(Part 01)
Mornington-By-Mere was not just a quaint chocolate box English Village it was 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 the Walker family lived at number 4 Dulcet Mill Lane.
It was the house that 38 year old Angela was born in, which she now shared with her Purplemere born husband Norman and 19 year old daughter Andrea, and to the casual observer they were a happy family but all was not as it seems.
Norman was a successful Architect, in fact he was too successful, and that success kept him away from home more and more and as a result Angela was terribly lonely.
She had her daughter Andrea who she loved very much but she was overly protective to her because she was painfully shy.
Thankfully Angela had Dennis for support.
Dennis Thorpe was Norman Walker’s half-brother and he was a very gifted craftsman who among other things was a Model Engine Maker, as well as making rolling stock, buildings and infrastructure and had his own company in Purplemere called Railway Enthusiast.
But when the Mornington Estate exercised its option to purchase Mornington Field from the MOD it also acquired all the buildings and infrastructure on the airfield itself as well as 29 houses in the village formally used as quarters for military personnel.
Plans were immediately drawn up to optimize the newly acquired assets the moment the property was formally handed over on the 1st of June 2014.
The St George family were the guardians of the Mornington Estate, and the head of the family is Baron Gabriel St George, and his architect friend Scott Collier was tasked with designing appropriate conversions to maximize the potential returns and enhance the benefits to the village with new commercial premises that were set to open on Mornington Field in the following January and Railway Enthusiast moved to Block A on Mornington Field April 11th 2015.
At the same time Dennis moved into apartment 4 of Lancaster House, which was converted from the old Officers Mess and once he was living there he was on hand to give his sister in law Angela some support while at the same time alleviating her loneliness.
Norman Walker was almost 40 while half-brother Dennis was 2 years younger, the same age as Norman’s wife Angela.
There were two problems with the Walker family dynamic, firstly Norman was always away from home and the second was that Dennis fancied the pants off his half-brother’s neglected wife.
After he moved to the village Dennis often popped round to the Walker’s, evenings, weekends or on his days off, and at Norman’s request he was expected to go round when he was away to give Angela some company.
He looked forward to the time he spent in Manorside and she came to count the minutes until she saw him again.
However nothing ever happened between them other than mutual admiration, but it was only a matter of time before that changed.
Dennis had been living and working in Mornington for over a year when that time materialised.
(Part 02)
Dennis looked forward to the time he spent in Morningside and she came to count the minutes until she saw him again.
However nothing ever happened between them other than mutual admiration, but it was only a matter of time before that changed.
Dennis had been living and working in Mornington for over a year when that time materialised.
It was a glorious Saturday in June when Dennis Thorpe left his Apartment in Lancaster House, and it was just after 1.00pm by the time he got to his half-brother Norman’s house in Dulcet Mill Lane, it was only a short stroll as he only lived a stone’s throw away.
He got to the house just after lunch and he was fully expecting Norman to be there as it was a Saturday, but on his arrival he was told he had been called to a meeting in Sharpington and as their daughter Andrea was round at a friend’s house it was to be him and Angela for lunch.
Angela looked gorgeous in a yellow summer dress, he had always admired her figure, especially when she was wearing a dress, he found it hard to believe that she’d given birth with such a slim figure and he had always thought her legs were stunning.
“Do you want a beer?” she asked
“Yes please” he replied
He perhaps shouldn’t have had one as he hadn’t eaten since 9 o’clock the night before but it was a hot day and he was thirsty and he had another two before she brought him out a sandwich, so understandably he was a little light headed.
Angela also had a sandwich accompanied by a large glass of wine which she had just refilled.
The resulting light headedness he felt was probably why he allowed his desire for his sister in law to escape from the bottle, as he began flirting with her in the bright June sunshine and Angela played along and flirted back because she was on her third glass of wine.
So he flirted even more and she responded in kind but neither of them expected things to go to another level entirely and nobody was more surprised than Dennis was when he found himself kissing her and she was responding with vigour, in fact all at once Angela was all over him and he needed no encouragement whatsoever to join in and due to them both drinking too much on an empty stomach the kissing turned to fumbling and the fumbling to petting with the end result being that they made love al fresco in the secluded garden.
After making love on the lawn they stayed entwined for about a minute panting hard and then she said.
“I’ve waited 8 years for that”
“Was it worth waiting for?” he asked as he rolled onto his back
“Oh yes, very definitely” she cooed as she put her head on his chest
(Part 03)
After the remarkable June afternoon when Dennis Thorpe made love to his half-brothers wife Angela, for the first time, al fresco in their secluded garden, Angela had avoided him.
She had blanked him in the street and made excuses to break longstanding arrangements, and ignored his calls and texts, so when he spotted her one Saturday, two weeks after they made love, when she was walking towards the shops, so he followed her, and when she came to a halt by the church bridge he approached her on her blindside so she couldn’t run off and when he was a few feet away he said
“There you are, I thought you were avoiding me”
Angela jumped and immediately became flustered
“No not at all” she corrected him
“I think you have,” he corrected her
“I haven’t been avoiding you exactly but I thought we needed some distance” She explained “I feel guilty for what we did”
“You don’t need to feel guilty Angela, I seduced you remember” he said
“I don’t feel guilty because it happened” She said “I wanted you, I had wanted you for 8 years, I dreamed of that moment”
“Then why?” he asked
“Because I’m a wife and a mother” she replied and then added almost as an after thought
“And I love my husband, so it can never happen again”
He thought she may have loved Norman once but he doubted that was the case at that moment in time.
Norman was often away on business and when he wasn’t he was in the pub.
Dennis knew that Angela was lonely which to his mind she didn’t deserve.
She tried to move away but he put his hand on her shoulder, preventing her and said.
“Please don’t avoid me Angela, seeing you is important to me, don’t deny me that”
“I won’t” she said, “I promise, but I still feel guilty, so I meant what I said, it can’t happen again”
“That just makes me want you even more” he retorted as he watched her walk away and as he walked home he wasn’t very confident he would pleasure her again, but he was wrong and he would have been surprised just how soon he was proven wrong.
It was the next day and he had been to Church at St Winifred’s and he had only been back in his apartment for ten minutes when she knocked on his door.
“Hello” he said
“Hi” Angela responded “Can I come in?”
“Of course” he replied and stepped aside so she could enter then he just stood looking at her and smiling
“What’s the matter?” she asked
“You’re wearing the yellow dress” he said
“I know” she remarked and blushed, as she knew he was remembering the time in her secluded garden when she last wore it, so she slipped off the dress and let it fall to the floor.
He instantly appraised the beautiful woman he loved standing before him semi naked.
“Wow” he exclaimed and then she suddenly became self-conscious under his gaze and threw herself into him, and her mouth sought out his and found it.
“Make love to me like before,” she implored him “make every fibre of my body tingle”
“Are you sure?” he asked between kisses “I thought you felt guilty”
“Well I did” Angela replied and wrapped herself around him
“What about you being a wife and mother” he said “and you said you loved your husband”
“I did love him until I found out he’s been having an affair with some tart in Sharpington for the last five years” she retorted
“Oh, well in that case come with me” Dennis said and led her by the hand to his bedroom.
Friday 12 May 2017
Mornington-By-Mere – (54) The Student and the Teacher
(Part 01)
When the Mornington Estate exercised its option to purchase Mornington Field from the MOD it also acquired all the buildings and infrastructure on the airfield itself as well as 29 houses in the village formally used as quarters for military personnel.
The buildings on the airfield itself were to be converted in commercial premised while the former married quarters were soon available to rent.
30 year old single mother Kirsty Martin moved into number 2, Military Row, with her six year old daughter Sasha on the 18th of July, to live with her older sister Lianne.
After she and her boyfriend split up she and her daughter moved in with Lianne in Finchbottom but it was a bit cramped in her flat so when the opportunity of a house in Mornington presented itself Lianne snapped it up.
Lianne worked in Finchbottom for Downshire Denticare and divided her time between there and Mornington she had always loved the village and had often dreamed of living there but never dared hope that it might actually happen.
She couldn’t imagine why no one else was prepared to work there but she didn’t think about it often after all their loss was very much her gain.
So a three bedroom house in Mornington was manna from heaven and they all loved living there and Kirsty was thrilled to be away from Finchbottom and Sasha loved having her own room.
Sasha was also looking forward to starting at the village school in September and Kirsty hoped to get part time work up at Mornington Field once the premises were let.
As it turned out she didn’t need to wait that long as she managed to get a part time job as a classroom assistant at the village school which suited her down to the ground.
The only downside for Lianne living in Mornington was having to journey to Finchbottom three days a week and battle through the rush hour traffic on the Expressway.
She would have liked to work all week in Mornington but there just wasn’t enough dentistry required for that.
But her tortuous journeys turned out to be relatively short lived as at the beginning of November she was asked to work at the Highfinch practice for three days a week instead of Finchbottom and she didn’t need asking twice.
It was further to drive than Finchbottom but it was a much easier one and because of the greater distance the company had agreed to provide bed and breakfast accommodation in Highfinch which meant for Lianne that for her three days she would be able to stay over for two nights on expenses, so she thought she had really landed on her feet.
This turn of events was also welcomed by Kirsty as it meant that she and Sasha had the house to themselves for the best part of three days a week and that circumstance led rather serendipitously to a chain of events that would change her life for ever.
(Part 02)
Kirsty Martin was a 30 year old single mother who differed from her older sister in almost every way, she was tall while Lianne stood 4ft 10 in her socks, Kirsty’s hair was dark and luscious and her sisters was mousy and wayward, she had penetrating green eyes while Lianne’s were grey and a bit squinty, Kirsty had a strong jawline and perfect cheekbones, and her sister had a pointy chin with a mole on it.
She had perfect skin and a marvellous smile and Lianne had a face full of freckles and her smile was lopsided.
Kirsty had a perfect figure and was quite athletic, Lianne on the other hand did not, she was slim though and despite her imperfections she was not unattractive but she was not sporty by any stretch of the imagination.
Kirsty could get herself ready in no time flat and not have a single hair out of place while her sister would spend an age getting ready and still managed to look like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards.
The result of her appearance, despite having a daughter, meant that she was widely regarded in the village as a bit of a milf, but she had her doubts about that because if any of the red bloodied men in Mornington truly thought of her in that way then they were not banging on her door to tell her so.
She would have liked to meet someone as there hadn’t been anyone in her life since she split up with her boyfriend in Finchbottom, but little did she know that she was about to blossom into a brunette haired cougar.
She had a job at the village school working part time as a classroom assistant which fitted in well with her because her daughter Sasha was of school age.
Kirsty was always home by 2.30pm which gave her an hour of sanity time before she had to go out and pick Sasha up.
