The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (197) Changeable

 

March

 

Justyna Krajewska was the Locum Vicar at St Clara’s until the end of June while Reverend Arielle Archer was on bed rest during her pregnancy and had been offered the Curacy after Arielle returned to her duties and she had every intention of accepting the job.

That was until she received a letter from Charlie and Toddy Phelps in Pepperstock Green on the mainland inviting her to interview for the position of Spiritual Head of the St Adelaide’s Reflection and Healing Retreat.

She had no idea how she came to the attention of the Phelps’ or indeed how they knew her employment status, but she was well aware of them and their project to repurpose the old Convent from Sam Richardson a Civil Engineer of her acquaintance who had worked on the project as well as several on the island.

Justyna was sufficiently intrigued that she decided she would go to Pepperstock Green, to at least meet the Phelps’, even if she had no interest in the interview.

 

On the same day that Justyna left the island, Dr. Deborah Woodward, Chief of Medicine at the Bellevue Cottage Hospital, and GP Stuart Cameron were enjoying lunch at the

Beaumont Manor Hotel.

They had known each other for just over a year but had only been in a relationship since early December.    

They both lived in Manor Row, which was made up of a dozen, one and two-bedroom cottages, for the exclusive use of essential hospital staff.

Deborah lived at number 6 Stuart lived only a few doors away at number 10.

Deborah had been attracted to him right from the start and although he also felt an attraction he was reluctant to get involved.

Before moving to the island Stuart had been something of a womanizer, especially in his younger days and wasn’t particularly discerning and went for quantity over quality, but he changed after a near miss at a party with an underage girl.

So, he decided on a policy of abstinence, and he thought living on a relatively small island would aid that policy.

He did succumb to her charms eventually and a strong friendship developed between them and there appeared to be a status quo.

However, in October the Pepperstock Bay Islands took a battering from an autumn storm, which in the early hours of Wednesday morning brought part of an oak tree down in Manor Row which ended up going through Deborah Woodward’s bedroom window.

Fortunately, she wasn’t at home at the time as she was on the night shift, but she got a nasty shock when she got home at 8 o’clock even though Stuart Cameron had phoned her.

The damage was much worse than she expected, the huge oak bough had indeed gone through her bedroom window, but it had taken a big chunk of wall as it did so, and there was substantial damage to the roof as well.

The fire service secured a tarpaulin over the damage in order to keep the elements out, but the tree was still in location as it was still partially attached to the tree.

It wasn’t safe for her to stay in the house, so she was asked.

“Where are you going to stay?”

“The Hotel I suppose” she replied.

“Nonsense” Stuart interjected “I’ve made up the bed in the spare room.”

When she received the report on the damage to the House, she learned repairs were going to take four to six weeks, as a substantial section of the roof needed to be replaced.

“That’s ok, you can stay here as long as you need” he said.

“I can’t possibly impose on you for that long” she protested.

“Nonsense, its rather nice having company” he retorted and smiled.

It was towards the end of that time during a power cut at the beginning of December when they finally transitioned from friends to lovers and they spent the next few months happily flitting between the houses.

 

“It’s been four months now” Stuart said as they sat in the Orangery restaurant at the Beaumont Manor Hotel

“What has?” Deborah asked.

“Us”

“Does that mean I get a present?” she asked and giggled.

“That depends” Stuart replied.

“We've lived together as friends for six weeks.”

“We've lived together as a couple for four months.”

“I think it’s time we moved in together for real” he said.

“With no safety net” 

“I've been thinking the same thing myself” she said “The only question is which house”/

“Yours is bigger” he said, “So it would make sense if we both moved into yours.”

“My thoughts exactly” Deborah said.

Her house was the bigger of the two and even more so after the forced remodeling of the roof, it now had an additional room courtesy of a loft conversion.

“So, are we really doing this?” he asked.

“Yes I rather think we are” she replied and then they kissed.

