Mornington-By-Mere – (91) The Manor Farm Mouse

 

In the late summer of 1943 Ronald Carrington stood on the platform at Roespring station in the inclement weather as the Purplemere train arrived.

The train was very busy but he managed to find a seat in the second compartment he came to.

Once on the train he fell asleep within minutes of the train departing the station, the motion of the train always did that.

When he opened his eyes again there were some new faces in the compartment, so he assumed he must have missed the stop at Nettlefield.

There were two girls sat across from him, one of which was a tall redhead with outstanding legs.

Ronald thought she was pretty enough, but he also thought she was all too aware of the fact and she positively preened when she realized he was admiring her legs, so he turned his attention to a quiet mousy girl sitting in the corner by the window.

The girl had long straight brown hair and a rather attractive, if heavily freckled face, but lovely hazel eyes, a cute nose and a thin-lipped smile.

She was a short, slim girl who he thought could have been anywhere between 18 and 25, wearing a rather faded floral dress and scuffed shoes.

The redhead, on seeing his transfer of allegiance, huffed quite loudly and flounced off to another compartment.

So Ronald and the little mouse spent the next twenty minutes exchanging glances amidst the occasional word.

 

He looked at his watch and they were only five minutes from Purplemere, he was sure he would easily make the connection for the bus to Mornington.

But that was before they stopped at a signal and waited there for what seemed like an eternity, presumably for a troop train, and when they eventually got going again it meant catching his bus was going to be an impossibility and even getting the next one was going to be a very close shave indeed.

As they approached the station the mousy girl stood up and reached up to get her case when the train lurched and she fell against him.

“I’m sorry” she said

“That’s ok, allow me” he said and easily lifted her case down

“Thank you….” She began

“Ronald” he said

“Thank you Ronald” she said “I’m Fiona”

“Please to meet you Fiona” he said and they shook hands and Fiona

smiled coyly, then as the train came to a halt she was thrown into his arms.

“That was very nice” he said as she gathered herself and then he turned and opened the door and stepped down onto the platform where he dropped his kit bag and then he helped Fiona down and said

“I do hope we can share a journey together again sometime”

“Me too” she said and blushed before she set off along the platform.

 

After watching her walk away he looked at his watch and rushed off towards the bus station and his worst fears wear realised when he saw his bus driving away.

“Bugger”

He checked the timetable and found he had an hour to kill before the next bus to Mornington and then it started to rain so he went and found a café to occupy his time and keep him dry.

 

As he left the café it was raining hard, very hard, so he turned the collar up on his RAF great coat and rushed over to the bus stand and boarded the Mornington bus.

He made himself comfortable and was quite confident that he would sleep and dream away the duration of the journey.

That was until a rain soaked figure in a dripping raincoat boarded the bus just in the nick of time.

There was only a couple of empty seats, one of which was on the back seat next to him, and the figure made its way up the aisle and had obviously selected that one.

They appeared in front of him dripping water everywhere, including over him, which was when he turned into his mother and tutted loudly.

Realising what they had done the figure turned around.

“I’m so sorry did I get you wet?” the figure said from beneath a head scarf, before continuing with surprise and a thin-lipped smile

“Oh Ronald”

He tried to recognise the owner of the voice but there was only a small circle of face visible and that had hair plastered to it and drops of rainwater were dripping off their eye lashes.

It was definitely a girl, small and wet, he suppose it could equally have been a small, wet effeminate man but he didn’t think he knew any.

Not having a clue who it was he did the only thing left open to and feebly said.   

“Hello”

The figure unbuttoned their raincoat and removed the scarf and he could see it was a short girl with straight brown hair and an attractive face, freckled cheeks, and hazel eyes, and when her wet coat was removed and she was wearing rather faded floral dress, he said.

“Fiona! I didn’t recognize you”

 

For the first half of the journey they chatted at length about themselves,

18 year old Fiona Blake lived in Nettlefield, where she had boarded the train, and lived with her parents where she was the youngest child of three.

Her two older brothers and her father were all in the Downshire Light Infantry, the former were last heard of in North Africa while her father was a drill instructor in Nettlefield.

She however was bound for Mornington as part of the Land Army where she had been assigned to Manor Farm.

Ronald Carrington on the other hand was 19 and was a pilot officer and was stationed at Mornington field

Which was originally used by the then newly formed Royal Flying Corps as a training base and it remained as a training squadron when the RFC became the RAF and right through to the end of the nineteen thirty’s, but when World War Two began it became a front line fighter base in the Battle of Britain and many sorties were flown from the field and many brave young men failed to return to it, Ronald himself had been there for the eight months since he qualified.