If there were days when she had to work outside of school hours, and Lianne was in Highfinch, one of her neighbours, Susan Newbold, at number 13, would babysit for her.
It wasn’t often and it wasn’t usually for long but one day in May Sasha was at home all day for an inset day and Kirsty had to go to school.
Susan, not for the first time, stepped into the breach and looked after her daughter for her.
Unfortunately things at the school didn’t go as well as planned, so as a result she was half an hour late getting home and when she walked through her front door she was instantly greeted by her excited daughter.
“Mummy, mummy” Sasha called “I’m playing with Alan”
“Are you darling?” she said not knowing who the hell Alan was.
“Come on, you can play too” Sasha added
Kirsty was led by her excited daughter into the lounge where she found Alan Newbold sitting on the floor in the middle of an assortment of toys, Alan was Susan’s eldest son, just back from
University after completing his second year.
He was tall, broad and muscular with a sportsman’s physique, brown curly hair that fell on his face, brown eyes, a square jaw and a dimple, in short Kirsty thought he was gorgeous.
“Oh hi Alan” Kirsty said
(Part 03)
Kirsty was led by her excited daughter into the lounge where she found Alan Newbold sitting on the floor in the middle of an assortment of toys, Alan was Susan’s eldest son, just back from
University after completing his second year.
He was tall, broad and muscular with a sportsman’s physique, brown curly hair that fell on his face, brown eyes, a square jaw and a dimple, in short Kirsty thought he was gorgeous.
“Oh hi Alan” Kirsty said
“Hello Mrs Martin” he said “Mum asked me to take over as she had to get to the Doctors”
“I’m not a Mrs” she said “Please call me Kirsty”
“Ok Kirsty”
“Is she behaving?” she asked
“Oh yes we’re having great fun” he said
“Come on mum you can play with Alan too” Sasha said
And she took a moment or two to consider what it might be like to play with Alan on the floor, but then she said
“I think Alan probably wants to go home”
“I’m in no rush” he said “if there’s stuff you need to do”
“Well if you could just entertain Sasha while I get her tea” she said “I would be very grateful”
“No problem” he said amiably
Alan continued to play with the Sasha for another 45 minutes while Kirsty cooked her tea and when she called her to the table Sasha thanked him for looking after her and then kissed and hugged Alan goodbye.
“I wouldn’t mind doing that myself” Kirsty thought as she watched the well-toned 20 year old hug her daughter.
As Sasha ran past her into the kitchen he brushed his brown curly hair off his face and smiled.
“You can brush my hair with that hand anytime you want” she said in her head, but out loud she said
“Thank you so much Alan”
“My pleasure” he remarked as he stepped out the door
“You could be my pleasure” she thought as she closed it behind him.
As May drifted into June Alan frequently babysat for Sasha and Kirsty looked forward to the days she would walk in the house and he would be there playing with her daughter.
Then one night after Kirsty had put Sasha to bed she had a long relaxing bath and was on the way downstairs to a well-earned glass of wine when there was a knock on the front door.
“Damn” she exclaimed
She was wearing her white fluffy bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban and was hoping if she opened the door like that it would deter whoever it was from disturbing her for long.
“Hello” Alan said as she opened the door
“Oh hello” Kirsty replied but inside her head she was screaming in her head “I look like a washer woman and I’m not wearing makeup, so I look like an old haggard washer woman”
“I left my phone here earlier” he explained “Would you mind if I look for it?”
“Not at all” she said wishing she had gotten dressed “Come in”
“Where do you think it might be?” Kirsty asked
“Down the right hand side of the seat pad on the sofa” he replied and she walked over to the sofa and bent over and delved between the seat pad and the arm.
“You were right” she said producing his phone
(Part 04)
As Kirsty answered the was wearing her white fluffy bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban and was hoping if she opened the door like that it would deter whoever it was from disturbing her for long.
“Hello” Alan said as she opened the door
“Oh hello” Kirsty replied but inside her head she was screaming in her head “I look like a washer woman and I’m not wearing makeup, so I look like an old haggard washer woman”
“I left my phone here earlier” he explained “Would you mind if I look for it?”
“Not at all” she said wishing she had gotten dressed “Come in”
“Where do you think it might be?” Kirsty asked
“Down the right hand side of the seat pad on the sofa” he replied and she walked over to the sofa and bent over and delved between the seat pad and the arm.
“You were right” she said producing his phone
“I know” he responded “Because I put it there”
“Oh I see” she said and smiled and then she processed what he’d said and corrected herself
“No I don’t see”
“I put it there so I would have a reason to come back” he enlightened her
“Why would you do that?” she asked
“So I could do this” he replied and leant in and kissed her lips softly and she instantly responded.
As the kiss continued it grew quickly in intensity, it was a moment he had dreamed of since she first arrived in the village, he had at first admired her and then he wanted her and she featured prominently in his dreams.
For her part Kirsty was just enjoying the attentions of a man, the first such attention she had received in a very long time, and she hoped it wouldn’t end with a kiss and she was not disappointed, because he made love to her on the floor in the very spot where he had played with Sasha and she had been so envious as she watched.
So as she had hoped it didn’t end with a kiss, and she was not disappointed at that either.
“That was very unexpected” she exclaimed as they cuddled on the sofa and drank a glass of wine “and very nice”
After a little while of reflective silence and half a bottle of wine she broke the silence and said to him.
“I think as you’re home for the summer we should try to do something to keep you occupied, which might also help to turn very nice into bloody marvellous”
She giggled at her brazen behavior while he just smiled at the prospect of enjoying her again.
As a result of that first evening together they began an affair that filled their every waking thought during the summer, they would meet at her house when she got home from work in that precious time before Sasha came home from school or if she wasn’t working they would spend the whole day together.
(Part 05)
All summer long they spent precious time together but it became increasingly more difficult to find the time for intimacy as the school holidays wiped out their regular afternoon delights and with the long summer evenings Sasha was taking longer and longer to settle.
So rather than getting together 5 afternoons a week they struggled to do one, but that said they still managed to make the most of what little time they had to themselves.
However as the summer days slipped slowly and inexorably towards Autumn Kirsty thought their passionate love affair would come to an end when the summer did and he returned to University.
On the last day of his summer break he wanted to say goodbye so he showered, dressed and went downstairs and slipped out the door, but someone else got to Kirsty’s house first, the washing machine engineer.
He knew it would probably be an hour before he was done so he decided he would try going for a walk first and after traipsing around the village for over an hour he headed to Kirsty’s again.
The engineer’s van passed him as he walked back towards the house so he was feeling hopeful as he used the spare key and let himself in and he found Kirsty standing at the kitchen sink watching Sasha playing in the garden.
“Hello gorgeous” he said as he crept up behind her, but she didn’t say anything in response because she was crying but she turned around and buried her face in his chest instead.
“Why are you crying?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Because I’m really going to miss you” she sobbed “and because it’s over”
“What’s over?” he asked
“Us” she replied snottily
“What makes you think it’s over?” Alan asked
“Because you’re going away” she retorted “and you’ll be with all the pretty girls your own age”
“This isn’t the end” he assured her “it’s the beginning”
“What?” she asked as she looked up at him through tear filled eyes.
“I don’t want it to end” he said “and I don’t want one of the “pretty” girls my own age, I want you because I’m in love with you”
“You are?” she asked in disbelief
“Yes and I thought you were in love with me” he said
“I am” she confessed
“Then why should it be over?” he asked but she didn’t reply because her mouth was over his.
The affair continued in secret during his last year at University, although it was more emotional than physical for the most part although they still had their moments when the opportunity presented itself.
They didn’t make their relationship public until after he had finished his third year and the announcement caused more than a few ripples in Mornington.
Her sister Lianne was delighted as was her daughter Sasha but the reception was more lukewarm from many in the village and the ripple took on tsunami sized proportions in his mum Susan’s eyes.
However after the dust settled and it became clear that the relationship was not a mere infatuation and a year after their coming out they were married at St Winifred’s.
When the Mornington Estate exercised its option to purchase Mornington Field from the MOD it also acquired all the buildings and infrastructure on the airfield itself as well as 29 houses in the village formally used as quarters for military personnel.
The buildings on the airfield itself were to be converted in commercial premised while the former married quarters were soon available to rent.
30 year old single mother Kirsty Martin moved into number 2, Military Row, with her six year old daughter Sasha on the 18th of July, to live with her older sister Lianne.
After she and her boyfriend split up she and her daughter moved in with Lianne in Finchbottom but it was a bit cramped in her flat so when the opportunity of a house in Mornington presented itself Lianne snapped it up.
Lianne worked in Finchbottom for Downshire Denticare and divided her time between there and Mornington she had always loved the village and had often dreamed of living there but never dared hope that it might actually happen.
She couldn’t imagine why no one else was prepared to work there but she didn’t think about it often after all their loss was very much her gain.
So a three bedroom house in Mornington was manna from heaven and they all loved living there and Kirsty was thrilled to be away from Finchbottom and Sasha loved having her own room.
Sasha was also looking forward to starting at the village school in September and Kirsty hoped to get part time work up at Mornington Field once the premises were let.
As it turned out she didn’t need to wait that long as she managed to get a part time job as a classroom assistant at the village school which suited her down to the ground.
The only downside for Lianne living in Mornington was having to journey to Finchbottom three days a week and battle through the rush hour traffic on the Expressway.
She would have liked to work all week in Mornington but there just wasn’t enough dentistry required for that.
But her tortuous journeys turned out to be relatively short lived as at the beginning of November she was asked to work at the Highfinch practice for three days a week instead of Finchbottom and she didn’t need asking twice.
It was further to drive than Finchbottom but it was a much easier one and because of the greater distance the company had agreed to provide bed and breakfast accommodation in Highfinch which meant for Lianne that for her three days she would be able to stay over for two nights on expenses, so she thought she had really landed on her feet.
This turn of events was also welcomed by Kirsty as it meant that she and Sasha had the house to themselves for the best part of three days a week and that circumstance led rather serendipitously to a chain of events that would change her life for ever.
(Part 02)
Kirsty Martin was a 30 year old single mother who differed from her older sister in almost every way, she was tall while Lianne stood 4ft 10 in her socks, Kirsty’s hair was dark and luscious and her sisters was mousy and wayward, she had penetrating green eyes while Lianne’s were grey and a bit squinty, Kirsty had a strong jawline and perfect cheekbones, and her sister had a pointy chin with a mole on it.
She had perfect skin and a marvellous smile and Lianne had a face full of freckles and her smile was lopsided.
Kirsty had a perfect figure and was quite athletic, Lianne on the other hand did not, she was slim though and despite her imperfections she was not unattractive but she was not sporty by any stretch of the imagination.