 

They had a nice meal in St Pierre at an Italian restaurant called the Gondolier to celebrate on the Saturday night of the third weekend in March.

The conversation flowed all evening, with no embarrassed silences, and on the journey home the conversation turned to the impending clock change. 

“I hate British Summer Time” she said

“I don’t like losing an hour of sleep, it really messes with my head”

“Well don’t look at it so much as losing an hour’s sleep” he said “See it more as us being able to see each other an hour sooner than we expected tomorrow”

“Ah that’s very romantic” she said and kissed him

The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (196) The Date

 

March

 

The main town on Beamont Island is St Pierre and Saxvirdan is a small hamlet north of the town, made up of former labourer’s cottages close to the remains of the old Roman fort site.

As a result, all of the house’s contain to some extent, materials acquired from the old Roman Buildings, and Phil Jacques lived in one of them, but he worked in a butcher’s shop in St Pierre.

At the beginning of March, he was feeling very pleased with himself because it was a day of particular significance to him as he had a date that evening, and it was his first date with Antoinette Venter.

It was significant because it 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.

 

Antoinette 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 it happened again in the third year, and the second time nearly cost her, her degree, so she 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 St Pierre 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 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.

 

Antoinette had taken a bold step by agreeing to go out to dinner with Phil, and open herself up for disappointment again, for the possibility of heartbreak, 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.

However, 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 Phil Jacques 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 Antoinette 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 took the early ferry to Pipershaven and spent all day shopping for girl clothes.

Phil spent his day fending off questions from his boss and best friend, Kenny, about where he was going and who he was taking.

 

Phil was sat at the bar of the Sword and Shield a full half an hour before he was supposed to meet Antoinette 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 Sally Knowles, however he was soon thinking it was a mistake to arrive early as his stomach was doing somersaults.

 

Antoinette 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 aloud to the mirror.

 

When Phil 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 Antoinette smiled.

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

“I decided I should make an effort” Antoinette 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 order’s 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 he 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.

The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (195) Pancake Day

 

February

 

St Giles Island is the smallest of the two Bay Islands, 6 miles long and 4 miles wide.

Following the formal end of the Roman occupation of Britain at the beginning of the 5th Century AD, the islands were largely unoccupied until the arrival of the Norman’s after their victory over King Harold at Hastings, when a minor nobleman, Gilbert du Beaumont, claimed the islands for himself, and took up residence on the larger Island which he promptly named after himself. 

He named the smaller island St Giles du Cabot in honor of his cousin and childhood friend who died of his wounds after the battle.

It was a rugged, inhospitable, and largely uninhabitable island surrounded by treacherous rocks.

For hundreds of years following the dissolution of the monasteries a hardy community of Monks eked out a meagre existence before they had to share their seclusion when work on a lighthouse at Cabot point began in the middle of the 19th Century.

By the 21st Century, three quarters of the island is a Wildlife Sanctuary, there is a small Meteorological Station, a small Hotel, the Seaview, and the Monks, who now ran St Giles’s religious retreat, which meant there was a population of between 50 and a 150 people, depending on the time of year. 

There is no Church on the Island but for those of a religious bent were always welcome at the St Giles Chapel.

 

The port of Cabot Town, in the southwest corner, was actually just a hamlet, and was also not really a port, it was just a jetty for the car ferry and a small quayside.

The fresh water on St Giles came from Hastings Lake, which was surrounded by woods, both courtesy of the Monks, who cleared the lake of silt and debris, then planted and managed the woodland.

Over the centuries the lake and woods have become an excellent source of sustenance in their lives 

 

There were two beaches on the eastern side of the island, Smuggler’s Beach is on the northeast coast below the cliffs, but no one knows why it got the name as there was no evidence to suggest it was ever used for smuggling.

The only other beach was Broad Beach Sands, a wide and deep expanse of yellow sand at the narrowest part of the island.

The whole southern end of the island below Broad Beach was the Wildlife Sanctuary and was out of bounds to residents and visitors alike and a permanent presence of wardens on the island keep the over inquisitive at bay, but there were a large number of hides for bird watchers.

