed

“I decided I should make an effort” Elaine said as she sat on the stool beside him

“I thought this might be more appropriate for a date”

 

The evening passed by really quickly, and they were so absorbed in each other’s company that they completely lost track of time, to such an extent that they both jumped when the last orders bell rang, and neither of them were ready for it to end but end it must.

Unfortunately, the walk from the pub to the Greengrocers was less than one hundred yards and even walking very slowly got them to her door in a very short time and for the first time that evening they struggled for the words that would secure them another date.

“I really enjoyed this evening” she said

“Me too” he agreed “I’d like to do it again”

“That all depends on whether you’re a good kisser or not” she said cockily

“Well I like a challenge” he retorted and kissed her and when it was over she added “Well?”

“I don’t know” she said “It was adequate”

“Adequate?”

“Yes, I think there’s room for improvement, so you may take me out again tomorrow” she said and kissed him again

Snippets of Downshire Life – Shrovetide – Nickanan Night

Downshire is a relatively small English county but like a pocket battleship it packs a lot in, a short but beautiful coastline, a channel port, the Ancient forests of Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and manmade lakes of the Pepperstock Hills National Park, the rolling hills of the Downshire Downs, the beautiful Finchbottom Vale and farm land as far as the eye can see from the Trotwood’s and the Grace’s in the south to the home of the Downshire Light infantry, Nettlefield, and their affluent neighbour’s, Roespring and Tipton in the north but our story takes place in the southern town off Abbottsford which was the biggest in Downshire, its administrative capital and the seat of the Downshire government.

It was also a place of learning thanks to the Downshire University, a Cathedral City and was also home to Abbottsford Town Football Club.

Abbottsford was also the town where Lennie Hine lived and his life changed on the third day of Shrovetide.

The day was also known at one time as Collop Monday, but when the evening fell it became Shrove Monday evening or Nickanan Night which was a time when in days of yore, boys could commit petty crime and get away with it, of course in the 21^st century those youths, so inclined, don’t need to have a special night as they commit crime at will, and Lennie had fallen in with one of those groups.

He was 16 years old and wasn’t a bad lad, he had just lost his way after his father died and his mother had taken refuge in a bottle, he just needed an anchor.

In the three months following his father’s early death he had fallen in with a bad crowd, fortunately not a drug taking crowd but nonetheless a bad lot, petty crime mainly, as well as vandalism, harassment and general mischief making,

On that particular night they had been making a nuisance of themselves by targeting a church youth club that they had been excluded from for unruly behaviour.

They rode around the car park on their bikes shouting abuse at the occupants, and had been asked to move on several times, it was all very childish for the most part, but John Riggs, who was the leader of the group, wasn’t happy with that so he decided to up the ante and encouraged the ten members of his posse to start throwing stones at the windows, so they all dismounted their bikes and armed themselves, Lennie wasn’t really comfortable with it so he picked up the smallest stones he could find, 

They then took it in turns to ride past the main widows and throw their missiles which made no impact at all because it seemed as if the rest of the group had no more appetite for the task than Lennie did, 

“What the hell was that?” John snarled, but no one responded

“I said throw stones, like this” he shouted brandishing a chunk of concrete which he then launched at the main window which shattered immediately to his great delight

“That’s more like it”

Then he rode his bike onto the bonnet of the youth leaders car violently enough to set off the alarm and when he appeared from the church hall shouting, John lingered long enough so he could see the culprit and then rode off laughing.

Most of the others dispersed at the first sound of breaking glass, Lennie was the last one on the scene and looked on in disbelief, until he realized he was in peril of capture so he too made himself scarce leaving shouting and cursing in his wake.

He decided he should put as much distance between him and the church hall as possible and chose Park Road as his escape route.

What he didn’t realise was that his route took him past a popular watering hole for the local police, which he was approaching at breakneck speed.

He saw two figures cross the zebra crossing in the distance ahead of him but he was confident the lights would change before he got there and they did and there were a number of people chatting on either side as they waiting to cross, unfortunately the lights changed again before he got there as he raced down the inside of the waiting cars and swung on to the crossing narrowly missing a pedestrians foot and weaved his way between the approaching pedestrians without even reducing his speed.

“Look out!” Shouted the man

“Sorry old man” Lennie responded over his shoulder, not knowing that his close call was with a Chief Superintendent.

In no time at all Lennie was a way down the road, until a car cut him up and he had to go on the pavement.