Kirsty could get herself ready in no time flat and not have a single hair out of place while her sister would spend an age getting ready and still managed to look like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards.
The result of her appearance, despite having a daughter, meant that she was widely regarded in the village as a bit of a milf, but she had her doubts about that because if any of the red bloodied men in Mornington truly thought of her in that way then they were not banging on her door to tell her so.
She would have liked to meet someone as there hadn’t been anyone in her life since she split up with her boyfriend in Finchbottom, but little did she know that she was about to blossom into a brunette haired cougar.
She had a job at the village school working part time as a classroom assistant which fitted in well with her because her daughter Sasha was of school age.
Kirsty was always home by 2.30pm which gave her an hour of sanity time before she had to go out and pick Sasha up.
If there were days when she had to work outside of school hours, and Lianne was in Highfinch, one of her neighbours, Susan Newbold, at number 13, would babysit for her.
It wasn’t often and it wasn’t usually for long but one day in May Sasha was at home all day for an inset day and Kirsty had to go to school.
Susan, not for the first time, stepped into the breach and looked after her daughter for her.
Unfortunately things at the school didn’t go as well as planned, so as a result she was half an hour late getting home and when she walked through her front door she was instantly greeted by her excited daughter.
“Mummy, mummy” Sasha called “I’m playing with Alan”
“Are you darling?” she said not knowing who the hell Alan was.
“Come on, you can play too” Sasha added
Kirsty was led by her excited daughter into the lounge where she found Alan Newbold sitting on the floor in the middle of an assortment of toys, Alan was Susan’s eldest son, just back from
University after completing his second year.
He was tall, broad and muscular with a sportsman’s physique, brown curly hair that fell on his face, brown eyes, a square jaw and a dimple, in short Kirsty thought he was gorgeous.
“Oh hi Alan” Kirsty said
(Part 03)
Kirsty was led by her excited daughter into the lounge where she found Alan Newbold sitting on the floor in the middle of an assortment of toys, Alan was Susan’s eldest son, just back from
University after completing his second year.
He was tall, broad and muscular with a sportsman’s physique, brown curly hair that fell on his face, brown eyes, a square jaw and a dimple, in short Kirsty thought he was gorgeous.
“Oh hi Alan” Kirsty said
“Hello Mrs Martin” he said “Mum asked me to take over as she had to get to the Doctors”
“I’m not a Mrs” she said “Please call me Kirsty”
“Ok Kirsty”
“Is she behaving?” she asked
“Oh yes we’re having great fun” he said
“Come on mum you can play with Alan too” Sasha said
And she took a moment or two to consider what it might be like to play with Alan on the floor, but then she said
“I think Alan probably wants to go home”
“I’m in no rush” he said “if there’s stuff you need to do”
“Well if you could just entertain Sasha while I get her tea” she said “I would be very grateful”
“No problem” he said amiably
Alan continued to play with the Sasha for another 45 minutes while Kirsty cooked her tea and when she called her to the table Sasha thanked him for looking after her and then kissed and hugged Alan goodbye.
“I wouldn’t mind doing that myself” Kirsty thought as she watched the well-toned 20 year old hug her daughter.
As Sasha ran past her into the kitchen he brushed his brown curly hair off his face and smiled.
“You can brush my hair with that hand anytime you want” she said in her head, but out loud she said
“Thank you so much Alan”
“My pleasure” he remarked as he stepped out the door
“You could be my pleasure” she thought as she closed it behind him.
As May drifted into June Alan frequently babysat for Sasha and Kirsty looked forward to the days she would walk in the house and he would be there playing with her daughter.
Then one night after Kirsty had put Sasha to bed she had a long relaxing bath and was on the way downstairs to a well-earned glass of wine when there was a knock on the front door.
“Damn” she exclaimed
She was wearing her white fluffy bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban and was hoping if she opened the door like that it would deter whoever it was from disturbing her for long.
“Hello” Alan said as she opened the door
“Oh hello” Kirsty replied but inside her head she was screaming in her head “I look like a washer woman and I’m not wearing makeup, so I look like an old haggard washer woman”
“I left my phone here earlier” he explained “Would you mind if I look for it?”
“Not at all” she said wishing she had gotten dressed “Come in”
“Where do you think it might be?” Kirsty asked
“Down the right hand side of the seat pad on the sofa” he replied and she walked over to the sofa and bent over and delved between the seat pad and the arm.
“You were right” she said producing his phone
(Part 04)
As Kirsty answered the was wearing her white fluffy bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban and was hoping if she opened the door like that it would deter whoever it was from disturbing her for long.
“Hello” Alan said as she opened the door
“Oh hello” Kirsty replied but inside her head she was screaming in her head “I look like a washer woman and I’m not wearing makeup, so I look like an old haggard washer woman”
“I left my phone here earlier” he explained “Would you mind if I look for it?”
“Not at all” she said wishing she had gotten dressed “Come in”
“Where do you think it might be?” Kirsty asked
“Down the right hand side of the seat pad on the sofa” he replied and she walked over to the sofa and bent over and delved between the seat pad and the arm.
“You were right” she said producing his phone
“I know” he responded “Because I put it there”
“Oh I see” she said and smiled and then she processed what he’d said and corrected herself
“No I don’t see”
“I put it there so I would have a reason to come back” he enlightened her
“Why would you do that?” she asked
“So I could do this” he replied and leant in and kissed her lips softly and she instantly responded.
As the kiss continued it grew quickly in intensity, it was a moment he had dreamed of since she first arrived in the village, he had at first admired her and then he wanted her and she featured prominently in his dreams.
For her part Kirsty was just enjoying the attentions of a man, the first such attention she had received in a very long time, and she hoped it wouldn’t end with a kiss and she was not disappointed, because he made love to her on the floor in the very spot where he had played with Sasha and she had been so envious as she watched.
So as she had hoped it didn’t end with a kiss, and she was not disappointed at that either.
“That was very unexpected” she exclaimed as they cuddled on the sofa and drank a glass of wine “and very nice”
After a little while of reflective silence and half a bottle of wine she broke the silence and said to him.
“I think as you’re home for the summer we should try to do something to keep you occupied, which might also help to turn very nice into bloody marvellous”
She giggled at her brazen behavior while he just smiled at the prospect of enjoying her again.
As a result of that first evening together they began an affair that filled their every waking thought during the summer, they would meet at her house when she got home from work in that precious time before Sasha came home from school or if she wasn’t working they would spend the whole day together.
(Part 05)
All summer long they spent precious time together but it became increasingly more difficult to find the time for intimacy as the school holidays wiped out their regular afternoon delights and with the long summer evenings Sasha was taking longer and longer to settle.
So rather than getting together 5 afternoons a week they struggled to do one, but that said they still managed to make the most of what little time they had to themselves.
However as the summer days slipped slowly and inexorably towards Autumn Kirsty thought their passionate love affair would come to an end when the summer did and he returned to University.
On the last day of his summer break he wanted to say goodbye so he showered, dressed and went downstairs and slipped out the door, but someone else got to Kirsty’s house first, the washing machine engineer.
He knew it would probably be an hour before he was done so he decided he would try going for a walk first and after traipsing around the village for over an hour he headed to Kirsty’s again.
The engineer’s van passed him as he walked back towards the house so he was feeling hopeful as he used the spare key and let himself in and he found Kirsty standing at the kitchen sink watching Sasha playing in the garden.
“Hello gorgeous” he said as he crept up behind her, but she didn’t say anything in response because she was crying but she turned around and buried her face in his chest instead.
“Why are you crying?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Because I’m really going to miss you” she sobbed “and because it’s over”
“What’s over?” he asked
“Us” she replied snottily
“What makes you think it’s over?” Alan asked
“Because you’re going away” she retorted “and you’ll be with all the pretty girls your own age”
“This isn’t the end” he assured her “it’s the beginning”
“What?” she asked as she looked up at him through tear filled eyes.
“I don’t want it to end” he said “and I don’t want one of the “pretty” girls my own age, I want you because I’m in love with you”
“You are?” she asked in disbelief
“Yes and I thought you were in love with me” he said
“I am” she confessed
“Then why should it be over?” he asked but she didn’t reply because her mouth was over his.
The affair continued in secret during his last year at University, although it was more emotional than physical for the most part although they still had their moments when the opportunity presented itself.
They didn’t make their relationship public until after he had finished his third year and the announcement caused more than a few ripples in Mornington.
Her sister Lianne was delighted as was her daughter Sasha but the reception was more lukewarm from many in the village and the ripple took on tsunami sized proportions in his mum Susan’s eyes.
However after the dust settled and it became clear that the relationship was not a mere infatuation and a year after their coming out they were married at St Winifred’s.
Thursday 11 May 2017
Mornington-By-Mere – (53) Strangers on a Train
(Part 01)
The Varney’s lived in the small country village of Mornington-By-Mere in the Finchbottom Vale nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.
Which was 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.
He lived and worked up at Mornington Field which had once been an RAF base but had been converted into a mixture of commercial and residential units.
They lived in one of the Cottages in Dulcet Mill Lane, number 5, in the part of the Village known as Manorside and they had lived there together all of the married life.
70 year old George was employed at the Mornington Brewery before he retired while his wife Tracey was a stay at home mum, raising their six children.
They were obviously all grown up now and most of them had children of their own and were now in every corner of Downshire.
In the summer of 2016 it was to be their fiftieth wedding anniversary and as a special surprise for his wife he had booked the Finchbottom Flyer, a renovated steam engine and coaches, which ran from Sharping St Mary along a section of preserved track that was very significant to them both and the whole family were going to be aboard for the celebration.
Their story began far back in the previous century in April 1965 when during the final days of the age of steam, the Sharpington to Abbottsford train rattled its way through the Finchbottom Vale late on a Monday night.
George Varney had spent the Bank Holiday Monday with a couple of mates in the traditional seaside resort of Sharpington-by-Sea, where they inhabited the Victorian Pier, and played crazy golf, frittered away their time in the numerous amusement arcades and of course rode the rides in the Sharpington Fun Park, like the Rotor and the Wild Mouse, The Cyclone and the Morehouse Galloper.
But Harry and Len didn’t leave when he did as they had pulled a couple of local girls so they decided to get the milk train back the next morning.
George was nineteen years old and had no hard feelings over his friends getting lucky he had had his chance but he declined what was on offer, he wasn’t looking for knee trembler in an alleyway or a bunk up under the pier, he was looking for something or someone a little more wholesome.
So he left his friends to their cheap thrills with their cheap slutty girls and got the train home.
When he reached the station the train was already on the platform so he got aboard and slammed the door behind him and walked down the corridor and went into the first compartment he came to.
When he slid the door closed he sat down and found himself seated opposite a girl sitting quietly in the corner.