 

After they had got to know each other the second half of the journey passed in silence as she was sleeping against his shoulder, which he really liked, so he let her sleep but when they were approaching the village he gently woke her and she smiled at him before she gathered her things together.

She threw her wet coat down on the seat and was about to sit next to it when the bus lurched and she fell onto Ronald’s lap but she quickly pushed back against him and scrambled to her feet.

“Sorry” she said

The bus bounced once more and she again fell against him but once again she scrambled to her feet.

“Sorry” she said once more, but almost immediately the bus lurched again and she fell onto his lap.

This time as she scrambled to regain her feet he said

“Stop apologizing Fiona”

And after chastising her he sat her on the seat beside him.

“I’m not sorry in the slightest” he added “I rather liked it”

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she said blushing

“Why not? It’s true,” he said and then she did something that he had wanted to do for a long time, she leant over and kissed him

It was only a quick peck but it held promise but as soon as her lips left his she was on her feet and tottering down the aisle.

He was quickly after her and caught her at the top of the steps,

“Meet me at the Old Mill Inn on Saturday night” He said “7 o’clock”

“I don’t know about that” she retorted “I’ve heard about you RAF types”

She went down the steps and walked towards the open locker where the driver was handing out the bags and when she had hers she looked at him and said

“Ok, 7 o’clock”

 

It was 6 days after he’d seen her and he was quite anxious as he waited outside the pub, he had thought of little else since he had watched her walk away the previous Sunday, despite the fact they had had a busy week of operations.

But his anxiety was not diminished by the fact that 7 o’clock came and went, as did 10 and 20 minutes past the hour and the big hand was rapidly approaching the half hour when he heard a plaintive cry.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry”

And when he turned towards the source of the voice he saw it belonged to Fiona who was running towards him in her faded floral dress and her old scuffed shoes, freshly polished, and when she reached him she was red faced and breathless.

“I’m sorry” she said “We were late finishing, one of the cows refused to cooperate”

“Don’t worry” he assured her “I’m just glad you made it”

She smiled in relief and the redness of her exertions on her face was replaced by a blush then Ronald took hold of her hand and they went into the pub.

 

The pub was packed and very noisy but he got to the bar and got their drinks, beer for him and port and lemon for her and then they found a quiet corner but it was so raucous that they couldn’t really have a conversation and she kept looking around the bar, it was much busier than he had hoped it would be.

“Too many people eh” he said and she nodded so he finished his drink and stood up and added

“Come on lets go somewhere quieter”

And he led her outside and they walked slowly around the village and they could at last have a conversation.

“This is better” Fiona said and held his hand.

“Next time we’ll get the bus into Shallowfield and go to the pictures” he said

“Next time?”

“Only if you want there to be a next time” he said

“I really do” she said and giggled

 

They held hands all the way home and then kissed goodnight at the gate to Manor Farm and he watched his little mouse all the way to the door where she turned and waved and he knew he loved her and that she loved him.

DREAMS

When I have dreams

Those dreams are of you

I tingle at the thought of them

Those dreams so blue

Each searing moment

Is burnt in my memory

I hope when I sleep tonight

I dream again of you and me 

Mornington-By-Mere – (90) In Funereal Finery

 

One of the inevitable side effects of getting older is that you seem to attend more and more funerals with every passing year, which is ironically just part of life, but for Peter St George funerals had always had a profoundly erotic effect upon him ever since the incident that occurred on the morning of his grandfather’s funeral in 1963 when he was just 15 years old.

They were all staying at Mornington Manor, the home of the St George clan, and it was a full house so he took the chance amidst the hustle and bustle to sneak into his 20 year old Cousin Julie’s bedroom while she was having a bath so he could go in her handbag and pinch a couple of cigarettes.

But she finished in the bathroom sooner than he anticipated, so not wishing to get in trouble for stealing he hid in the wardrobe instead.

He was hoping she had just forgotten something and wouldn’t be long and would return to the bathroom so he could escape, but she didn’t so he just waited and watched her.

She was sitting on the bed as she dried her long brown hair which was very boring and he thought about stepping out and confessing but then she stood up and he watched her as she turned her back to him and began drying her curvaceous body with a large bath sheet but she offered tantalizing glimpses of what was hidden from view, which was very sensual.

Peter carried on watching in fascination until the moment she turned around and threw the towel on to the bed and he saw the first naked woman of his life.

His eyes were like saucers as they were drawn first to her breasts, and their associated adornments, which were even more amazing than he had imagined, and then he moved onto the parts he hadn’t imagined at all.

Peter continued looking at her as she began to dress, first she put on her black suspender belt around her narrow waist and then pulled on a pair of black silk French drawers.