He was rapidly approaching the two men who had crossed before the lights change, who were off duty police Sergeants, one of them had heard the commotion and had already turned round to see what was happening.

“Stop him sergeant” The Chief Super yelled.

So he then tapped his companion on the shoulder with one hand and held up his warrant card with the other.

On seeing the man standing with his warrant card out in front of him Lennie swerved to avoid him and as he passed him he smiled to himself but was totally unaware that the other one was waiting to strike.

As he stood up in the saddle to get up a head of steam the other Sergeant wrestled him sideways off the bike and on to the floor, but they separated on the deck and Lennie managed to role away before the Sergeant got back to his feet, and managed to remount his bike and was away again and headed through the southern entrance to the Park

 

Jodie Higgs had been to the cinema with friends and was taking a shortcut through Cathedral Park to get home, she was also 16 but she lived in a very different park of town and attended a different school.

Lennie entered from the south and would exit on the northside, whereas Jodie entered through the east gate and was headed to the west, and both of them would be skirting the boating lake on their journeys, and when she was in sight of the Cathedral Spire she glanced at her watch and smiled because she was ahead of time and then disaster struck, because hurtling along in the opposite direction was Lennie, and she saw him fractionally before he saw her, so she swerved and her front wheel hit a park bench and she was suddenly airborne

“Ahhh” she screamed as she went over her handle bars, over the park bench and plunged into the lake.

 

Lennie glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the splash and pulled hard on the brakes.

He jumped off his bike and as he ran back along the path he could just about see her thrashing about in the gloom, but he could clearly hear her yells and as he reached the spot where she went in he jumped in without hesitation and swam towards her where she was splashing around and appeared unable to swim.

He was breathing hard from the riding as he closed the distance between them, which wasn’t more the five or six yards but he made slow progress because of his warm clothing and as she was similarly hampered she struggled to stay afloat and the water splashed all around her.

He swam as fast as he could and managed to reach her just in time as she kept ducking under the water.

But that proved to be only half the problem as reaching his initial goal only brought fresh problems, she had stopped moving so getting her to the bank was a struggle.

He got a good hold on her, but she was fully clothed, so she was a dead weight and it was with some difficulty that he swam her to the bank.

Unfortunately as soon as they reached the bank it was apparent that he couldn’t get her out of the water so he pushed her against the bank and checked her pulse in her neck, and couldn’t find one so with some manoeuvring got her head tilted back and was about to give her mouth to mouth, when she suddenly opened her eyes.

“What are you doing?” she exclaimed

“Sorry I thought you had drowned” he said defensively

“Fainted more like” she admitted “I do that if I get in a panic”

“That’s not helpful if you’re in the water” he said

“I know” she said “Thank you for rescuing me”

“There’s no need to thank me” he said

“I think there is, I would have drowned otherwise, so thank you”

“You shouldn’t thank me when it was my fault you were in here in the first place”

He said and pulled himself up the bank with relative ease and then reached down and pull the featherweight girl from the lake. 

“Thanks, I’m Jodie by the way”

“Lennie”

“I don’t blame you, it wasn’t anymore your fault than it was mine”   she said

“That’s not the point I still blame myself” Lennie said “and I’ve wrecked your bike”

Just at that moment and before she could reassure him further, they became aware of voices and bright lights in the darkness.

“Here they are” one man said

 

A dog walker had witnessed the near collision and Jodie’s aerobatic entry into the lake and had raised the alarm so the two of them were marched off to a waiting ambulance where the paramedics checked them over and declared them unscathed.

But they had to wait in the ambulance wrapped in blankets until someone came to pick them up, Jodie was waiting for her dad, and Lennie didn’t want to say that his mum wouldn’t come for him because she was likely to be in a drunken stupor at that moment, he would wait until she had safely been picked up and then he would slip away. 

 

They sat there for half an hour talking about a variety of things before her dad arrived

“Jodie, are you ok?” he said fussily and kissed her

“This is Lennie” she said “He’s a hero”

“I’m really not” he protested

“Ah and modest to boot” Mr. Higgs said and shook his hand “But the general consensus is that you are a hero”

There was then a brief conversation between Mr. Higgs and the paramedic and Jodie slipped off her blanket and said

“Thanks again Lennie” and then she hugged him.