Her name was Tracey Garvey and she had long straight brown hair and was on the plain side of pretty with a heavily freckled face, lovely blue eyes, a cute nose and a thin-lipped smile, which she greeted him with.
George returned the smile and sat down and slowly appraised the short quiet girl in the pale lemon dress and cream cardigan.
Her legs were nice, he thought, sheathed in tan coloured stockings and she had tiny feet, always a bonus for George, small feet.
Although he didn’t know it she was the same age as him and had also spent the day in Sharpington, but in her case she had been visiting a maiden aunt.
They spent the next twenty minutes exchanging glances, his of curiosity, mixed with desire, and hers of coquettishness.
But then the motion of the train began to lull him off, and when the long blinks had set in he slept, and while he slept he dreamt, and his dreams were all about the girl in the lemon dress.
(Part 02)
George and Tracey spent their first twenty minutes together exchanging glances, his of curiosity mixed with desire, and hers of coquettishness.
But then the motion of the train began to lull him off, and when the long blinks had set in he slept, and while he slept he dreamt, and all his dreams were about the girl in the lemon dress.
He was following her, but she was just out of reach and his friends Harry and Len were behind him and they were shouting
“Don’t let her get away, she’s the one”
But he couldn’t catch her, she was always just out of reach, and the dream would have continued in the same vein indefinitely had the sound of a train rattling by in the opposite direction not brought him back and through half opened eyes he saw the girl seated diagonally opposite him across the aisle was also dosing.
He was starting to close his eyes again but he began to think that it may have been providence that had brought him wide awake.
So he rubbed his eyes and forced himself to stay awake and watched the quiet girl across the aisle with her legs drawn up under her and her head resting against the seat back as a smile played about her lips.
“She looks so angelic” he thought as he watched her, and although he didn’t know it as he was watching her, she dreamed a dream of him.
A dream of similar ilk to his own in which her aunt urged her on
“Don’t make the same mistake as I”
The train was just approaching Childean when she suddenly awoke with a look of alarm on her face, she looked out of the window to get her bearings and he said
“We’re just pulling into Childean”
“Oh good” she said and quickly crossed the aisle and sat beside him, smiled coyly and then she kissed him
The kissing came to a halt at the same moment that the train did
“That was very nice….” he began
“Tracey” she said “My name is Tracey”
“That was very nice Tracey” he continued
“I’m George” he said and kissed her on the lips as the guards whistle echoed shrilly
“Is this you’re your station?” he asked
“No” she replied “I’m going to Abbottsford”
“Good, so am I” he said and kissed her again as the train pulled out of the station.
By the time they reached Abbottsford they were no longer strangers as he and the quiet girl in the corner chattered all the way and they only paused in order to kiss again.
Not only were they not strangers anymore but they were also no longer singletons looking for their perfect fit and by the following Easter they were no longer singletons.
The Varney’s lived in the small country village of Mornington-By-Mere in the Finchbottom Vale nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.
Which was 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.
He lived and worked up at Mornington Field which had once been an RAF base but had been converted into a mixture of commercial and residential units.
They lived in one of the Cottages in Dulcet Mill Lane, number 5, in the part of the Village known as Manorside and they had lived there together all of the married life.
70 year old George was employed at the Mornington Brewery before he retired while his wife Tracey was a stay at home mum, raising their six children.
They were obviously all grown up now and most of them had children of their own and were now in every corner of Downshire.
In the summer of 2016 it was to be their fiftieth wedding anniversary and as a special surprise for his wife he had booked the Finchbottom Flyer, a renovated steam engine and coaches, which ran from Sharping St Mary along a section of preserved track that was very significant to them both and the whole family were going to be aboard for the celebration.
Their story began far back in the previous century in April 1965 when during the final days of the age of steam, the Sharpington to Abbottsford train rattled its way through the Finchbottom Vale late on a Monday night.
George Varney had spent the Bank Holiday Monday with a couple of mates in the traditional seaside resort of Sharpington-by-Sea, where they inhabited the Victorian Pier, and played crazy golf, frittered away their time in the numerous amusement arcades and of course rode the rides in the Sharpington Fun Park, like the Rotor and the Wild Mouse, The Cyclone and the Morehouse Galloper.
But Harry and Len didn’t leave when he did as they had pulled a couple of local girls so they decided to get the milk train back the next morning.
George was nineteen years old and had no hard feelings over his friends getting lucky he had had his chance but he declined what was on offer, he wasn’t looking for knee trembler in an alleyway or a bunk up under the pier, he was looking for something or someone a little more wholesome.
So he left his friends to their cheap thrills with their cheap slutty girls and got the train home.
When he reached the station the train was already on the platform so he got aboard and slammed the door behind him and walked down the corridor and went into the first compartment he came to.
When he slid the door closed he sat down and found himself seated opposite a girl sitting quietly in the corner.
Her name was Tracey Garvey and she had long straight brown hair and was on the plain side of pretty with a heavily freckled face, lovely blue eyes, a cute nose and a thin-lipped smile, which she greeted him with.
George returned the smile and sat down and slowly appraised the short quiet girl in the pale lemon dress and cream cardigan.
Her legs were nice, he thought, sheathed in tan coloured stockings and she had tiny feet, always a bonus for George, small feet.
Although he didn’t know it she was the same age as him and had also spent the day in Sharpington, but in her case she had been visiting a maiden aunt.
They spent the next twenty minutes exchanging glances, his of curiosity, mixed with desire, and hers of coquettishness.
But then the motion of the train began to lull him off, and when the long blinks had set in he slept, and while he slept he dreamt, and his dreams were all about the girl in the lemon dress.
(Part 02)
George and Tracey spent their first twenty minutes together exchanging glances, his of curiosity mixed with desire, and hers of coquettishness.
But then the motion of the train began to lull him off, and when the long blinks had set in he slept, and while he slept he dreamt, and all his dreams were about the girl in the lemon dress.
He was following her, but she was just out of reach and his friends Harry and Len were behind him and they were shouting
“Don’t let her get away, she’s the one”
But he couldn’t catch her, she was always just out of reach, and the dream would have continued in the same vein indefinitely had the sound of a train rattling by in the opposite direction not brought him back and through half opened eyes he saw the girl seated diagonally opposite him across the aisle was also dosing.
He was starting to close his eyes again but he began to think that it may have been providence that had brought him wide awake.
So he rubbed his eyes and forced himself to stay awake and watched the quiet girl across the aisle with her legs drawn up under her and her head resting against the seat back as a smile played about her lips.
“She looks so angelic” he thought as he watched her, and although he didn’t know it as he was watching her, she dreamed a dream of him.
A dream of similar ilk to his own in which her aunt urged her on
“Don’t make the same mistake as I”
The train was just approaching Childean when she suddenly awoke with a look of alarm on her face, she looked out of the window to get her bearings and he said
“We’re just pulling into Childean”
“Oh good” she said and quickly crossed the aisle and sat beside him, smiled coyly and then she kissed him
The kissing came to a halt at the same moment that the train did
“That was very nice….” he began
“Tracey” she said “My name is Tracey”
“That was very nice Tracey” he continued
“I’m George” he said and kissed her on the lips as the guards whistle echoed shrilly
“Is this you’re your station?” he asked
“No” she replied “I’m going to Abbottsford”
“Good, so am I” he said and kissed her again as the train pulled out of the station.
By the time they reached Abbottsford they were no longer strangers as he and the quiet girl in the corner chattered all the way and they only paused in order to kiss again.
Not only were they not strangers anymore but they were also no longer singletons looking for their perfect fit and by the following Easter they were no longer singletons.
Mornington-By-Mere – (52) Under the Sharpington Pier
The Dickens family lived in the small country village of Mornington-By-Mere in the Finchbottom Vale nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.
Which was 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.
He lived and worked up at Mornington Field which had once been an RAF base but had been converted into a mixture of commercial and residential units.
They lived in one of the Brewery Cottages, number 12, in the part of the Village known as Manorside.
32 year old Michael was employed at the Mornington Brewery while his wife Nicola was a stay at home mum looking after their two children Scarlet 6 and Joel 4.
Neither she nor Michael had ever lived anywhere other than Mornington but on a glorious week in July and they were on holiday in Sharpington.
The family were staying at the prestigious Seaview Hotel on the sea front, and it was there where she first met Assistant Manager John Crowther.
He was a good looking, quiet and personable young man in his late twenties and she was a 30 year old neglected housewife who was incredibly frustrated by the lack of attention she received from her husband, who when he wasn’t working was either off fishing or in the pub.
But during the course of the week the quiet young man from the Hotel went out of his way to make her feel special, he smiled at her, he flattered her, he attended on her and furthermore he flirted with her.
But he would never have dreamt of taking it any further than that with a married woman, even though he liked her very much, but on Thursday morning fate took a hand.
It all started after breakfast when Nicola’s husband Michael told her she should wear a one piece swimsuit to the beach as nobody would want to look at her in a bikini.
An argument ensued, followed by a silent walk down to the beach where they laid out the towels and Michael said
“Come on kids lets go down to the water for a paddle while mummy sits here and sulks”
“Go to hell you pig” she retorted and stormed off towards the pier.
At precisely the same time John Crowther was walking along the beach towards the pier from the opposite direction.
Nicola was furious at Michael as she stomped her way across the sand muttering under her breath.
She was angry because she did look good in a bikini despite being 30 years old and having given birth to two children and men did still find her attractive, but mainly she was angry because she had let him make her feel worthless and unattractive, again.
So when she walked under the pier and met John coming the other way she jumped him, pushing him back against a metal support and planted a kiss on his mouth before he even had a chance to say hello.
And the moment their lips met electricity began to flow between them and the genie was out of the bottle and there was no way either of them wanted to get it back in.
“God I wanted that so bad” she moaned “kiss me again”
“I don’t think we should” John asked looking around “Someone will see”
“No it’s quite safe” she told him
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure” Nicola said crossly “I want another kiss”
“Ok but only if you really want one” he said
“Just do it” she urged and with that she took the initiative and then she pinned him against the support and kissed him.
A year after those first few kisses beneath the pier on a hot July morning Nicola had left Michael and was living in Sharpington with John and the children and she and the kids had never been so happy and she and John shared many kisses, under the pier, on the pier, on the beach, in Jubilee park or just on the promenade while Michael sat in number 12 Brewery Cottages and sulked.
Which was 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.
He lived and worked up at Mornington Field which had once been an RAF base but had been converted into a mixture of commercial and residential units.
They lived in one of the Brewery Cottages, number 12, in the part of the Village known as Manorside.
32 year old Michael was employed at the Mornington Brewery while his wife Nicola was a stay at home mum looking after their two children Scarlet 6 and Joel 4.
