YOU ARE MY ANGEL

 

You are my Angel

In the moonlight

Draped in lunar white

Where upon I steal

A midnight kiss

And I am in heaven

 

The Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa – The Celebratory Meal

 

The beautiful Downshire village of Clerembeax St Giles was situated to the west of Abbeyvale located between Grace Hill and Bushy Down and on the outskirts was the Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa and when Yvonne Labuschagne inherited it from her cousin, the last remaining Clerembeax, she undertook the task of modernizing the Palace and opening a Hotel and Spa.

Staffing was crucial, and Yvonne used her contacts in the Spa world to find the right specialist people in her field of expertise’s and employed Hannah Morgan to fill the remainder of the roles, on the understanding that she employ from the village populous where possible, whether they be part time or permanent, but there were exceptions to that rule, such as sommelier Pete Abery.

He moved to Clerembeax for a change of pace having spent 10 years at the Abbottsford Regents Hotel and quickly adapted to life in the peaceful rural community, and within a couple of months he met and fell in love with local girl Leeanne Walker.

 

Leeanne was a student at Abbottsford University and they met when she was home for the Easter Holiday and went out a couple of times before she returned.

But when the academic year was over, and she was back home their relationship began in earnest, and throughout the long hot summer they were inseparable, and they even had a week away in Sharpington together.

But come September Leeanne was returning to the University in time for her final year although her first lecture was still two weeks away.

So, they were all going out for a meal on one of her last evenings at home to the restaurant at the Palace, but Pete was meeting first at the Walkers before they left for the restaurant.

 

The Walkers were nice hard-working people and had no great wealth but considered themselves rich beyond measure because of what they did have, their children.

Pete was also hard working, but as he didn’t have a family to support he was comfortably off, so the meal was to be his treat, but he didn’t wish to step on their toes and steal their limelight or rub their noses in it so when he spoke to Adrian he span him a line about getting a special rate by using his staff discount.

Pete suspected Adrian wanted to believe him more than actually believing, but he repeatedly insisted on paying something towards it and Pete repeatedly declined his offer and, in the end, they compromised.

Adrian would let Pete pay for the meal if he and his wife Carole could take Leeanne back to University at the weekend and they shook on the deal.

Pete knew that Leeanne wouldn’t mind as they had already discussed the possibility.

Her parents struggled at times to reconcile themselves with the changing nature of their relationship, Adrian in particular was feeling more than a little redundant, it was undoubtedly the pattern for the future, but it was hard for a father to take in, and Leeanne and Pete had no intention of exacerbating the situation.

 

The evening of the meal he drove to the Walkers and parked outside after arriving at the allotted time and was met by Adrian at the front door.

It was fortuitous for him to get him on his own and allowed them to have a brief, yet important, conversation before joining the others.

 

Carole was in the lounge and kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly.

“Thank you, Pete,” she said, and was filling up, Pete wasn’t sure what exactly she was thanking him for, was it for the meal or letting them take Leeanne to Uni or just for making their daughter happy.

It could have been any or all of the above, but it certainly could not have been for what he and Adrian had just been discussing.

He patted her on the back and she released her grip and turned away to wipe her eyes, and a few minutes later Leeanne came into the lounge, looking as lovely as ever.

“Hello darling” she said as she walked over and kissed him

“I didn’t know you were here, I didn’t hear the doorbell”

 

A short period of small talk followed and then Leeanne looked at her watch and said

“I think we should make a move”

“Yes” Pete agreed “But before we go I want to ask you something”

“Can’t it wait until dinner? I’m starved, I’ve been looking forward to my venison all day”

“You’re going to have meat?” Pete asked

“Of course,” she replied with a confused look on her face

“Don’t you know that its World Meat Free Day today?” he asked “I assumed we’d all have the vegetarian option”

“No chance” she retorted “no meat, no meal”

“You could just give it a try” he teased

“I have tried it, I had a mushroom stroganoff once” she retorted indignantly

“Just the one time?” he said

“Yes, but that’s because I don’t like change” she replied

“You don’t like change?”