“No problem” he said and slipped off his own blanket

“And where do you think you’re going, Andy Mason the paramedic said “We haven’t been able to get hold of your mum yet”

“Like I said she works shifts so she’s probably still asleep” Lennie replied “I can get myself home I’m only ten minutes away”

“We can take him” Mr. Higgs suggested “it’s the least we can do”

“Thank you but I have my bike”

“No problem I can fit both of them on the carrier” he insisted

“Come on let’s get you home”

“Ok thanks”

 

Lennie turned his back on John and his posse after that adventurous evening and he and Jodie became inseparable, he knuckled down at school and with her help he passed his exams with the grades he need to go to college.

She always called him a hero for saving her life that night but the truth of it was that it was his life that was saved and when they shared their first kiss neither of them were fully clothes or in a freezing cold lake.

Snippets of Downshire Life – Shrovetide – Quinquagesima Sunday

 

Downshire is a relatively small English county but like a pocket battleship it packs a lot in, a short but beautiful coastline, a channel port, the Ancient forests of Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and manmade lakes of the Pepperstock Hills National Park, the rolling hills of the Downshire Downs, the beautiful Finchbottom Vale and farm land as far as the eye can see from the Trotwood’s and the Grace’s in the south to the home of the Downshire Light infantry, Nettlefield, and their affluent neighbour’s, Roespring and Tipton in the north but our story begins slightly further south equidistant between Nettlefield and the Oxley’s, in the beautiful village of Heathervale.

It was the second day of Shrovetide, known as Quinquagesima Sunday, which in the Christian church calendar marked the fiftieth day before Easter.

But for Grace Woods it marked a 50 of a very different kind, her 50^th birthday.

Most people thought it was a special birthday, but it was of little significance to her as she had no one special in her life to mark it with.

When her husband was still alive he always made a great fuss of her.

But there had already been five birthdays in his absence before that year’s landmark and she hadn’t enjoyed a birthday since his untimely demise.

And to add insult to injury her milestone birthday fell on a Sunday, which was their favourite day of the week, the early service at St Giles, followed by a lazy morning reading the newspapers and a roast dinner.

As she lived alone, in the same huge house that backed onto the common, she didn’t bother with Sunday lunch, not because she couldn’t cook, she was a very good cook, she just didn’t bother for herself.

In fact, she had only done Sunday lunch a handful of times since graham had died.

She still went to St Giles every Sunday, but she was in no hurry to return home afterwards, so she would stay for coffee in the church café and invariably there would be an invitation to lunch from some other lonely soul.

 

It was just after the Sunday morning service had ended at St Giles’s when Mike Kemp spotted Grace and thought, not for the first time, that for a woman of her age she had a particularly nice figure.

He remembers vividly the first time he saw her, she had just come down the church steps and had stopped briefly to converse with friends.

He was a Christian but was not himself a regular at St Giles’s because his work for Transglobal Oil kept him away from Heathervale for several weeks at a time but when he was home he never missed a service or an opportunity to see Grace.

When he did attend he was normally sat at the back and was then able to get a seat at one of the tables in the Café when the church emptied.

He knew her slightly, through her late husband as they were both members of the same Golf club, but he wanted to get to know her better and he had almost asked her out for lunch a couple of times but he either lost his nerve or was beaten to it by someone else.

 

He was reluctant in part because he was concerned that she might not think him a suitable luncheon companion, although they were equals in most things, she was a very wealthy woman by all accounts, and he was a millionaire, in fact they both came from “old money”.

Which was self-evident by the way they both dressed, everything Grace wore was real quality and she was always immaculately turned out, though her financial status was of no interest to him, in fact nothing concerned him when he looked at her other than the fact that he was eight years younger.

Unfortunately, on that Sunday he got cornered by an old school friend and was trapped while Grace was standing chatting with friends in the middle of the Café and while his boorish friend wittered on endlessly he was reduced to admiring Grace from afar,  

the neat figure, the shape of her legs and the exquisitely tailored clothes, she looked so lovely to him that he struggled to take her eyes off her while trying to give the impression to his old friend that he was paying as much attention to him. 

 

When the congregants began to disperse, he knew it was now or never, because as the crowd dispersed there was a real danger that Grace would go with them, so it was at that point he decided to give his friend the slip and chance his arm, as her conversation appeared to be over, he got up and went over and intercepted her before she reached the door.

“Hello Grace” he said

“Oh hello” she replied, “its Mike isn’t it?”

“Yes” he said “it’s so nice to see you again”

“Yes” she agreed “it’s been awhile”

Once he had her attention they chatted for a while, small talk mainly.

“I hear that it’s your birthday today” Mike said, “Many happy returns, how are you enjoying it so far?”

