TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM

 

How eagerly I await the night

When I can drift through

The curtain of sleep,

Into the dreamlands

Where sweet maidens await

With smiles of seduction,

Sweet tender caresses

And whispered words of love

Until I am torn away

Into the waking hour

Mornington-By-Mere – (21) Can I Borrow a Screwdriver?

 

At number 18 Military Row in Mornington, Fergal Spelman was sitting in his armchair enjoying the peace and quiet of the empty house when there was a persistent knock on the front door.

He didn’t hear it initially because he had been enjoying the peace and quiet so much he was actually asleep in his armchair and he was certainly enjoying that.

He did a lot of sleeping in his armchair nowadays it was the by-product of having too much time and too little to occupy it. 

Fergal woke with a start and after he had come to his senses he reluctantly got up from his comfy chair and went to answer the door and when he did so there was a smiling girl in a long Turquoise dress standing on the step.

“Hi I’m Charlotte” she announced

“Can I borrow a screwdriver?”

Charlotte had just moved into Military Row, the house next door to his to be exact, number 19.

Strictly speaking calling her a girl was perhaps stretching a point as Charlotte Gibbons was actually forty nine years old and had 4 grown up children but she was a girl in comparison to Fergal who was knocking loudly on the door to his seventh decade.

“Of course you can” he replied “Come in a minute”

“Thank you” she said

“I’m Fergal by the way”

“Pleased to meet you Fergal” she said and smiled again.

Fergal thought she had a very pleasant smile in fact he thought

Charlotte had a very pleasant face, but with sad eyes, not sad like a puppy dog, more the kind of sad that went deep and left a tell-tale impression on her face. 

She also had a very nice figure, even taking into consideration the fact she was in her late-forties and had given birth 4 times, not that he knew any of that at the time, but his first impression was a favourable one.

Charlotte herself noted that Fergal was not an unattractive man even if he was a little long in the tooth for her taste, not that it was anything more than a casual observation, his looks even his good looks were immaterial, that was not why she was there, she just wanted to borrow a screwdriver.   

So although they both found the other nice to look at there was no instant mutual attraction, no flash of lightning, no fluttering hearts, sighing or a cascade of Mantovani’s violins.

Fergal thought she was an extremely “fit” young woman but he’d always needed more than just mere physical attraction to light his fire.

He had to know the person, like them and preferably love them for true sexual attraction to take hold of him.

Nonetheless looking at an attractive younger woman beat dozing in his armchair hands down so he wasn’t in any hurry to see her leave so he said

“Would you like a coffee while you’re here?”

“Oh yes please” she said

 

“Would you like a coffee while you’re here?” he asked

“Oh yes please” she said

“You know I’ve made three drinks today already and I let them all go cold”

Apart from noticing the obvious facts that she was very attractive, had a sublimely attractive smile, sad eyes and didn’t own a screwdriver, he also divined the fact that Charlotte was Jewish as she wore a gold Star of David around her neck.

He also detected that the turquoise dress that she was wearing was a long flowing affair that fitted well around her ample bosom and then hung loosely to the floor, which left a lot to the imagination, which was fine by him because he had an extremely vivid imagination.

After a brief conversation he soon ascertained what task she was doing at home, the dreaded flat pack furniture and what type of screwdriver she required to do it with and a small selection from the tool shed but after having coffee with her he said

“I’m at a bit of a loose end, so why don’t I come and give you a hand”

“No I couldn’t ask you to do that” she protested but was hoping he might volunteer to help her.

“I insist” he said

Fergal had retired from the Mornington brewery and lived alone, his wife had died two years earlier and his two sons had families of their own so he had a lot of time on his hands, a lot of which he seemed to spend asleep in his armchair.

So the prospect of getting out of the house and doing something useful appealed to him greatly.

Although he would have had to admit to an ulterior motive in volunteering his services, other than to alleviate his boredom and that was because his new next door neighbour Charlotte was very pleasing to the eye and although that wasn’t enough in itself to get his motor running, it was a bloody good start, even if he only looked at her as a friend.