However, visitors still had the beaches, bird watching and fishing in Hastings Lake to amuse them and the Seaview Hotel was the place they stayed.

 

The Seaview Hotel was run by 30-year-old divorcee Cordelia Caldwell.

It had belonged to her parents before they retired and now it was hers, and it was where people spent many summer holidays and weekend breaks.

She had moved to the mainland after university, but the place held very special memories for her and after her marriage ended acrimoniously she moved back and now she couldn’t envisage living anywhere else, it made her feel good to think of those happy days, and she wasn’t sure what possessed her to move away.

But living there soon reawakened those happy memories and in the three years since she returned there she had made new memories, some very good friends and perhaps more importantly, in the twelve months since she took over the Hotel, she had met Michael Stones.

 

He was a tall, muscular thirty-two-year-old with sandy hair and a weathered complexion, who was the temporary head at the Wildlife Sanctuary.

Michael was the complete opposite of her, he was tall she was short, he was lean, and she had a fuller figure, he was tanned, and she was pale, but regardless of the differences they were a perfect match.

The only problem was that she lived at the Hotel and never seemed to have an hour to herself, and he worked strange hours, so she couldn’t see how they would mesh, but they had got to spend some time together, but not as much as she’d like, and that was the thing on her mind as she made her way to the kitchen to meet her three closest friends, Hotel cook, Anelita Gordon, and sisters, Rebecca and Sally Root, and the reason they were going there was because it was Pancake Day.

“Happy Pancake Day” Cordelia said as she pushed open the door.

“Happy Mardi Gras” Sally retorted.

“What’s that?” Cordelia asked.

“It’s what the American’s call Pancake Day” Anelita replied.

“I thought they called it Fat Tuesday” Rebecca added.

“Fat Tuesday? Why did you say that? Why would you say that?” Cordelia asked with panic in her voice “Do I look fat? I look fat, don’t I? I knew I shouldn’t have worn these trousers, I knew I should have worn a dress.”

“Calm down” Rebecca said and hugged her “you look gorgeous, now sit down and eat some pancakes.”

 

So, they sat and ate far too many pancakes than were good for them and talked about what was going on in their love lives, and the last one to speak, was Cordelia who told them how happy she was, and that prompted Rebecca to respond.

Aren’t you forgetting about the elephant in the room Cordelia?”

“What elephant?” she retorted and looked over her shoulder.

“What Rebecca is referring to is the fact that the temporary head of the Wildlife Sanctuary is leaving for the mainland and may not be coming back” Anelita explained.

“And ….”

“And?”

“And what about Michael?” Anelita confirmed.

“I don’t know” Cordelia replied.

“Haven’t you asked him?” Sally asked.

“No” she winced.

“Oh Cordelia, you need to get a wriggle on” Rebecca said, “or you’re going to let him slip through your fingers.”

“I know, but I just haven’t been able to bring myself to ask him” she said, “I’ve just concentrated on enjoying being with him.”

“Well, here’s your chance” Sally said and nodded towards the door and Cordelia stiffened.

“Hello ladies” Michael said as he approached the table and then he leant down and kissed Cordelia’s cheek, and she smiled but said nothing.

“So, no work this morning?” Anelita asked.

“No, I’ve finished” he replied.

“What half a day?” Sally asked.

“No, I mean I’m all done” he said, “I have to get to Abbottsford.”

Rebecca was studying Cordelia’s face as he spoke and saw the look of horror that swept over it.

“Well as you’re a man of leisure why don’t you join us” Rebecca said, “The pancakes are wonderful.”

“I’m afraid I can’t” he said checking his watch “I have to get going.”

“What?” Cordelia exclaimed “Your leaving now?”

“I’m afraid so” he replied.

“Where are you going?” she asked, unable to hide the panic in her voice “When will you come back to see us?”

“Erm, we’re having dinner tomorrow night remember” he said and smiled.