Neither she nor Michael had ever lived anywhere other than Mornington but on a glorious week in July and they were on holiday in Sharpington.
The family were staying at the prestigious Seaview Hotel on the sea front, and it was there where she first met Assistant Manager John Crowther.
He was a good looking, quiet and personable young man in his late twenties and she was a 30 year old neglected housewife who was incredibly frustrated by the lack of attention she received from her husband, who when he wasn’t working was either off fishing or in the pub.
But during the course of the week the quiet young man from the Hotel went out of his way to make her feel special, he smiled at her, he flattered her, he attended on her and furthermore he flirted with her.
But he would never have dreamt of taking it any further than that with a married woman, even though he liked her very much, but on Thursday morning fate took a hand.
It all started after breakfast when Nicola’s husband Michael told her she should wear a one piece swimsuit to the beach as nobody would want to look at her in a bikini.
An argument ensued, followed by a silent walk down to the beach where they laid out the towels and Michael said
“Come on kids lets go down to the water for a paddle while mummy sits here and sulks”
“Go to hell you pig” she retorted and stormed off towards the pier.
At precisely the same time John Crowther was walking along the beach towards the pier from the opposite direction.
Nicola was furious at Michael as she stomped her way across the sand muttering under her breath.
She was angry because she did look good in a bikini despite being 30 years old and having given birth to two children and men did still find her attractive, but mainly she was angry because she had let him make her feel worthless and unattractive, again.
So when she walked under the pier and met John coming the other way she jumped him, pushing him back against a metal support and planted a kiss on his mouth before he even had a chance to say hello.
And the moment their lips met electricity began to flow between them and the genie was out of the bottle and there was no way either of them wanted to get it back in.
“God I wanted that so bad” she moaned “kiss me again”
“I don’t think we should” John asked looking around “Someone will see”
“No it’s quite safe” she told him
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure” Nicola said crossly “I want another kiss”
“Ok but only if you really want one” he said
“Just do it” she urged and with that she took the initiative and then she pinned him against the support and kissed him.
A year after those first few kisses beneath the pier on a hot July morning Nicola had left Michael and was living in Sharpington with John and the children and she and the kids had never been so happy and she and John shared many kisses, under the pier, on the pier, on the beach, in Jubilee park or just on the promenade while Michael sat in number 12 Brewery Cottages and sulked.
Wednesday 10 May 2017
Mornington-By-Mere – (51) Annie’s Song
(Part 01)
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 are 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 Karl Potter lived at number 3 Dulcet Mill Lane with his teenage sons Mark and Shaun.
The Potters had only been in the village since April when the company he worked for, Digitize Image Lab, moved to Mornington Field from Northchapel.
It was very opportune timing because he had already decided before he found out about the move that he would move to pastures new so he and the boys could have a fresh start, because they all struggled to come to terms with the loss of their wife and mother, respectively, in the family home they had all shared.
Rose Potter was diagnosed with breast cancer in April of 2014 and finally succumbed to the disease in mid-August.
They had thought that with times healing hand things would return to some form of normality, but it didn’t work out that way and in reality everything in the house was a constant reminder of what they had lost, every stick of furniture, every picture, ornament and memento screamed at them, “she’s gone”, even the wallpaper and carpets joined in the chorus.
It was after a very tortuous Christmas, when they all tried their hardest to make the best of things, that prompted a New Year’s Eve heart to heart in which they talked for the first time about how they felt and the conclusion they all came to was that they didn’t want to live in that house anymore.
So when he returned to work after the Christmas break he went to see his boss, Brian Brushwood, to tell him of his decision.
“Well that’s bizarre” Brian said
“Well that’s our decision” Karl said crossly
“No it’s not that” Brian said “I was only thinking over Christmas that we had outgrown this building”
“Really?” Karl asked
“Yes and I have also been thinking a lot lately about the place of my birth, Mornington”
“Mornington” Karl mused
“I’ve been getting a lot of marketing emails lately” Brian said “because they are redeveloping the old RAF Base, Mornington Field, into a commercial park”
“I’ve never been to Mornington” Karl said “What’s it like?”
“It’s idyllic” Brian replied
“What about accommodation?” he asked
“According to the correspondence I’ve been getting, that’s not a problem” Brian replied
“So what do you think?”
“I think its happenstance” Karl retorted
“Grab your coat and we’ll go and take a look” Brian suggested
“What now?”
“Strike while the iron is hot” Brian said
As a result of their New Year reconnoiter they moved into the new Digitize Image Lab premise’s which was located in what used to be the old Crew Quarters which they shared with another company, Premier Lace, on the day after the Easter Bank Holiday and all the staff moved to Mornington with them.
(Part 02)
The Potters moved into number 3 Dulcet Mill Lane at the end of March, a week before Easter.
The house in Northchapel was sold, along with most of the furniture, but there were some things they couldn’t bear to part with even if they couldn’t bear to be around them so they were put into storage.
So the house in Manorside was furnished from scratch, but fortunately O’Sullivan and Springthorpe had premises at Mornington Field.
Apart from their normal business as one of the premier auctioneers in Downshire, they were also required rather more often than they would have liked to do house clearances.
On many occasions they would turn up a few choice pieces to at least cover the cost of the clearance but that still meant there was a lot of serviceable items that weren’t worth auctioning but still had value which eventually found their way into one of their many second hand shops across the county however most of it spent a prolonged period in storage first.
As a result they were only too pleased when cash customers knocked on the door to relieve them of a few piece’s and with all the new residents in the village they had had quite a few of those, chief among them being Karl Potter.
Karl was very pleased with his decision and the boys loved it, despite it being in the back of beyond, so the move to pastures new was a hit and they easily made new friends.
By August they had all settled down to life in Mornington and survived unscathed the first anniversary of Rose Potters death and having survived that they knew they could survive anything.
When they moved to Manorside they left behind them a well-designed and well maintained garden but what they moved to was an untamed jungle and Karl was ill-equipped to do anything about it, as he did not possess green fingers, gardening was his wife’s forte and the garden in Northchapel was all her own work and all he and sons did after her death was to keep it tidy.
Not one of them possessed either the skill or the will to make a garden out of the wilderness at number 3 Dulcet Mill Lane and even if he did, Karl did not have the luxury of endless leisure time in which to do it, he had enough on his plate with getting the interior sorted, combined with the relocation of Digitize from Northchapel to Mornington Field.
However he and his boys all enjoyed sitting outside in the garden to relax on a pleasant day and Karl was a keen Chef de Barbeque on any kind of day.
So he came to the conclusion that there was only one alternative remaining and that was to employ the services of a gardener to sort the garden out for him, so Karl asked around the village to see if there was anyone local they could recommend and he expected them to come up with the company name of a Landscape Gardening Contractor’s based in Shallowfield or the Dulcet’s, but instead everyone he spoke with gave the same name, without exception, and that was a local girl called Annie Wilson.
(Part 03)
Annie Wilson lived in The Close at number 7, with her parents Lloyd and Alex and three younger siblings, Patsy, Cally and Andy.
She was 27 years old and just like her sisters she stood six feet tall and had curly auburn hair, lovely blue eyes and a very large bust and also in common with her siblings the auburn haired giant was quiet and reserved and also possessed another Wilson family trait which was the hard work ethic.
When she left school she went straight to work on the Mornington Estate as a trainee gardener and 11 years later she was still there, although in truth she had dreamed of working further afield on grander gardens but life had a habit of getting in the way of dreams and such was the case for the Wilson’s when her mother Alex was diagnosed with MS only a year after Annie started work.
Because Annie’s mum had MS and everyone in the family had to do their bit, working on the Estate was perfect and her dream would just have to remain a dream.
Annie worked three days a week in the Manor grounds so she could take her turn helping with her mum and the other two days she worked part time as a domestic gardener which was very flexible so also fitted in with helping her mum.
And if that wasn’t enough to keep her busy she also did a Saturday and Sunday shift for Sebastian Fox-Martin at Dulcets farm, where he had a small holding, situated between Mornington and Purplemere.
So Annie was never idle and never still and was an absolute dynamo and was tireless in her work ethic, and she had no time for anything other than the work and her family.
So although she was supremely busy she never turned down an opportunity to fill any would be holes in her schedule, therefore when she got home one evening and her mum told her she had received a call from a man in Manorside who needed a garden she was happy to take a look, despite the curious wording of his enquiry.
“He said he “needed a garden”?” Annie asked “And not a gardener?”
“No love” her mum replied “he defiantly said he needed a garden”
“Ok I’ll go and have a look” she said and put her coat back on “What was the address?”
“Dulcet Mill Lane” her mum said looking at her message pad “number 3, and his name was Potter?”
“Ok, do you need anything before I go mum?” Annie said
“No I’m fine” she replied “I’m really intrigued to know what it is he wants”
Because of her MS Alex was unable to get out and about very much to enjoy village life so she relied on her family and friends to bring news of the village to her.
So happy that her mum had everything she needed Annie left the family home at number 7 The Close late one Thursday afternoon in the week after Easter and headed down the Close because in between number 4 and number 5 there was an alleyway which led from The Close and emerged between Mazzone’s Hairdressers and the Dental Surgery in The Street.
(Part 04)
It was late one Thursday afternoon in the week after Easter and the weather was typically showery for April but as Annie Wilson left home the sun was shining.
She turned right and headed down the Close, because in between number 4 and number 5 there was an alleyway which led from The Close and emerged between Mazzone’s Hairdressers and the Dental Surgery in The Street.
Once she exited the Alley she crossed over to the pub side and then crossed over Church Bridge and proceeded along the riverside path on the Southern Bank of the River Brooke with Mornington Field across the water on her right and Manor Wood on her left.
It was the woodland that drew her eye because the foliage was appearing, she loved the spring, and it was her favourite time of year, when everything came alive again
After the Wood stood the famous Mornington Brewery and immediately before the river changed direction, stood Dulcets Mill, one of the last three remaining Mornington Mills.
She left the river at the point it turned sharply to the right and she followed the path passed the mill which lead to Dulcets Mill Lane.
There were only six houses in the Lane and number three was the first one on the left and she was pleased to see it had a South Facing garden.
“I can do something with that” she thought to herself
Annie walked up to the door and rang the bell and a few minutes later it was opened by a middle-aged man who she thought, by his mode of dress, that he looked like a used car salesman, who wore a surprised expression.
“Mr. Potter?” she said
“Yes”
“You called about a garden” she said “I’m Annie Wilson”
“Ah Annie” he said and offered his hand “Thanks for coming, do come in”
“Ok I’ll just take my boots off” she responded
“Don’t worry about that” he assured her “The carpets haven’t gone down yet”
“Oh ok” Annie replied and followed him into the house
“Call me Karl by the way” he said as he opened the back door and stepped out onto the patio
“Oh my goodness” Annie said and chuckled “it’s a jungle”
“It’s a bit wild” he agreed
“I understand why you told my mum you wanted a garden and not a gardener” she said and laughed
“Yes I need help” he said
He went on to say that he was not blessed with green fingers and nor had his sons inherited the gift from their mother.