 

And Fergal and Charlotte did become friends, from that first day she asked to borrow a screwdriver and he helped her with assembling flat pack furniture.

He had enjoyed the task and her company so much that he helped her on subsequent days with a variety of other jobs and he felt useful again.  

Which was why he came to spend the summer helping Charlotte to decorate her house.

During the redevelopment of Mornington Field her house was used as the site office by the site manager and although it had been redecorated throughout by the Estate before she moved in, it was decorated only in neutral tones, magnolia emulsion and white gloss and one thing Fergal had noticed apart from her figure was that Charlotte was not a neutral tones kind of person, she was a vibrant kind of woman, so she wanted to make her mark, stamp her personality on the place.

 

Fergal was happy to help Charlotte, it kept him busy and made him feel useful which gave him fresh energy and a renewed purpose and more opportunities to feast his eyes on her and he would have been content if that was all there was.

Although he wasn’t aware of it at the time, Charlotte enjoyed it too, but for her it was because she was lonely, she missed her boys and felt she wasn’t needed since the youngest one left to join the army.

But she wasn’t the only one because it had occurred to Fergal very early on that he too had been lonely, he just hadn’t realised it until he met her and spent time with her.

 

While they worked together they got to know each other and eventually he got to find out the reason for the sadness in her eyes.

Charlotte hadn’t given birth to 4 babies as he first thought she had given birth to 5.

Her youngest child was a girl named Ruth who at the age of 8 was struck by a hit and run driver and killed.

“My baby girl was gone” she sobbed “my beautiful baby girl”

Fergal didn’t know what to say, what could he say?

What empty words could he have used to console someone who had lost a child?

No parent should have to bury their children, he felt so inadequate and all he could do was to take her in his arms and let her cry on his shoulder.

He couldn’t take the pain away or stem the flow of tears all he could do was hold her while she sobbed and afterwards listen while she unburdened herself.

In addition to losing her daughter she also lost her husband who decided he could best help his grieving wife by shagging the next door neighbour.

“That’s shit” Fergal said

It was little wonder she was sad and lonely.

         

As the summer wore on and they completed one room after another they were both secretly dreading finishing the job.

They had done the garden already and the exterior painting was completed by the Estate, so what would they do? What would fill their days? What excuse would he have to be with Charlotte when all the work was done?

And what reason would Charlotte have to ask him for his help?

 

And so it was towards the end of September as summer turned slowly in to autumn when all the work was completed, that they discovered that amidst the wallpaper, filler and the paint fumes that they had fallen in love.

Which was when Fergal and Charlotte realised there were other ways for them to pass their time together that didn’t involve her asking if she could borrow a screwdriver, gardening tools or a paintbrush.

NOT VIRGINIA PLAIN

 

Her hair was red

Of russet tones

Like autumn leaves

Its cascading flow

Framed her face

And beauty shone forth

Its skins purity,

Rich as parchment,

Soft as silk,

Radiated her beauty

Her hypnotic eyes

Were startlingly blue,

With gemstone clarity

And held laughter in them

Her nose was small, delicate

Her lips were thin

But a smile of sweet remembrance

Constantly played about them

SHE LOOKS LIKE THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

 

She looks like the girl next door,

Well my interpretation anyway,

And for me she literally is

The girl next door

The studious Rebecca

Full of cleverness

The only child of the Coopers

Now the studious orphan Rebecca

The bookish girl next door

A homely girl though

In the unpretentious sense

Certainly not plain,

But rather understated

She is unworldly

In as much as the temporal world

Holds no sway for her

Rebecca is an attractive girl

Though not in any obvious way

Dressed casually, always

Mousy hair worn indistinctly

She has never been flash, quirky

Or groundbreaking

No its homespun sweaters

And supermarket jeans

Not exactly the height of fashion

But not dowdy nor frumpy

Unlike most of the world

I look beneath the homespun

As I have all my life

But no one else sees Rebecca

Alas she does not see me

The bookish girl next door

She has her heroes of fiction

How could I compete?