“No, I don’t”

“Then we might have a problem” Pete said and glanced over to her parents on the sofa, Adrian was smiling broadly, and Carole looked bemused.

“What do you mean?” she asked in alarm

“Well I was going to suggest that you change your last name” he said and fished out a ring box from his pocket.

“Leeanne Walker, will you please marry me”

“What?” she exclaimed

“Will you marry me?” he repeated, “After you’ve finished University of course, and you have your degree”

She just stood and stared at him for a full minute and he was beginning to worry that he had been premature and then all of a sudden, she screamed and threw her arms around his neck.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes” she replied

Adrian and Carole were hugging as they watched their daughter’s joy unfold, no doubt remembering long passed moments from her childhood, then Leeanne rushed over and hugged and kissed her parents, then she looked over her shoulder and said

“I’m still having then venison”

 

 

 

 

YOU CAN WEATHER ANY STORM

 

You can weather any storm

When you know without exception

That love is the answer

To each and every question

MY LONELY HEART

 

My Lonely heart

My silent companion

You empathize

And feel compassion

Even in an age when

It’s out of fashion

Yet still I am alone

With my unspent passion

A WEDDING SONG (PROTHALAMIUM)

 

 

I stand alone
Yet among friends
I stand alone
In the sight of family

 

Hear the music?
Come ahead
Make me turn my head
Come join me

 

Stand beside me
Stand to my left
Become me
Let me become you

 

Hear the words?
Go ahead
Make me turn my head
Come join me

 

We stand together

Before our friends
We stand together
In the sight of family

 

Hear the music?
Hear the song?
Let’s sing along
Come join me

 

We stand together
Alone no more
Joined as one
Before our God

Those Memories Made on Teardrop Lake – (06) To Bring Good Tidings

In January when Claire Andrews and Olivia Adamson bought the Shallowfield Surgery, Evangeline Christodoulou was spending her days happily employed as the Practice nurse in the Millmoor Health Centre and spent her nights equally happy in the arms of a firefighter.

In fact she was so happy with her professional and personal situation that a team of wild horses wouldn’t have been able to drag her away from either of them.

 

Siti Shahara on the other hand was at that time stacking shelves at the village store for Anuruddha Gunasekara and living in a bed sitter above the Bengal Curry House.

Through no fault of her own she was let go by the executors of previous partners at the Shallowfield practice, they only kept on a skeleton staff, so therefore they only needed one receptionist and Lynn Cooper had seniority.

She was far from happy with her situation and she was desperate to get her old job back as receptionist at the surgery.

Siti had told the other receptionist, Lynn Cooper, as much on several occasions, so when Claire Andrews asked

“Is it worth our while speaking with her?”

Lynn replied

“Very much so”

It proved to be a very simple exercise to persuade Siti to abandon the world of Baked Beans and frozen dinners in the general store and return to the Practice.

 

Siti was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1979 but she was brought to Britain when she was only two years old and after 33 years of living in the Britain she spoke English like Celia Johnson in Brief encounter and thought of herself as British.

 

Her migration to Downshire took a considerable amount of time but once she arrived in Shallowfield she felt like she’d come home.

She loved Shallowfield because it wasn’t the kind of place you passed through on your way to somewhere else and she liked that very much.

If you were in Shallowfield it was because that was where you were headed for in the first place.

You know people in a place like Shallowfield and you noticed strangers easily which was very important to her.

Siti had lived in Shallowfield for over ten years and she really liked it, she felt safe there.

Which is why when she lost her job at the surgery she would rather do a menial job at Anu’s general store than leave for a bigger town with greater opportunities.

 

After Claire had approached Siti and persuaded her to make a career change back into health care she couldn’t hand in her notice quick enough.

Anu knew that working for him was only a stop gap for her, he had only offered her the job because he and Harjeet from the Bengal wanted to help her out.

So Anu gave him a job in the shop and Harjeet rented her a bedsit over the curry house.

They were both delighted when she was reemployed in the job she loved.

Anu didn’t really need to employ her in the first place and he didn’t need her to work her notice but Siti insisted.