“Yes but…”

“And I’m not leaving for good, I’m only going to the mainland for a meeting, confirming my promotion to Wildlife Sanctuary Head.”

He added and kissed her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (194) St Valentine’s Day

 

February

 

Richard Leadbitter was a Staff Nurse at the Bellevue Cottage Hospital on Beaumont Island and shared a house on the island with two Junior Doctors, Andrew Lightstone and Claudine Newton and another Nurse, Anna Rue, who all worked at the same Hospital.

The house was a four-bedroom terraced property situated.

in Manor Row, overlooking Manor Cliff beach.

It wasn’t a huge house, but it was perfect for them as it was close to work, which was ideal for all of them as they worked shifts, and it meant that split between the four of them their expenses were very manageable. 

They were all single, though they were all looking and all quite pessimistic regarding their prospects in the relationship department given their working hours.

But they all got on well and made the most of the situation.

They all had hopes and dreams though, of finding the right person and settling down and for Richard he hoped that person would be Anna Rue.

He had been in love with her since he first saw her on the ward at the Bellevue Cottage Hospital and those feelings had just grown deeper in the twelve months they had been living under the same roof until he loved her body and soul.

She was a bit of a dynamo about the place and was not the sitting around sort and he liked to watch her while she did the mundane things around the house, especially when she was in the kitchen making lunch.

She would be hunched over the kitchen counter fastidiously assembling a sandwich, and as she applied the finishing touch of mustard mayonnaise she would adopt a stance not unlike a world class table tennis player preparing to serve.

He wasn’t sure why she stooped over so dramatically, she wasn’t exceptionally tall, but he really didn’t care he was just glad she did.

However he had held his feelings for her in check because he didn’t want to upset the dynamic, after all it had taken him a long time to find a group of people he was happy to share a house with, and he thought having a relationship with one of them could get messy if that relationship failed, or worse than that what if he asked her and she said no, how awkward would that be and what an atmosphere it could evoke, and there was always the likelihood that she would say no, as he was well aware that she was out of his league.

But he was encouraged to at least entertain the idea of asking her after his housemates Andrew and Claudine became an item at the beginning of February.

So, he set his sights on winning her by Valentine’s Day, which was slightly ambitious given his poor success rate during the season, when February normally bought him, no Valentines save for the jokey kind he would get at work, but this time he had high hopes.

His new-found confidence sprang from the knowledge that Andrew and Claudine were attending the upcoming Valentine’s Ball together which gave him the idea for his own Valentine.

 

Because Valentine’s Day fell on Thursday, the Valentine’s Ball wasn’t to be held until the Saturday following which meant he could invite her without her actually knowing it was him.

 

His first action was to purchase two tickets for the Ball, one of which he kept for himself while he placed the other one in the envelope with the Valentines card he had carefully selected for her.

On the day itself, she was on the night shift, so he stamped the envelope and then sneaked it into the pile of that day’s mail before she got home.

As he wasn’t working, he was in the house when she returned and when she paused by the front door and thumbed through the pile of mail he was crouched down on the landing watching her through the bannisters in order to gauge her reaction.

Which he took to be favourable by the way she held the card to her chest and grinned.

Richard continued to watch from his hiding place as Anna then hugged herself before she skipped away, giggling to the kitchen.

 

He was very pleased with her reaction, it was a far more positive one than he could ever have hoped for, however once he was alone in his room doubt began to creep in.

Anna was undoubtedly thrilled with the Valentine and the ticket to the Ball but what began to worry him was the imagined identity of the sender.

His hope was that she was thrilled because she had guessed that it was from him, but what if there was some other recipient of her affections whom she had wrongly given the credit for the missive and the gift, and these doubts tortured him for the next two days.

 

His anxiety was not diminished by the fact that on the day of the Ball he had been at work all day, which was problematic in two ways, firstly because he didn’t have time to go home before and had to shower and change at the hospital, and secondly because he didn’t go home he didn’t get to see her and wasn’t even certain sure she was actually going, despite her obvious pleasure when she opened the Valentine.