With Ahab or Hornblower

Copperfield or Darcy

A COPPER CASCADE

 

Her crowning glory

Of cascading copper

Pours like molten rust

Onto the pure and unblemished

Milk white skin

Of her neck and shoulders

How I envy each burnished strand

Spilling onto her alabaster skin

Touching where my lips may not

Mornington-By-Mere – (20) Farm Produce

 

Mornington-By-Mere, a small country village lying in the Finchbottom Vale nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.

A quaint picturesque village, a chocolate box picturesque idyll, with a Manor House, 12^th Century Church, a Coaching Inn, Windmills, an Old Forge, a Schoolhouse, a River and a Mere.

But it wasn’t just a quaint chocolate box English Village it was the beating heart of the Finchbottom Vale.

And although the village was the hub it was the surrounding farms and hamlets that were its life blood.

One such Farm was Manor Farm on the Western side of the village.

The Hargrave family had farmed the land at Manor Farm since the days when Napoleon was still a Corporal and they were showing no signs of bucking that trend.

The head of the Hargrave’s was Bruce though he leant heavily on his wife Karen.

They were in their mid-fifties and were looking forward to many more years at the helm.

There were three children, the youngest was twenty year old Michael a serious farmer, and a good one at that. 

The second child was Norman who was two years older than his brother and two years younger than his sister Mandy who along with her husband Jason McCabe were trying to produce the first grandchild.

While neither Norman or Michael showed any sign of producing a Hargrave.

 

When Mandy and Jason were married they were given a quarter of the farm to work on their own and moved into the smaller farmhouse on the west side of the farm which had been a little neglected over recent years.

So Mandy and husband Jason started work on it during their honeymoon and they lived in one room while they worked on the rest of the house.

 

All that year and all of the next they worked hard to finish the house and to get the greenhouses and cold frames back in shape as well and the newlyweds worked all the hours God sent to get their portion of the farm producing.

 

Like her siblings, Mandy was blonde and blue eyed but whereas they were tall and broad she was short and stout.

Jason was her polar opposite, physically at any rate, tall and bean pole thin, green eyes and shaggy straw coloured hair.    

But other than that they were two sides of the same coin.

 

The house was uninhabitable, the greenhouses leaked and the cold frames were little more than ruins so for the first few months they had to live in the dining room.

Mandy and Jason did a brilliant job on the farmhouse and worked seven days a week for two years to get the house finished for them.

 

Once they had a proper roof over their heads Mandy and Jason could concentrate on the farm itself.

There section of the farm ran adjacent to the Brewery and the row of brewery cottages on Purplemere Road.

 

The advantage of being so close to the Mornington Brewery was a virtually unlimited supply of used hops and one of their first jobs was ploughing it in to the uncultivated land. 

And they had the basis of a very good compost for when they started growing.

 

It would have been soul destroying to lesser mortals but Mandy and Jason were made of sterner stuff and driven by a desire that would not be extinguished.

They wanted a family home and a family to fill it and every crack filled and every fresh lick of paint applied took them a step closer to their goal.

 

It was a glorious Sunday afternoon in June and Karen and Bruce decided to take a stroll over to see their daughter and son in law.

They hadn’t been to the house since they moved in as Mandy had insisted they wait until it was complete before anyone got to see it.

Mandy and Jason had worked hard to bring the farmhouse back from the brink and it showed.

Karen and Bruce walked across the yard and through the gate leading to the farmhouse.

When they were halfway across the farmyard Mandy came out of the barn holding a chicken.

“Mum?” Mandy said “this is a nice surprise”

And she kissed her mother.

“Hi Love” her dad said and father and he got a kiss as well.

“What are you doing over here?” She asked

“We thought it was time to come and see what you’ve both been up to” Her mum replied

“You’ve done a lot” she added genuinely impressed

“Yes its coming on” Mandy replied

“Do you want tea?”

They answered in the positive and as they all went into the kitchen, Karen had a good look around and found herself very impressed by her daughter and son in laws work.