Cousin Julie did each item deliciously slowly just as if she knew she was playing to an appreciative audience.

Next she sat on the bed and pulled on the first of her seamed black stockings up her long slender leg and as she leant forward to fasten the suspender her breasts hung voluptuously down and then at the same slow deliberate pace she repeated the process for the second stocking.

Cousin Julie stood up after fastening the second suspender and seemed to look straight at him and smiled before she harnessed her large round breasts in a black lacy contraption.

And when she had finished fastening her bra he saw the image to which every woman would be subsequently compared for the rest of his life.

The addition of an under slip did not diminish his appreciation of her but when the dress went on he knew the show was over.

 

Peter had to continue to wait in the closet for another 25 minutes after she finished dressing while she applied her makeup and only when she finally went downstairs could he escape his hiding place.

As he got to the door he looked back towards the wardrobe and he could see the reason he thought she was looking at him and smiling because next to the wardrobe door was a full-length mirror.

That day stamped a mark on him that lasted a lifetime and now whenever he sees a woman in Funereal Finery he gets aroused.

 

He never forgot that day and try as he might he never found anyone to come anywhere near matching what had become his ideal. 

But then on his 24th birthday he finally realised that they weren’t Julie.

So one year later after that realisation Peter and Julie were married at St Winifred’s church in Mornington and he had finally found his ideal woman.

Mornington-By-Mere – (89) In His Favourite Chair

 

Widowed Professor Keith Stewart was a dry and crusty academic who was Professor of History at Abbottsford University.

He was in his fifty-fifth year and was considered by everyone who knew him in academic circles to be as dull as ditch water and capable of talking about nothing but his subject, in detail and at length.

But no one was ever as they seemed and he was no exception.

He lived in the quaint chocolate box English Village of Mornington-By-Mere, which was the beating heart of the Finchbottom Vale.

There were a number of cottages and small houses in the part of Mornington Village known as Manorside and he lived at number 1 Dulcets Road Cottages which was his bolt hole, his escape from the academic world where he could enjoy his well-appointed library and his well upholstered chair.

His daughter Julie was away at University herself and as much as he loved her he loved having the house to himself more and that was because he had a lover.

 

Laura Prins was a single parent and lived in the house next door with her son Liam but he was also away at University.

Keith would spend four days a week in Abbottsford where he would spend the majority of his time in his rooms reading and looking forward to getting back to the arms of the voluptuous Laura.

 

Their relationship began at Christmas ten years earlier when he had too much wine and kissed her, and to his great delight she kissed him back.

At first they snatched moments here and there, when they found themselves alone, such as when their children were at school, or at a friends or later on when they were working, but in the three years since the children went off to University they had enjoyed each other whenever and wherever they wanted, and they really wanted to a lot.   

So when all his lectures were cancelled for the day he took the opportunity to get home to Mornington and spend the day in the loving arms and ample bosom of his Laura.

 

As she wasn’t expecting him back he phoned her from the car but it went straight to voice mail.

He was disappointed not to have spoken to her but he pressed on regardless and by the time he reached the village it was early afternoon and the sun, which had burnt off the early cloud had steadily grown in strength.

He parked the car on the drive and when he went in through the side gate he was surprised to find that the French doors were open to the Morning Room, so called as it was the room that got the morning sun, but he used it as his Study. 

He walked towards the open doors and was about to burst in and chastise whoever it was that had violated his inner sanctum.

But as he got closer he noticed that although the doors were open the curtains were not so instead of entering the Morning room from the garden he chose to peer through the gap between the curtains first and he spied a scene which changed the Professor mood in an instant.
His next door neighbour and lover, Laura Prins was sitting in his favourite leather chair.

He loved that chair with its faded and cracked Brown Leather, which was well stuffed and comfortable.

But at that moment he loved it even more as Laura sat in the chair with one leg draped over the arm and she was wearing his daughter Julie’s old school uniform and she was smiling because she knew he was watching her.

“Come in professor”

So he did as instructed and pushed the curtain aside and stepped in.

“How did you know I was coming?” he asked

“I spoke to Liam this morning and he told me that lectures had been cancelled” she explained “And I knew what you would want to do with your free time”

“You know me to well” he said as he closed the distance between them “I’m clearly too predictable”

“I would have been very disappointed if you hadn’t come home” she said

“Well I wouldn’t want to disappoint you” he said and bend down her kissed her expectant lips

“You never have yet” she said coyly 

 

An hour later the middle aged schoolgirl had more of her uniform on the floor than on her and he was no better.

“Time to get you up to the dorm girl” he said and slapped her buttock

“Yes Professor” she responded, then she pushed past him and ran giggling up the stairs.