“Yes, thank you” she responded “So far it’s just like any other Sunday”

“Really? How disappointing”

“I know but I don’t feel any different today that I did when I was 49” she said

“You are never 50” he whispered “That’s not possible”

“Oh, dear me” she said all flustered “I don’t know about that”

And having duly flattered her to the point of blushing he said

“I suppose you have big plans for today”

“No nothing actually, my daughter Jane is still at MIT, so she couldn’t get back” she said sadly, but added more positively “we will do something when she comes home on spring break”

“Well that won’t do” he said “Allow me to treat you to a birthday lunch at the Holly Tree”

He wasn’t confident that she would agree, and he held his breath while she considered his offer.

She was very flattered of course, a woman of her age would be when a younger man asked her to lunch, especially one 8 years younger than her, and even more so when that young man had been flirting with her.

But she thought it would be imprudent to lunch with him, so no one was more surprised than she was when she graciously accepted.

 

They enjoyed a very pleasant lunch, which consisted of three courses, a bottle of wine and an abundance of flirting, at the Holly Tree Inn and after several coffees he drove her home.

“It was a very nice lunch Mike” she said as he pulled up on the drive outside her very large house. “Thank you”

“It was my pleasure” he said “perhaps we could have dinner one evening at somewhere a little more salubrious”

“I would love to” she replied

“Great” he retorted trying to conceal his pleasure and failing “Would tomorrow be too soon?”

“No not at all” she lied, concerned that she wouldn’t be able to get an appointment at Mazzone’s at such short notice, but then she smiled because the fact that she cared about making the best of herself for him was significant, and it dawned on her that she wasn’t going for dinner with a friend, it was a date, and that realization made her smile.

“I will look forward to it”

“Excellent I’ll pick you up at 7.30” he said “see you tomorrow then”

 

By the time Grace’s daughter came home for spring break they had been on countless dates and were very much a couple and Jane couldn’t have been happier.

Snippets of Downshire Life – Shrovetide – Egg Saturday

Highfinch which nestled on the edge of the Pepperstock Hills where the Lily Green Hollows Golf Club separated the village from the Hamlet of Lily Green, which made up the parish of St Martins Church and between Lily Green and the sleepy hamlet of Kingfisherbridge was where Daniel Mason lived with his divorcee sister Karen and his niece Melinda.

He was a pig man and worked up at Orchard Farm in the wooded Pepperstock Hills and everyday he walked up from Kingfisherbridge and along the lane the farm shared with the neighbouring Russet Hill Farm.

He was a single man, now in his early thirties, who loved his job, but on this occasion, as he walked up the lane, he was not going to work because it was his day off, and as it was a bright morning he had grabbed a backpack and set off for a walk in the Pepperstock Hills in the early sunshine.

 

It was the first day of Shrovetide, known as Egg Saturday, which would prove to be ironic as the day progressed, sometimes called egg feast day, which would also retrospectively drip with irony.

At the end of the lane there was a gate left and right and a path through the woods straight ahead.

As he got halfway down the lane he happened upon another walker heading for the lane from the direction of Russet Hill Farm.

She wore stout walking shoes, dark green combat trousers, a drab shapeless sweater and a khaki jerkin.

Her brown hair was tied in a bun beneath a Rutland county cap, and as she didn’t wear a scrap of makeup she looked about forty.

By the time he reached the gate she was just climbing over it

 “Morning” he said

“Yes morning” she replied in a voice much younger than her appearance which was accompanied by a nervous smile.

Once she was over the gate she set off up the path at an impressive pace and was very sure footed as she strode off ahead of him.

 

The walker was Meredith Upshaw and the Upshaw’s had farmed up at the Russet Hill since God was a boy.

It was a large sprawling farm, which had at its center a large farmhouse, parts of which dated back more than a century.

It had been added to over the years to accommodate the growing Upshaw clan until it was now comprised of six upstairs bedrooms and an equal number of rooms on the ground floor, and there were a number of sheds, barns, and assorted out buildings.

Meredith was the youngest of four children and the only one not yet espoused and because the whole family lived in the farmhouse she chose to live in the farm cottage.

The farm had changed a lot over the time the Upshaw’s had been there, times changed and they had to change with them, now they kept a few sheep and goats on the farm but only for their own use because their main business was Free range chickens and the resulting free range eggs.

Although the birds were in enclosures they were of a considerable size and they were able to roam freely within them and forage in the grass around the fruit trees.