“If she were still alive she would know what to do” he said
“But alas I do not”
“So what would you like me to do?” she asked “I could just knock it into shape and make it more manageable”
“I was think more like clear it out and start again” Karl said
“Would you be interested in taking that on?”
“Well do you have anything in mind?” she asked
“Not a clue” he retorted
“Ooh a blank canvas then” she said excitedly “I’m definitely interested, but it won’t be a quick fix”
She went on to explain about her other work commitments and how she would only be able to do a day and a half or so each week.
“That sounds fine with me” Karl said “Let’s go inside and talk money”
(Part 05)
When he was interrupted by the doorbell ringing late one Thursday afternoon, in the week after Easter, Karl Potter was ill prepared for the sight that greeted him when he opened the door.
He was met with the vision of the striking figure of a lovely auburn haired giant of a girl.
He estimated her to be in her late twenties, standing six feet tall with curly auburn hair, lovely blue eyes, a nice smile and a very large bust.
“Mr. Potter?” she said
“Yes” he replied
“You called about a garden” she said “I’m Annie Wilson”
They spent about half an hour, firstly looking at the jungle that was the garden and then discussing time frame, budget and remuneration.
When the discussion was over everything was settled and she would start work later that week and fit it in as and when she could.
When she had left he sat in the kitchen and spent a reflective twenty minutes drinking coffee.
Karl was rather taken with the gardener and had been from the first moment he saw her and it took him by surprise somewhat, because he hadn’t expected to look at a woman again and feel an attraction, in fact it was something he thought he would never feel again.
It wasn’t as if he saw his wife Rose in her, she was as different from his wife as it was possible to get, Rose was petite, outgoing and feisty, whereas Annie was statuesque, quiet and reserved.
But when he opened the door and saw her it was like a bombshell going off, such was the impact and he hadn’t been expecting anything like that, not ever.
Rose and Annie did have one thing in common which was a love of gardening and an enthusiasm for a challenge, and just like his wife she was not deterred by the thought of hard work.
Because when she saw the task ahead of her she was not daunted by the prospect of the job in hand in fact she seemed to relish it and he liked that very much.
As he drank his coffee he came to the conclusion that he was really rather taken with her, not that that mattered on a personal level, but he was new to the village and knew no one other than work colleagues, so he could see that he and Annie might well become friends.
“Well he was nice” Annie said to herself as she stepped onto the riverside path.
Her first impression of him based on his mode of dress, making him look like a used car salesman, turned out to be unfounded, he wasn’t a used car salesman at all, in fact he wasn’t any kind of salesman.
She didn’t fully understand what it was that he did do, but it was something to do with websites and computers, not really her field of expertise.
Not that he talked down to her or belittled her for her lack of technical savvy.
He even self-deprecated himself for his complete ignorance of all things horticultural and his inability to distinguish between a flower and a weed.
So she came away from Dulcets Mill Lane with the feeling that working for him would not be too much of a chore and probably the contrary would be true.
(Part 06)
When Annie Wilson returned home after meeting with Karl Potter she was in a very buoyant mood and was singing.
Her mum, Alex, didn’t read too much into that after all it was not a wholly unusual occurrence, she often sang.
So Alex would have thought no more about it had it not been for the fact that the moment she took her boots and coat off she began to relate the events of her visit to Manorside with great zest and zeal and her rendition of the episode was not restricted to the task involved but also covered her employer in some detail.
That was a new departure for Alex, she was not used to her talking in such terms about a man, the garden was normally the all-consuming focus of her passion.
It was certainly out of character for her to speak so passionately about a man.
Annie had never shown much interest in the opposite sex, apart from a few teenage romances that seemed to be little more than distractions to her, so Alex was delighted to hear her daughter talking about this man with such enthusiasm and she had only spent half an hour with him, so with the prospect of a summers worth of contact Alex was hopeful.
Because of her MS she was hopeful that her children would all find someone to share their lives with before she lost the battle with the disease.
Cally was the only one of her children that was all loved up but now there was the prospect of Annie joining her.
Annie was eager to get started on the Potter’s garden, but prior commitments prevented her from starting the job until the Friday after she and Karl had met.
Unfortunately this also coincided with an important meeting in Abbottsford which he had to attend and so he wasn’t aware that Annie had started work until he got home long after she had gone home again, to find a considerably smaller jungle than there had previously been.
Karl cursed under his breath to find he had missed her but he was more than compensated for that by her putting in an appearance for a couple of hours on Saturday and the same again on Sunday, during which time she told him that she had cleared her Friday schedule for the next two months as there was so much to do.
Karl used that information to ensure he didn’t commit to any out of town meeting on those Fridays.
In his mind Friday became known as gardening day, or Annie’s day, and Karl had taken to going home for his lunch on gardening day so he could see his buxom auburn haired gardener and he also made sure he left the office promptly so he could see her before she finished for the day.
Annie quickly became conscious of Karl’s lunchtime visits and his eager appearance’s at the end of the day but she was not concerned by them, on the contrary she looked forward to them.
They would often sit and eat lunch together and discuss the progress she was making and at the end of the day she would make sure she was still cleaning her tools for his timely arrival and then they would sit on the patio and drink a beer or a glass of wine and the duration of their cocktail hour lengthened exponentially.
(Part 07)
Karl told himself from the outset that it was only her friendship that he liked her for but try as he might his feelings deepened and he fell for her.
It wasn’t planned, it just happened, not that he intended to do anything about it, apart from the ethics of employer and employee there was also the problem of the age difference of 17 years and of course the guilt he felt for betraying his wife.
But despite all those impediments he still had feelings for her which were only deepening with the passing of time.
By August the Garden was pretty much finished and had really reached the stage where she only needed to do little more than maintenance, at least until the end of the season.
So Annie was forced to do something she had never done before, she padded out the work to make sure she still got to have lunch and their cocktail hour together.
She knew it was mad, being besotted by someone who was so much older than her, but she couldn’t help it, she was soppy about him, and she had never felt the way she did about a man before.
Not that it mattered a jot in her mind, because she didn’t stand a chance with him anyway, he was an educated man with a good job and she was just a gardener, plus the fact that he was a man of the world and she was a country bumkin, as well as him having experienced life and Annie being an innocent and because of her innocence and lack of experience with the opposite sex she wasn’t aware that he was as mad about her as she was for him.
Karl liked to watch her work, although she was quite a muscular girl and of statuesque proportion’s she was very agile as she maneuvered around the garden and toiled in the soil and she appeared to not be left wanting in the stamina department.
He also liked to hear her sing which she did all the time when she was gardening, especially when she thought she was alone, or she forgot she wasn’t alone.
It was while he was staring out through the French window’s watching her robust, yet graceful form moving a large planter that a voice said
“Why don’t you ask her?”
Karl turned around to find his eldest son Mark standing there smiling.
“Ask her what?” Karl spluttered “I don’t know what you mean”
“Ask her out on a date” Mark said
“On a date? Don’t be ridiculous” he snapped
“I’ve seen the way you look at her, and the way she looks at you”
“Nonsense” he said
“Just ask her” Mark said
“I can’t” Karl replied
“Why on earth not?”
“Because it’s only a year since your mother died and Annie is so much younger than me” Karl pointed out
“Well I don’t think Annie cares about that and as for mum I heard her to say to you at least 10 times when she was ill, that you were not to live your life alone, you needed someone in your life” Mark reminded him
“Remember?”
“Yes I remember” he said quietly “she said I needed someone if for no other reason than to stop me wearing ridiculous ties”
They both laughed at the memory.
“But it feels like a betrayal” Karl said
“Well it isn’t” Mark insisted “And mum wouldn’t have thought it was”
“What about Sean?” he asked
“He feels the same as I do” Mark replied “he wants you to be happy”
Karl hugged his son, and knowing that he had their support helped, although he still had to ask Annie and he wasn’t as convinced as Mark was on her disposition towards him.
(Part 08)
After the conversation Karl had with his son Mark regarding his attraction to the lovely gardener, Annie Wilson, he spent a very tortuous few days as he wrestled with the dilemma of whether or not to act on his feelings, and Mark’s advice, and ask his alluring young horticulturist out on a date.
The problems being many fold, firstly that he was only widowed the year before, secondly she was 17 years younger than him and lastly the thing that was upsetting his sleep pattern was the very real fear that she would repel his advances or laugh in his face.
However by the last week of august he had decided to go for it and as he was on leave for two weeks he was going ask her as soon as he saw her on Friday.
Unfortunately his plans were scuppered when he found out that the Wilson’s were going to Sharpington for a week.
He found out when Annie popped round to the Potters on Sunday afternoon and if he had had his wits about him he would have taken his chance and asked her out then, but instead he was speechless at the prospect of not seeing her at all on his week off that his mind went blank and all he could do was to say he hoped she would have a nice holiday.
Having committed to taking a fortnight’s leave he filled his time as best he could.
He did have plans for his time off, other than asking Annie out, or watching her doing the garden, his main task was to get his son Mark ready for University.
They had a long list of items they needed to buy for his year in the halls of residence, so that occupied quite a bit of his week but that still left plenty of time to stare wistfully out of the French windows.
Every time he looked down the garden he wished Annie was toiling down there in one of the beds or bent unintentionally salaciously over a planter while she softly sang something by Rumor or Eva Cassidy.
He liked her singing, she had a lovely voice, which was one thing she very definitely didn’t share with his wife Rose.
Rose could not in any way be described as a singer, in fact she was totally incapable of carrying a tune.
He used to tease her about it all the time and she would say
“I’ve had my voice trained I’ll have you know”
And he would reply
“Yes but it escaped and returned to the wild”
He completely lost track of the time as he stood gazing out across the lawn
“Don’t give up dad?” Mark said and patted him on the arm after he discovered him.
“She’s only away for a week”
“Oh I don’t know, I think I should take this as a sign” he retorted despondently
“No” Mark said firmly
“I was just being foolish” Karl said “There’s no fool like an old fool”
“Look dad it’s hard enough finding someone special even when you’re my age” he said “But it’s even rarer to have that special someone come knocking on your front door”
“I wish I was as confident as you are” Karl said
(Part 09)
Karl Potter was not the only one to be taken by surprise by the Wilson’s holiday in Sharpington, Annie was also shocked by the disclosure by her parents that they had booked a week at the sea side on a whim.
Annie was going to cry off but her sister Cally told her privately that she had found her mum crying the day before.