“They wouldn’t call me dry and crusty, or dull if they knew how I spent my afternoons” he said to himself and smiled.

I DRAW A CIRCLE

 

I draw a circle

As a symbol

To demonstrate my love

I do not start

To draw a heart

Because a heart can break

So, I draw a circle

As a symbol

For a circle goes on forever

Mornington-By-Mere – (88) The Widow and the Widower

 

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

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

But Mornington-By-Mere is not just a quaint chocolate box English Village it is the beating heart of the Finchbottom Vale and there were a number of cottages and small houses on the Purplemere road and Dulcets Lane which formed the part of Mornington Village known as Manorside and Marcus Clooney lived at number 4 Brewery Cottages with his son and daughter.

 

But this story takes place away from Mornington when he was staying at the Worsted Viper Hotel in Purplemere and was not at all happy because he had reached the age of 58 and had acquired an unfortunate body shape, and the consequence of that was that gravity had become his enemy and a simple mirror was now his nemesis.

In the privacy of his own home he was able to minimise his exposure to the spiteful honesty of the looking glass and therefore perpetuate the falsehood that he was 20 years younger and 4 stones lighter.

He had found to his cost however that he could control his exposure to a much lesser degree in the wider world.

For example shops and stores all possess a multitude of polished surfaces and shopping centres are all bedecked with glass and mirrors, but by far the worst in his experience were hotels, in particular the one he was staying in at that moment.

It was a nice hotel, no question about that, in fact it was a rather grand and elegant place and the venue for what he very much hoped would be a dirty weekend.

However the downside to staying in an above average Hotel was the number and the positioning of mirrors.

A whole wall in the bathroom, a full length mirror in the hall and another monster above the writing desk (come dressing table), but the worst by a country mile was the bathroom.

There is nothing that dents the confidence more than seeing your naked form as others might see you if you were fortunate enough to reach that level of intimacy with them.

It was when Markus was in the shower, that he caught sight of himself, and the full horror of what he saw was not even diminished when viewed through the steam in the shower, the water droplets on the shower door and the condensation on the mirror.

In short the image did not leave him possessed of any self confidence in fulfilling his hopes of soon reaching that afore mentioned level of intimacy with a not unattractive widow of his acquaintance Rebecca Vineyard, in the room across the hall.

Marcus’s face had stood the test of time well enough but his body had been badly abused

“I bet Rebecca looks better in the bathroom mirror” he said out loud

 

He was quite presentable for his age when dressed in his dinner suit and the accessories, and without being conceited he was confident he could leave her satisfied, so to speak, if he got that far but his great fear was that he would leave her disappointed with his natural appearance.

 

Fellow Mornington resident Rebecca Vineyard meanwhile, was having much the same internal discussion as she stood before her own mirror, though even after 3 children and a hysterectomy her body had not reached the level of decline that his had although everything generally was a little further south than it used to be.

Finally she deemed herself satisfied with the final look, she just hoped it would suffice for him, for she had expectations.

However the final presentation was only achieved with undergarments that pulled her in and held her up and her fear was that the way she looked at that moment might well be enough to get him into the bedroom but with everything removed she was worried he wouldn’t go back for seconds.

 

After they ate dinner they sat at the table drinking and eventually they bade the long-suffering waiter a good night, even though it was almost 3 am, and headed, somewhat unsteadily towards their rooms.

Accompanied by raucous laughter they stumbled into the lift and unable to press the button for the floor that they actually wanted they decided to hit them all.

When they reached the first floor Rebecca announced

“This is me”

Markus was on the same floor and said

“Would you like me to see you to your door dear lady?” he asked and attempted a bow

“That would be very gallant kind Sir” she responded trying to curtsy.

He walked her rather unsteadily to her door and once she had managed to finally use the swipe card correctly and open the door she announced.

“Come in for a nightcap” she suggested and before he had chance to decline she dragged him into the room where after some intense negotiations it was decided that coffee was the order of the day.

“You can make the coffee while I just make myself comfortable” she instructed and when she emerged she was wearing only a nightie which left little to the imagination

“Wow” he exclaimed and five minutes later they were in bed together and Rebecca confessed

“It’s been a long time”

“How long?” he asked

“Too long” she replied and kissed him

 

The next morning at the breakfast table they sat across from one another, Marcus wore a smug look of satisfaction while Rebecca wore one of tiredness.

The “exhaustion” however did not prevent her from taking him back to her bed before lunch.

ALWAYS AND FOREVER

 

Always and forever

My love for you will burn

And the one and only thing

For which I yearn

Is that you will notice me

And love me in return