So after making his way up the road to the Beaumont Manor Hotel he went through to the Ballroom but had no idea if he was going to see Anna dressed up to the nines in a designer dress or find nothing more than another empty chair when he reached the table, as a result of his lengthy and fruitless musings he was one of the last to arrive.

     

Richard checked the seating plan to locate his table and found it was the furthest away from the entrance, so as he entered there was no clear view across the crowded Ballroom, which did not ease his anxiety one iota.

As he was one of the last to arrive, he could only make slow progress through the assembled melee of revelers.

It would have been a quicker passage had they chosen to take their seats more promptly rather than standing in groups and engaging in conversation in the gaps between the tables.

However, by the time he reached halfway good sense had begun to prevail and there were more seated than standing and at the three-quarter mark those still on their feet had reduced to a handful which allowed him his first glimpse of his destination.

The round, twelve-seat table was almost fully populated save for his empty seat, but as it was the one nearest to him, the girls on either side of it had their backs to him so he wasn’t able to identify them, although the girl on the left had an abundance of flaming red hair so he immediately ruled her out.

The girl on the right was the right build and hair colour but Anna had long straight hair and the girl he was looking at had her hair arranged in braids, plaits and buns atop her head.

She was also wearing a yellow halter neck dress which he had never seen her wear before, although that didn’t really mean anything, but it contributed to his anxiety going up several fold as he began to suspect that not only was Anna a no show but that she had given the ticket away.

He tentatively approached while casually checking the table number with that on his ticket and having confirmed that the empty seat was indeed his and he was all too soon standing behind the vacant chair. 

“Hello” he said, and the girl visibly tensed as he pulled the chair out “I’m sorry I’m late.”

As he sat, the girl in the yellow dress turned slowly towards him and the first view he got of her was best described as expressionless, but only for the briefest moment because the instance of recognition her face lit up and she beamed a radiant smile at him.

“I was hoping it would be you” Anna said and took hold of his hand “And it is.”

The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (193) Candlemas Assignation

 

February

 

It was on Candlemas Day just after the Sunday morning service had ended at St Clara’s when he spotted her, and he thought for a woman of her age she had a particularly nice figure.

She had just come down the steps from the Church and had stopped to converse with friends.

At the time he was leaning against the wall opposite the Church having attended the service himself.

He was not a devout Christian himself, but he attended every week because that was how he was raised and old habits die hard, and he often lingered outside the Church on a Sunday morning.

It might sound very wrong, but he would be the first to admit that he got a kick out of ogling all the Christian women in their Sunday best.

He knew the lady slightly; her name was Shelagh Marks and they were both members of the same sailing club.

She was not necessarily a wealthy woman by all accounts, but she was comfortably off, which was self-evident by the way she was dressed, though her financial status was of secondary concern to him.

Everything Shelagh wore was quality and she was always immaculately turned out, so he was quite surprised on that day to see her standing chatting on the pavement wearing of all things, leggings, expensive, good quality leggings, but leggings, nonetheless.

His surprise quickly abated though as he looked at the exquisite fit and was just thinking to himself that she had a very nice rump when she shifted her body weight from one leg to the other and turned slightly towards him just as a beam of sunlight fell upon her, or at least the part of her he was looking at, and as it illuminated her hind quarters it revealed as clear as day her big black knickers underneath the exquisitely fitted leggings.

It was at that point he decided to chance his arm; after her conversation was over, he went over to talk to her.

“Shelagh?” he said

“Oh hello” she replied, “Mr. Symons, isn’t it?”

“Please call me Lee,” he said

“Lee” she complied

After which they chatted about the Sailing Club and the upcoming Regatta.

“You must be in with a chance of winning a medal” he said “A sailor of your standard”

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

And having duly flattered her to the point of blushing he invited her to lunch which she graciously accepted.