 

When she walked into the surgery on her first morning back she hugged Lynn like her life depended on it, and because she was only five feet tall she had to stand on tip toe to do it.

 

By the time that there was only one position left to fill at the Shallowfield Surgery, Eva’s situation in Millmoor had changed, her firefighter lover had turned out to be very handy with their fists and by a team of wild horses wouldn’t have been able to keep her there.

 

But as Olivia and Claire sat in the Brown Windsor alone one miserable Snowy January Evening with just one vital position left to fill, they were unaware of her change of fortunes.

So as they ate they discussed the crucial vacancy they had to fill that of the practice nurse.

“Look we both know who we want” Claire said

“Evangeline” they chorused

“Yes but we’ll never get her” Olivia replied

“We could make her an offer” Claire suggested

“Look this practice has twice the number of patients as Bushy Down and one in three of them are private, but there is still a limit to what we can offer her” Olivia said

“She’ll never come all the way out here anyway”

“It’s worth trying”

“But she’ll never be able to afford to live here” Olivia said

“It was difficult enough for us to find somewhere”

“I have an idea about that” Claire said

“What?”

“Number two Folly Cottages”

“That’s brilliant” Olivia said “why didn’t I think of that?”

So that was how they managed to lure Evangeline Christodoulou to Shallowfield with an improved package and a tied cottage.

 

It was a real coup for Claire and Olivia to secure Evangeline’s services, they had tried to get her to join the Bushy Down surgery but never quite managed it.

The pair of them were as pleased as punch, in fact they were so pleased with themselves that it bordered on smugness.

They wouldn’t have been quite so smug however if they had known the truth of it.

Because although Evangeline had played hard to get, in truth she was desperate for it and would have willingly paid Claire to get the job.

 

Evangeline Christodoulou was thirty two years old and was a striking looking woman with alabaster skin and short and wavy raven black hair.

As her name, Evangeline, suggests she was of Greek decent and it was the anglicized version of the Greek name, Evangelos, meaning “to bring good tidings”.

And that was precisely what she did, and that was why she was so popular with colleagues and patients alike.

 

In the interim the practice put Eva up at the Shallowfield Lodge Hotel while the cottages were being made ready.

So on her first day she travelled to the surgery with her new bosses.

Once they had arrived however the task of showing her around and doing the introductions fell to Siti Shahara.

Evangeline took to her immediately, initially because she was one of the few people she towered over, if four inches was considered towering.

But beyond that she was taken to her because she was such a nice person and they became instant friends.

 

Apart from needing to be shown the inner workings of the surgery, the processes and procedures, she also needed a guided tour of the area.

District nursing being part of her remit after all, so she needed to familiarise herself with the district.

First of all she bought herself an ordinance survey map of the Finchbottom Vale, between the Dancingdean forest and the Pepperstock Hills, which encompassed her territory.

The problem was that maps weren’t really Eva’s forte.

She did have a satnav in the car which would get her from A to B but that wouldn’t help her map out the district in her head.

So she asked Siti, she was the obvious choice to her mind as apart from Lynn Cooper she had lived in the area longer than anyone that she knew.

And more importantly than that Eva liked her, because she was kind, had a heart of gold, and was hilariously funny, and above all she felt like a kindred spirit.

 

Where Olivia Adamson was the master organiser of the practice, Eva was the doer, in fact she was a tour de force, she was the practice nurse, the phlebotomist, she ran the clinics, she did home visits and was an all-round good egg.

 

A week after Eva started at the surgery, it was Valentine’s Day and despite being new to the practice she had clearly made enough of an impression in that short time to receive 8 valentine cards, all hand delivered to the surgery.

“I got one” Said Lynn and smiled

“How many did you get Siti?” Eva asked innocently

“None” she replied and Eva thought she detected a hint sadness in her response

However Siti quickly asked

“Aren’t you going to open them?”

“No, none of them can possibly be from someone who knows me enough to love me and if they think they do they are probably a stalker” she said and went to the office.