With her confinement to the house she often fell victim to depression and found herself in despair.
She felt like a prisoner and needed desperately to get out of the house so her husband quickly organized a brief escape from captivity to Sharpington-By-Sea.
Their destination was to be one of the properties owned by the Mornington Estate, one of the historically significant buildings that had at one time or another been under threat from modernizers.
The other jewels in the crown that the St George’s had also saved from the Philistines were the Sharpington Pier, the yacht club, and the Fun Park along with a number of shops and businesses in the historic seaside town of Sharpington-by-Sea.
The traditional seaside resort was a place which held particularly fond memories for Alex Wilson and her family, where they spent their summer holidays throughout the years when the children were growing up.
They all loved the Pier, the kids loved the beach, the crazy golf, amusements, the Fun Park and the illuminations.
Alex and Lloyd’s fondest memories were of the theatre and dancing at the Palladium ballroom.
Even as a child Annie was drawn towards the numerous well maintained gardens along the promenade, when she wasn’t at the Fun Park enjoying one of the many rides, like the Rotor and the Wild Mouse, the Cyclone and the Morehouse Galloper.
The whole family drove to Sharpington on Monday morning as they had done on many holidays in the past, however on the numerous Wilson summer sea side holidays of years gone by they didn’t spend it at a Hotel, the Wilsons stayed in a static caravan up at the Whitecliff Hill Caravan Park.
Lloyd parked the car and because they had an hour to kill before check in they walked along the promenade with a gentle breeze blowing off the sea and reminisced and laughed as they related in turn events that occurred on previous visits and the things that held special memories for them.
The Ghost Train in the Fun Park, Sharpington Day Parades, Halloween Fright Nights, Firework displays, Candy Floss, sand castles and paddling in the sea.
Quite naturally the mention of paddling problem the four younger members of the family to discard their footwear and run headlong down the beach, where they spent the next hour on the water’s edge, splashing in the waves, as their parents watched from the promenade.
They were so absorbed in what they were doing that they didn’t realize how far down the beach they had gone and when they looked up they were close to the pier.
They all looked at each other and then the pier and then each other again
“Ice cream” they said in unison and raced up the beach towards the steps which led firstly to Pier and then to Bizzoni’s Ice Cream Parlour where they always went to on days in Sharpington after which they walked back the way they had come and checked into the Seaview Hotel.
(Part 10)
Despite the fact Annie hadn’t really wanted to be there, she and her family had a brilliant week by the sea, the kids, even though they were now very much adults, threw themselves whole heartedly into reliving their childhoods and doing all the things their former younger selves did without a second thought.
And while their grown up children spent the week acting like they were children again Alex and Lloyd revisited all their own haunts from their courting days and although Alex was no longer able to dance they spent every afternoon at the Palladium Ballroom tea dances.
“Look at the way they look at each other” Annie said to her siblings as they walked along the promenade one afternoon.
“I wish someone would look at me like that” Patsy said
“Me too” Annie agreed
“You already have someone that looks at you like that” Cally pointed out to her big sister and Patsy nodded in agreement
“What are you two on about?” Annie asked
“Karl Potter” her three sibling said in unison
“Tosh” she exclaimed “He does not”
“And you look even soppier when you look at him” Andy said and burst out laughing and his sisters soon followed, all except Annie who stopped in her tracks and protested loudly
“No I do not”
Which just made them laugh even more as they walked on, and Annie trotted after them still protesting her innocence.
On the last mornings Annie didn’t visit the Sharpington Fun Park with her siblings, who wanted one last go on the Rotor and the Wild Mouse, The Cyclone and the Morehouse Galloper.
Nor did she amuse herself in the arcades or thrashing her siblings at crazy golf, Annie chose instead to sit in the well maintained gardens on the promenade and looked out to sea and mused over all the happy hours she had spent in Karl Potter’s garden that year and how she wanted to be doing it again soon.
She also reflected on how wonderful it was to see her parents together, and how marvelous it was that they were so very obviously still in love and enjoying every moment of their time together.
They knew that because of the MS every second was precious because Alex’s health was getting progressively worse and they didn’t know how much longer they would have each other.
But watching her parents all week long she couldn’t help but see they were still so in love, and she was envious because she wanted that passion and longing more than anything but it wasn’t until she spoke with her siblings that she realized it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
She already had someone in her life who she looked at like that and who apparently looked at her the same way.
So she decided to make it happen on her return to Mornington but not until after she visited Mazzone’s in the village and had her unruly auburn hair sorted out.
(Part 11)
Karl had spent a very dull week off and despite filling some of his time fulfilling the items on the comprehensive list of requirements for his son Mark to take off to university, he still found that time hung heavy when he was not fully occupied.
When he got to the beginning of his second week he was hopeful that he might see Annie at some point, however fleeting, but he was left disappointed, it bucketed down of rain from about 10 o’clock on Monday and the forecast was for more of the same and he thought it unlikely he would see her before Friday.
Annie was also disappointed not to have seen him but having taken a week off at short notice she had a lot of work to catch up on and she had to work from dawn until dusk.
Plus the fact that if she intended to make the best of herself she did not want to get her hair done at Mazzone’s on a week when the weather had forecast torrential rain for four days.
She wanted to make a better impression on him than that of a drown rat.
By Friday the weather was supposed to finally clear up and according to the met office the Vale was in for a prolonged spell of warm, dry days, a proper Indian summer.
Karl wasn’t holding his breath however, he had little faith that they could manage to predict the weather for 3 weeks hence when they struggled to forecast with any certainty what would happen that afternoon.
He hoped they were right but doubted it so on Friday morning he got up early and loaded the car with all of Mark’s goods and chattels and then went indoors and got Mark and Shaun up and into the bathrooms while he cooked them some breakfast and after they had eaten and Karl had cleared away he went up and showered himself.
Friday was gardening day, and so by extension it was also Annie Wilson day but due to the amount of rain that had fallen and having seen nor heard anything from her he was not filled with any conviction that she would appear.
However he thought it would be nice to get out of the house, he had confined himself at home since the weekend, in the forlorn hope that he might have a visitor.
But he decided on Friday that he would end his self-imposed exile and take his son Mark to Abbottsford and help him move into the halls of residence and he was taking his younger son along as well to help with the unloading.
“Ok you two” he called up the stairs, “we’re leaving now”
The he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.
As he stepped out into the sunlight of Friday morning he saw a sight which took his breath away, he found Annie standing only a few feet away where she was taking the dead wood out of a climber on the pergola while she sweetly sang to herself and he gasped in surprise at the beautiful vision in front of him before giving her a smile.
“Hello Karl” she said and returned his smile with interest
(Part 12)
As he stepped out into the sunlight of Friday morning he saw a sight which took his breath away, he found Annie standing only a few feet away where she was taking the dead wood out of a climber on the pergola while she sweetly sang to herself and he gasped in surprise at the beautiful vision in front of him before giving her a smile.
“Hello Karl” she said and returned his smile with interest
“What a lovely surprise” he said failing to keep the delight out of his voice “I wasn’t expecting to see you today”
Annie just smiled in response, because she knew instantly by his reaction to seeing her that her brother and sisters had been right, he did look at her the way her dad looked at her mum.
As she smiled at him he just stood looking at her, with her neat auburn curls, courtesy of Antonella Gardelli at Mazzone’s in the village, her sweet smiling face which had been delicately made up, thanks to her sister Patsy and her lovely eyes given to her by God.
“You look lovely” he said, and thought now was his chance to ask her out, this was the opportunity he had been waiting for, but just as he had the sentence perfectly phrased in his head and he opened his mouth to speak, his boys came bursting out through the door chattering loudly.
“Hi Annie” they said and Mark grabbed the car keys from his dads hand and then they went noisily down the garden and out the back gate.
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked with smiling lips
“Yes I’m taking Mark to the campus in Abbottsford I’m afraid” he replied “if I had known I….”
“No problem, I’m not going anywhere” she replied with another dazzling smile
“I’ll still be here when you get back”
“Promise?” he asked “because I was rather hoping we could talk, it was something rather important”
“Yes I promise” she replied “And we could talk over dinner if you like”
“Excellent idea” Karl said enthusiastically “I can’t wait”
“Well you’d better get going then” she said as he made no move to leave and smiled again “Then you’ll be back all the sooner”
“Ok see you later” he said reluctantly taking his eyes off her and headed towards the gate.
He turned and gave her one last smile before he went through the gate and as he closed it he heard her start singing again.
“Well?” Mark asked when he got in the car
“We’re having dinner tonight” Karl replied
“Sweet” Shaun said
“Great” Mark agreed “You see I told you that you just had to ask”
“She asked me” Karl replied
“That’s even better” Mark said and hi-fived his brother as Karl drove away.
And While Karl was being congratulated by his sons’ Annie was on her phone to her mum.
“So how did it go?”
“Dinner tonight” she squealed in reply
“That’s wonderful darling” her mum said
“You’ll never believe it but I actually asked him out” she said “I was quite brilliant”
“How wonderful, I had to do the same with your father” Alex said “and that turned out ok”
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 are 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 Karl Potter lived at number 3 Dulcet Mill Lane with his teenage sons Mark and Shaun.
The Potters had only been in the village since April when the company he worked for, Digitize Image Lab, moved to Mornington Field from Northchapel.
It was very opportune timing because he had already decided before he found out about the move that he would move to pastures new so he and the boys could have a fresh start, because they all struggled to come to terms with the loss of their wife and mother, respectively, in the family home they had all shared.
Rose Potter was diagnosed with breast cancer in April of 2014 and finally succumbed to the disease in mid-August.
They had thought that with times healing hand things would return to some form of normality, but it didn’t work out that way and in reality everything in the house was a constant reminder of what they had lost, every stick of furniture, every picture, ornament and memento screamed at them, “she’s gone”, even the wallpaper and carpets joined in the chorus.
It was after a very tortuous Christmas, when they all tried their hardest to make the best of things, that prompted a New Year’s Eve heart to heart in which they talked for the first time about how they felt and the conclusion they all came to was that they didn’t want to live in that house anymore.
So when he returned to work after the Christmas break he went to see his boss, Brian Brushwood, to tell him of his decision.
“Well that’s bizarre” Brian said
“Well that’s our decision” Karl said crossly
“No it’s not that” Brian said “I was only thinking over Christmas that we had outgrown this building”
“Really?” Karl asked
“Yes and I have also been thinking a lot lately about the place of my birth, Mornington”
“Mornington” Karl mused
“I’ve been getting a lot of marketing emails lately” Brian said “because they are redeveloping the old RAF Base, Mornington Field, into a commercial park”
“I’ve never been to Mornington” Karl said “What’s it like?”