He was confident that she would, after all a woman of her age would always be at the very least flattered by the attention of a younger man especially one 9 years younger.

He’d always been attracted to older women, not too much older five or ten years normally.

But of course, by the time he reached his 40s there seemed to be an overabundance of suitable candidates for his lust, widows mainly, which kept him gainfully employed.

 

They had had a very pleasant lunch, which consisted of three courses, two bottles of wine and an abundance of flirting, at Philips Folly, from where, after plying her with liberal amounts of wine he offered to take her home to St Giles on his boat which was moored in Spaniards Creek.

“It was a very nice lunch Lee,” she said as he took her by the hand and helped her aboard the vessel. “Thank you”

“My pleasure” Lee said

He had further pleasure after he had her settled in the cabin where he  liberated her from her expensive leggings and then to their mutual delight, he tugged the big black knickers off her classy, widowed rump.

The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (192) Candlemas Day

 

February

 

Andrew Lightstone was a Junior Doctor at the Bellevue Cottage Hospital on Beaumont Island and shared a house on the island with two Nurses, Anna Rue and Richard Leadbitter and another doctor, Claudine Newton, who all worked at the same Hospital.

The house was a four-bedroom terraced property situated.

in Manor Row, overlooking Manor Cliff beach.

It wasn’t a huge house, but it was perfect for them as it was close to work, which was ideal for all of them as they worked shifts, and it meant that split between the four of them their expenses were very manageable. 

They were all single, though they were all looking and all quite pessimistic regarding their prospects in the relationship department given their working hours.

But they all got on well and made the most of the situation.

They all had hopes and dreams though, dreams of finding the right person and settling down.

 

It was on the eve of Candlemas day, the festival of the purification of the Virgin Mary, which marked the last day of Christmas.

Falling midway between the winter and spring equinox it was a time for looking forward to the bounty ahead.

Andrew felt it was like the end of one chapter and was optimistic that it was the beginning of another.

The end in question was his four-month relationship with control freak Maxine, or Madmax as she was known.

The morning after breaking up with her he rose early, showered and dressed and after walking down the stairs he paused as he spotted something out of the corner of his eye.

It was a figure lying on the sofa and he recognized it to be Claudine Newton even though she had her back to him lying on her side, because the sweeping curve of her hip to her waist was like a mountain slope, and it was a view he had admired many times before.
He must have spent a full five minutes gazing at her sleeping form, clad only in a nightgown, then he tiptoed in and draped a throw over her before tiptoeing away again.

The reason he was up so early was that he was heading to his parent’s house in Pipershaven, he hadn’t seen his Mum or Dad since Christmas and it was her birthday, he knew they would be pleased to hear he had dumped Madmax.

He was going to get on the early ferry, taking his Mum’s present with him and then take his parents to the pub for Sunday lunch.

Andrew returned on the last ferry of the day having spent a very enjoyable day with his family.

 

By the time he got back to the house it was after ten o’clock and he was surprised to see there was still a light burning in the window as he believed the others to be at work, so he assumed the light was left on by one of his housemates to deter burglars.

He parked the car on the drive and went inside not knowing if anyone was inside or not but as he went in all was quiet.

So, he went straight upstairs and got into bed as his shift started at 6 am, but as it turned out he couldn’t sleep so he got up again and got ready for work and he was at the hospital just after 4 o’clock.

His first port of call was the coffee cart and with his drink in hand he made his way upstairs and thought he would sit and drink it in the “on call” lounge.

He opened the door, and the room was in darkness and as he pushed the door open the light from the hall flooded into the room and then he did a double take.

In the corner of the room was a small but functional bed but that wasn’t what surprised him.

What had got his immediate attention was the sleeping figure of a Doctor wearing hospital scrubs and it was a figure he was very familiar with, for laying on the hospital cot in the fetal position with her back to him, partially covered by a hospital blanket, was the curvaceous figure of Doctor Claudine Newton and not for the first time he just stood and admired the view, especially her perfect round bum which was visible beneath the blanket.