 

On her rounds that morning she thought about how sad Siti had looked when she said she didn’t get a valentines card, so when she stopped for fuel in Childean she bought a card for her and wrote inside to “Pretty Siti”.

 

When she returned to the surgery she went straight to reception and said

“Here, Siti”

Siti got up from her desk and walked to the counter.

“Hi Eva” she said

“I finally got around to opening those cards and one of them wasn’t even for me” she said

“Who is it for then?” Siti asked

“You, you plum” Eva joked and Lynn looked up from her desk and smiled a knowing smile

“For me?” she said and her face lit up with delight “Thanks Eva”

As she walked to her office she thought that with that smile on her face she really was “Pretty Siti”

 

Weekends and evenings all through the month of February, once they had done all the local stuff, Siti and Evangeline explored the local Geography.

Beginning in Shallowfield they went as far as Purplemere in the north and from Mornington in the East and Childean in the west.

A lot of it was new to Siti as well because some of the outlying villages and hamlets had no public transport and she didn’t drive so she had never seen them.

So for of lot of those places she was merely keeping Eva company, which she didn’t mind and Eva was certainly grateful for.

They had felt like kindred spirits from the start and that feeling grew stronger and stronger over the weeks.

 

On the 1^st of March, Evangeline moved into number two Folly Cottages, a full two weeks earlier than her employers, Claire and Olivia, who were in numbers 1 and 3 respectively.

Her earlier occupation was courtesy of her brother Emilios and a battered transit van.

But helping her to unpack and settle in was her favourite companion Siti, who else.

It was a small cosy cottage in the middle of a terrace of three but Eva was a single girl and planned to remain so, therefore the cottage suited her very well indeed and the setting was simply idyllic.

The view of the lake was spectacular, although she couldn’t see it all or discern the teardrop shape that gave the lake its name.

But the view of the surrounding ancient woodland of the Dancingdean Forest was majestic.

Much of the modest body of water was obscured from view but it was beautiful and relatively unspoilt which was why Claire and Olivia had fallen in love with the place, and Eva could certainly understand why.

Teardrop Lake was certainly more idyllic and peaceful than she was used too.

She had trouble sleeping for the first few weeks as there was little or no noise pollution.

Although the lake was well used there were no speed boats or jet skis, only rowing boats, canoes, dinghies and skiffs.

As she stood outside the cottage on the day she moved in, taking in the vista she spotted some hardy soul sailing out on the lake, she hadn’t sailed herself since she was a teenager, she thought perhaps she might try it again, with city perhaps, but on a much warmer day.

 

Comfortable in her own mind, that she had the lay of the land sufficiently well to find her way to her patients, Eva and Siti reduced the frequency of trips out in the car.

The pair of them still hung out together however and with the spring well and truly taking hold they concentrated their attention more on recreation.

Siti was no more familiar with Teardrop Lake than Eva was so with the aid of a local map provided by Lynn Cooper they explored the surrounding woodland together.

And there was an awful lot of forest to explore, along with all the hidden delights within, two follies, a Watch tower, Olwen’s chapel, a waterfall, a number of brooks and streams, a 16^th Century Bridge and lovers leap.

So plenty to keep them occupied.

 

At the beginning of April another nurse arrived at the practice to lighten Evangeline’s work load.

She was a pretty young nurse, called Kate, who had the young Doctors dancing attendance on her, which lightened Eva’s load in that direction as well.

 

On Easter Monday the day began with warm spring sunshine and clear blue skies so the two friends planned to visit the next point of interest on their map.

They met at Lynn Coopers House, where they had coffee with her before they set off to see one of the Folly.

There were two Folly’s in the Dancingdean Forest, both in sight of the Lake, the first one was built in the 19^th century by the then local Nobleman, the Earl of Dancingdean, a vain and self-important man, who had it built for himself, in the style of a Castle Keep.

It was on top of a hill overlooking the lake and when it was completed he had the surrounding Forest cleared so everyone for miles around could see his standard flying from the turret.

The second one was erected by Ezekiel Cooper, who lived on the opposite side of the Lake.