And that is relevant to the story because it was her brainchild, and she was the driving force behind the farms success.

But that success came at a cost, namely her personal life, but her single mindedness was only a part of the reason she lived alone.  

 

The path lead up through the wooded hills which formed the southern edge of The Pepperstock Hills National Park which stretched from the bare, and often barren crags of Oxley Ridge in the North to the dense wooded southern slopes on the fringe of the Finchbottom Vale and from Quarry Hill, and the Pits in the West to Pepperstock Bay in the East.

It is an area of stark contrasts and attracted a variety of visitors.

To the south and east was an extensive tract of magnificent mixed forestry and was rivaled only by the ancient woodland of the Dancingdean Forest but there were also a number of rocky outcrops amidst the trees.

The weather in the Park though could often be unpredictable, even when the day started with blue skies and sunshine, which could also spill over the southern edge, so it wasn’t really a surprise that by mid-morning the blue sky had been consumed by grey.

Daniel was on top of a ridge that afforded him a fantastic view looking south across the Finchbottom Vale.

He was sitting down with a sandwich in one hand and a drink in the other when he looked over his shoulder at the distant sky and he was familiar enough with the area to know that it was coming his way so he decided to make his way down the hill as quickly as possible.

He hadn’t even reached a quarter of the way down before the low cloud settled a thick drenching mist all around him.

Daniel had on suitable clothing for the weather but he had made the wrong choice of footwear and he was slipping on the damp stones with every other step and the fog had come down very quickly and was extremely thick in places, visibility was zero.

“It would be safer if you just sit it out” a soft voice said

“I’m sorry?” He said turning around and seeing the woman he’d seen earlier sitting on a large flat rock, under the shelter of a rocky outcrop.

“You should sit it out” she said

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea” he retorted

“Well this band of cloud is due to blow through in a couple of hours” she said confidently

“Is it?” He asked

“Yes, I checked the weather forecast before I left home this morning?” she said

“You mean you knew it was going to do this” he said gesturing with his hand “And you still came up here?”

“I like it up here” she replied defensively as he sat down next to her

“I’m Dan by the way, Daniel Mason” and offered his hand

“Meredith Upshaw” she responded “Merri”

“Ah! The egg lady?”

“Yes that’s me” she admitted

 

As they sat on a large flat rock in the fog, she rummaged in her backpack, which was filled with a wealth of useful stuff, as she liked to plan for every eventuality.

First she pulled out a thermos full of coffee which she put on the stone beside her and then a Tupperware box containing sandwiches.

“Would you like coffee?” she asked

“Yes please” he replied so she filled a cup and handed it to him, then she opened the plastic box and offered him a sandwich.

“Oh lovely, what’s in them?”

“Egg” she replied and there was a pause before they both laughed.

 

They sat happily under the rocky outcrop drinking coffee and eating egg sandwiches and talking about their respective farms.

However by about three in the afternoon a light breeze got up and started stirring the mist.

“Right on time” Merri said, looking at her watch, though she was a little disappointed, as she was rather enjoying the company

“Perhaps we should wait for another half an hour or so” Dan suggested, as he too was in no hurry to leave.

“Good idea” Merri agreed

 

By 4.15 they couldn’t really delay it any longer as watery sunshine was beginning to penetrate the mist so Dan began handing the remnants of their impromptu picnic to Merri which she packed neatly away in her backpack.

“Thank you” he said

“For what?” She asked

“For sharing your lunch” he said “and for your company”

“Oh, there’s no need to thank me” she responded and gave him a smile

“It would have been a very dull afternoon had you not happened along”

And Dan thought he detected a slight blush on her cheek.

 

It was as they walked back down the hill in the weak sunshine that he decided he should repay the favour, but as they chatted easily along the footpath he could not think of the words until they were approaching the gate where they had first met earlier in the day.

“As you were so generous to me today I was hoping you might allow me to repay the favour” he said

“There’s really no need” She relied, internally cursing herself for her not saying yes immediately

“Just dinner at the Blue Ribbon, in Highfinch” he persisted and this time she didn’t hesitate

“Ok, that would be nice, when did you have in mind?”

“Is tonight too soon?”

“Tonight is fine” she said smiling

 

They agreed to meet again that evening by the gate where they had first met and in the early evening spring sunshine she was transformed from the county farmer dressed in the outdoor leisure wear into a lovely butterfly, in a floral dress, who he would see every day that followed.