Not that it was just her physical attributes he admired, he liked everything about her, and he loved her body and soul, he had done since the moment he first met her.

But he had held his feelings in check because it had taken a long time to find a group of people he was happy to share a house with, and he thought having a relationship with one of them could get messy if that relationship failed, or worse than that what if he asked her and she said no, how awkward would that be and what an atmosphere it could evoke, so he kept his own counsel and went out with a succession of girls who failed to measure up to Claudine. 

With a sigh he had one final look and closed the door and went along to the staff lounge where he sat and drank his coffee.

 

He sat there sipping his coffee and was questioning his position regarding her and then after about ten minutes she appeared, and she was looking gorgeous even before she beamed a smile at him.

He watched as she walked over to the noticeboard and unpinned a colourful flyer, then she turned back towards him, still wearing a smile, and lay it on the table in front of him.

He reluctantly diverted his gaze from Claudine and looked down at the flyer, which was advertising the upcoming Valentines Ball, and then he raised his eyes to her again.

“I like dancing, if you were wondering” she said, “In case you ever get fed up with just watching me sleep.”

She beamed another smile at him, partly for his benefit but also because she knew by his expression that she had not miscalculated the situation, before she turned on her heels and left.

 

So, it was on Candlemas day, the festival of the purification of the Virgin Mary, when his life took a positive step forward.

It officially marked the last day of Christmas and fell midway between the winter and spring equinox, and he really felt it was like the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

The end in question was his relationship with Madmax and now it appeared that Claudine was his new beginning.

The Islands in the Bay – Chapter (191) The Continuing Dirty Weekend

 

January

 

After dining braless in the hotel restaurant on Friday evening and turning more than a few heads, in a good way, Adeline Coates felt comfortable enough to do it again at breakfast, lunch and dinner and everything in between for the rest of the weekend.

 

They checked out after breakfast on Sunday morning and left the Hotel and as they drove out of the car park and set off towards Finchbottom and Rupert Chandler silently reflected on how often, on their dirty weekend, he had found himself referring to him and Adeline as “us” and concluded that it was significant.

 

Once they were underway he fully expected the car’s rhythmic motion would soon lull her off to sleep, after her vigorous weekend, and when he looked at her lovely face, while she sat beside him, he wondered if it was possible that she was falling in love with him, but he decided she was probably not, though he knew he had easily fallen in love with her, but he decided not to say the words because their commitments, if not their hearts, were elsewhere.

 

He managed to park right next to her car in the Hummingbird car park, but they didn’t go off straight away as she wanted to go into Silk and Lace and exchange her inadequately fitting bras.

Rupert sat outside a café drinking coffee while she went into the shop, she was taking no chances this time and was going to try them all on in the shop.

He offered to go in with her to help her tuck her breasts into their cups, but she declined his offer saying

“You wouldn’t be helping me; you would be helping yourself”

“The cheek of some people” he thought as he stared at both of her pert examples shimmying inside her jeans as she walked away.

 

When she returned a little short of an hour later, she was looking almost as pleased with herself as she did when she walked braless into the Hotel restaurant, two nights running.

“You look very pleased with yourself, have you gone commando?” He asked unhelpfully

 “No” she said indignantly and sat down at the table next to him.

Rupert caught the eye of the waiter and ordered two coffees

“Did you change your bras?”

“Yes” she said “and I bought some treats”

“What kind of treats?” he asked intrigued

“Fishnet stockings, for one thing” she replied “for next time”

 

They prepared to say goodbye next to her car in the car park she said

“Thanks darling, for making it such an enjoyable time, it was wonderful”

“My pleasure” He responded

“And mine” Adeline said blushing, then a moment later she continued

“I probably enjoyed it a little more than I should have I think”

He wasn’t sure if she was referring to the overindulgence or the sex, or something else.

“It wasn’t just a dirty weekend for me” she clarified “it was special”

“For me too” he said, and she kissed him