Which was apt because Ezekiel was opposite from the Earl in almost every conceivable way, he was not of the nobility, he was not born into privilege, he made his money in the cotton Mills of Lancashire.

And in response to the Earl’s construction he had built a gaudy Folly of his own in the Victorian Gothic style and like his noble adversary he had the surrounding Forest cleared so everyone around could see his standard flying.

 

The reason they started their expedition at Lynn’s, was because it was Coopers Folly that they were going to see that day.

It was quite a steep climb from the lake side up to the Folly and despite the coolness of the spring morning they were both hot and breathless by the time they made it up there.

Once they had arrived Eva sat on a large rock to catch her breath while Siti clambered about the site quoting facts about the monstrous building from a local history book.

But Eva was more focused on the speaker than words.

She wasn’t beautiful in the way that most people considered that Eva was.

Siti had an aquiline nose and finely chiselled features, her eyes were warm and intelligent behind her gold rimmed spectacles and her intellect was as sharp as was her wit.

To the casual observer, because she was dark skinned, her hair looked black but it was actually dark brown which was fine and straight and she wore shoulder length.

Eva thought she was only on the attractive side of beautiful by virtue of the fact that she never wore a scrap of makeup, so what you saw was what you got.

But with a little makeup on her pretty face she’d have looked gorgeous.

“More gorgeous anyway” Eva thought

Eva was suddenly brought back to the moment when Siti said

“We’d better get moving”

“What?”

Siti pointed heavenward

Evangeline looked up to see the sky had visibly darkened.

“Ok” she said “Let’s go”

They clambered and scrambled their way back down the hill to the perimeter road just as the heavens opened.

They were standing on probably the most exposed part of the road and for a moment they were caught like rabbits in the headlights.

“Quick this way” Eva said and grabbed Siti’s hand and they ran to the nearest large tree which offered them some protection from the deluge.

They were giggling like schoolgirls when they reached sanctuary and squeezed up close to the trunk.

Eva looked down at the giggling Siti as rainwater dripped from the tip of her aquiline nose.

She giggled again and put her head back and shook it like a dog would, and that was when Eva did it.

 

Siti was only 5ft tall so with Evangeline’s 4” height advantage over her she was in the unusual position of being able to kiss downwards on to Siti’s inviting lips.

It was a deliciously gentle kiss to which Siti responded in kind.

When they stopped Siti looked up at Eva and said

“I wasn’t expecting that"

Then Evangeline kissed her again

A much more urgent, passion filled kiss altogether, perhaps too much so because Siti suddenly pushed her away.

“No, no” she said “I can’t”

Then she ran off into the rain

“Siti!” Evangeline called “Please don’t go, I’m sorry”

But Siti just kept going and didn’t look back.

 

Eva traipsed home miserably through the rain, kicking her way through puddles and chastising herself for her stupidity, and her haste.

“You idiot, you stupid idiot, you’ve lost your friend now” she shouted into the rain.

 

She got home to the cottage and silently stripped off her wet clothes and dried her hair before redressing.

Eva walked into the kitchen and switched on the kettle and got out two mugs, then she paused and put one back.

She was just pouring the hot water onto a teabag when there was a gentle knock at the door.

Eva put the kettle down and walked to the door and when she opened it, she saw Siti standing on the doorstep looking like a drowned rat.

“I don’t want to run away” She said pathetically

“You don’t have to baby” Eva said “Come inside”

Eva’s heart swelled as she looked at the beautiful forlorn creature dripping on the carpet and she quickly wrapped her in dry towels.

Eva dried Siti’s fine dark brown hair and when she stood there wrapped in fluffy white towels with damp tousled hair she looked at Evangeline with her big brown eyes and asked

“Can you kiss me now?”

Eva’s heart skipped a beat and she smiled at Siti and duly obliged her.

THEY SAY THAT THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

 

They say that the love of your life

Will only come into view

When you’re not really looking

Which for me was certainly true

 

Unfortunately, when we met

I was texting as I drove my Rover

Just as she crossed the road

Which is why I ran her over