While they were sat at the huge kitchen table drinking tea Mandy’s husband Jason appeared.

“Oh hello” he said “I didn’t realise we had guests”

“It’s nice to see you both” he said as he sat down next to his wife.

 

After tea Karen proudly gave them the tour of the house beyond the kitchen, the lounge, the office, the bedrooms and what they hoped would be a nursery. 

When the tour of the house was over Bruce asked Jason to take him round the rest of the farm and they were gone for more than an hour.

 

As they left the farm Bruce said

“It’s amazing how they’ve fixed up that farmhouse”

“Yes I’m really proud of them” Karen said “They have worked so hard and they’ve made it their own”

“And they’re growing some great produce” Bruce added.

“I thought Mandy was looking very tired though” Karen said

“Really?” he asked “I thought she just looked very rosy cheeked”

“I think it’s exhaustion” Karen responded “Why don’t we send her off for a break to the Dancingdean Spa Hotel”

“Well I really think it was more of a glow than exhaustion but I agree she deserves a treat” he agreed “Why don’t you go as well, you could use some pampering”

“What a lovely idea” she said “I’ll go on line and book it when we get home”

 

The next day Mandy walked over to the main house with two large baskets of produce and it was a fiercely hot day.   

“God it’s so hot” she said as she walked into her mum’s kitchen.

“Sit down and have a drink” her Mum said “you look done in” 

“I’m fine” she replied “But I’ll take a cold drink”

Karen Hargrave went to the fridge and got out a bottle of water but when she turned around she saw Mandy had collapsed.

“Bruce! Bruce!” she shouted and rushed to her daughter.

“Whats all the shouting about?” Bruce asked and then he appeared in the doorway.

“Call an ambulance” Karen snapped

He knelt down on the floor next to his stricken daughter.

“No time for that” he said “I’ll call Norm”  

He phoned Norman and he was there in under five minutes by which time Mandy was sitting upright and taking a little water.

“Let’s get her in the car” Karen said

“I’ll be fine now” she insisted

“Nonsense” Bruce said “You need to get checked out”

“What about Jason?” she asked

“He’s on his way” her mum replied

They got Mandy in the back of Norman’s car just as Mandy’s husband Jason arrived with Michael hot on his heels

“We can’t all go” Karen said “someone needs to stay here”   

Bruce and Karen looked at each other, neither of them wanting to volunteer.

“I’ll stay” Norman said and threw the keys to his dad

“Mike and I will hold the fort”

“Ok we’ll ring when we have news” Karen said

“So get going” Norm said and watched as the car disappeared from view.

 

Norman and Michael had a busy day on the farm which lasted well into the evening, when they went in to eat and at the end of the meal and they cleared away.

When the last dirty plate was loaded in the dishwasher and finally finished everything that needed to be done they sat down in their armchairs and put their feet up and they promptly fell asleep.

It was about an hour later when they were woken from slumber by loud laughter as their parents burst into the room.

“Aw look at our little tired soldier” Karen said and walked over to them and kissed them.

“Have some respect for the dead Mum” Michael said sleepily

“Obviously no stamina, these youngsters” Bruce added

“I’ll put the kettle on” Norman offered

“Just remember to put water in first” his mum said “it’s a kitchen appliance not one of your work tools”

“Very funny” he said

“So how’s Mandy?” Michael asked 

“They kept her in” Karen said “Just as a precaution”

Michael was curious as to why he detected no concern in her voice there was even the faintest hint of a smile.

“So what’s wrong?” He asked

“Nothing’s wrong” she replied

“Then why have they kept her in?” he quizzed

Bruce and Karen stood in the centre of the room and put their arms around each other.

“She’s pregnant” they chorused

“What?” Michael exclaimed

“She’s four months pregnant” Karen said proudly

“Everything is fine” Bruce said “they really did just keep her in as a precaution”

“We’re going to be grandparents” Karen said

“Then we should have something a little stronger than coffee” Norman suggested.

WHEN I SAY

 

When I say, "I love you", I mean it.

Look into my eyes and believe it

Look into my heart and feel it