“It’s idyllic” Brian replied
“What about accommodation?” he asked
“According to the correspondence I’ve been getting, that’s not a problem” Brian replied
“So what do you think?”
“I think its happenstance” Karl retorted
“Grab your coat and we’ll go and take a look” Brian suggested
“What now?”
“Strike while the iron is hot” Brian said
As a result of their New Year reconnoiter they moved into the new Digitize Image Lab premise’s which was located in what used to be the old Crew Quarters which they shared with another company, Premier Lace, on the day after the Easter Bank Holiday and all the staff moved to Mornington with them.
(Part 02)
The Potters moved into number 3 Dulcet Mill Lane at the end of March, a week before Easter.
The house in Northchapel was sold, along with most of the furniture, but there were some things they couldn’t bear to part with even if they couldn’t bear to be around them so they were put into storage.
So the house in Manorside was furnished from scratch, but fortunately O’Sullivan and Springthorpe had premises at Mornington Field.
Apart from their normal business as one of the premier auctioneers in Downshire, they were also required rather more often than they would have liked to do house clearances.
On many occasions they would turn up a few choice pieces to at least cover the cost of the clearance but that still meant there was a lot of serviceable items that weren’t worth auctioning but still had value which eventually found their way into one of their many second hand shops across the county however most of it spent a prolonged period in storage first.
As a result they were only too pleased when cash customers knocked on the door to relieve them of a few piece’s and with all the new residents in the village they had had quite a few of those, chief among them being Karl Potter.
Karl was very pleased with his decision and the boys loved it, despite it being in the back of beyond, so the move to pastures new was a hit and they easily made new friends.
By August they had all settled down to life in Mornington and survived unscathed the first anniversary of Rose Potters death and having survived that they knew they could survive anything.
When they moved to Manorside they left behind them a well-designed and well maintained garden but what they moved to was an untamed jungle and Karl was ill-equipped to do anything about it, as he did not possess green fingers, gardening was his wife’s forte and the garden in Northchapel was all her own work and all he and sons did after her death was to keep it tidy.
Not one of them possessed either the skill or the will to make a garden out of the wilderness at number 3 Dulcet Mill Lane and even if he did, Karl did not have the luxury of endless leisure time in which to do it, he had enough on his plate with getting the interior sorted, combined with the relocation of Digitize from Northchapel to Mornington Field.
However he and his boys all enjoyed sitting outside in the garden to relax on a pleasant day and Karl was a keen Chef de Barbeque on any kind of day.
So he came to the conclusion that there was only one alternative remaining and that was to employ the services of a gardener to sort the garden out for him, so Karl asked around the village to see if there was anyone local they could recommend and he expected them to come up with the company name of a Landscape Gardening Contractor’s based in Shallowfield or the Dulcet’s, but instead everyone he spoke with gave the same name, without exception, and that was a local girl called Annie Wilson.
(Part 03)
Annie Wilson lived in The Close at number 7, with her parents Lloyd and Alex and three younger siblings, Patsy, Cally and Andy.
She was 27 years old and just like her sisters she stood six feet tall and had curly auburn hair, lovely blue eyes and a very large bust and also in common with her siblings the auburn haired giant was quiet and reserved and also possessed another Wilson family trait which was the hard work ethic.
When she left school she went straight to work on the Mornington Estate as a trainee gardener and 11 years later she was still there, although in truth she had dreamed of working further afield on grander gardens but life had a habit of getting in the way of dreams and such was the case for the Wilson’s when her mother Alex was diagnosed with MS only a year after Annie started work.
Because Annie’s mum had MS and everyone in the family had to do their bit, working on the Estate was perfect and her dream would just have to remain a dream.
Annie worked three days a week in the Manor grounds so she could take her turn helping with her mum and the other two days she worked part time as a domestic gardener which was very flexible so also fitted in with helping her mum.
And if that wasn’t enough to keep her busy she also did a Saturday and Sunday shift for Sebastian Fox-Martin at Dulcets farm, where he had a small holding, situated between Mornington and Purplemere.
So Annie was never idle and never still and was an absolute dynamo and was tireless in her work ethic, and she had no time for anything other than the work and her family.
So although she was supremely busy she never turned down an opportunity to fill any would be holes in her schedule, therefore when she got home one evening and her mum told her she had received a call from a man in Manorside who needed a garden she was happy to take a look, despite the curious wording of his enquiry.
“He said he “needed a garden”?” Annie asked “And not a gardener?”
“No love” her mum replied “he defiantly said he needed a garden”
“Ok I’ll go and have a look” she said and put her coat back on “What was the address?”
“Dulcet Mill Lane” her mum said looking at her message pad “number 3, and his name was Potter?”
“Ok, do you need anything before I go mum?” Annie said
“No I’m fine” she replied “I’m really intrigued to know what it is he wants”
Because of her MS Alex was unable to get out and about very much to enjoy village life so she relied on her family and friends to bring news of the village to her.
So happy that her mum had everything she needed Annie left the family home at number 7 The Close late one Thursday afternoon in the week after Easter and headed down the Close because in between number 4 and number 5 there was an alleyway which led from The Close and emerged between Mazzone’s Hairdressers and the Dental Surgery in The Street.
(Part 04)
It was late one Thursday afternoon in the week after Easter and the weather was typically showery for April but as Annie Wilson left home the sun was shining.
She turned right and headed down the Close, because in between number 4 and number 5 there was an alleyway which led from The Close and emerged between Mazzone’s Hairdressers and the Dental Surgery in The Street.
Once she exited the Alley she crossed over to the pub side and then crossed over Church Bridge and proceeded along the riverside path on the Southern Bank of the River Brooke with Mornington Field across the water on her right and Manor Wood on her left.
It was the woodland that drew her eye because the foliage was appearing, she loved the spring, and it was her favourite time of year, when everything came alive again
After the Wood stood the famous Mornington Brewery and immediately before the river changed direction, stood Dulcets Mill, one of the last three remaining Mornington Mills.
She left the river at the point it turned sharply to the right and she followed the path passed the mill which lead to Dulcets Mill Lane.
There were only six houses in the Lane and number three was the first one on the left and she was pleased to see it had a South Facing garden.
“I can do something with that” she thought to herself
Annie walked up to the door and rang the bell and a few minutes later it was opened by a middle-aged man who she thought, by his mode of dress, that he looked like a used car salesman, who wore a surprised expression.
“Mr. Potter?” she said
“Yes”
“You called about a garden” she said “I’m Annie Wilson”
“Ah Annie” he said and offered his hand “Thanks for coming, do come in”
“Ok I’ll just take my boots off” she responded
“Don’t worry about that” he assured her “The carpets haven’t gone down yet”
“Oh ok” Annie replied and followed him into the house
“Call me Karl by the way” he said as he opened the back door and stepped out onto the patio
“Oh my goodness” Annie said and chuckled “it’s a jungle”
“It’s a bit wild” he agreed
“I understand why you told my mum you wanted a garden and not a gardener” she said and laughed
“Yes I need help” he said
He went on to say that he was not blessed with green fingers and nor had his sons inherited the gift from their mother.
“If she were still alive she would know what to do” he said
“But alas I do not”
“So what would you like me to do?” she asked “I could just knock it into shape and make it more manageable”
“I was think more like clear it out and start again” Karl said
“Would you be interested in taking that on?”
“Well do you have anything in mind?” she asked
“Not a clue” he retorted
“Ooh a blank canvas then” she said excitedly “I’m definitely interested, but it won’t be a quick fix”
She went on to explain about her other work commitments and how she would only be able to do a day and a half or so each week.
“That sounds fine with me” Karl said “Let’s go inside and talk money”
(Part 05)
When he was interrupted by the doorbell ringing late one Thursday afternoon, in the week after Easter, Karl Potter was ill prepared for the sight that greeted him when he opened the door.
He was met with the vision of the striking figure of a lovely auburn haired giant of a girl.
He estimated her to be in her late twenties, standing six feet tall with curly auburn hair, lovely blue eyes, a nice smile and a very large bust.
“Mr. Potter?” she said
“Yes” he replied
“You called about a garden” she said “I’m Annie Wilson”
They spent about half an hour, firstly looking at the jungle that was the garden and then discussing time frame, budget and remuneration.
When the discussion was over everything was settled and she would start work later that week and fit it in as and when she could.
When she had left he sat in the kitchen and spent a reflective twenty minutes drinking coffee.
Karl was rather taken with the gardener and had been from the first moment he saw her and it took him by surprise somewhat, because he hadn’t expected to look at a woman again and feel an attraction, in fact it was something he thought he would never feel again.
It wasn’t as if he saw his wife Rose in her, she was as different from his wife as it was possible to get, Rose was petite, outgoing and feisty, whereas Annie was statuesque, quiet and reserved.
But when he opened the door and saw her it was like a bombshell going off, such was the impact and he hadn’t been expecting anything like that, not ever.
Rose and Annie did have one thing in common which was a love of gardening and an enthusiasm for a challenge, and just like his wife she was not deterred by the thought of hard work.
Because when she saw the task ahead of her she was not daunted by the prospect of the job in hand in fact she seemed to relish it and he liked that very much.
As he drank his coffee he came to the conclusion that he was really rather taken with her, not that that mattered on a personal level, but he was new to the village and knew no one other than work colleagues, so he could see that he and Annie might well become friends.
“Well he was nice” Annie said to herself as she stepped onto the riverside path.
Her first impression of him based on his mode of dress, making him look like a used car salesman, turned out to be unfounded, he wasn’t a used car salesman at all, in fact he wasn’t any kind of salesman.
She didn’t fully understand what it was that he did do, but it was something to do with websites and computers, not really her field of expertise.
Not that he talked down to her or belittled her for her lack of technical savvy.
He even self-deprecated himself for his complete ignorance of all things horticultural and his inability to distinguish between a flower and a weed.
So she came away from Dulcets Mill Lane with the feeling that working for him would not be too much of a chore and probably the contrary would be true.
(Part 06)
When Annie Wilson returned home after meeting with Karl Potter she was in a very buoyant mood and was singing.
Her mum, Alex, didn’t read too much into that after all it was not a wholly unusual occurrence, she often sang.
So Alex would have thought no more about it had it not been for the fact that the moment she took her boots and coat off she began to relate the events of her visit to Manorside with great zest and zeal and her rendition of the episode was not restricted to the task involved but also covered her employer in some detail.
That was a new departure for Alex, she was not used to her talking in such terms about a man, the garden was normally the all-consuming focus of her passion.
It was certainly out of character for her to speak so passionately about a man.
Annie had never shown much interest in the opposite sex, apart from a few teenage romances that seemed to be little more than distractions to her, so Alex was delighted to hear her daughter talking about this man with such enthusiasm and she had only spent half an hour with him, so with the prospect of a summers worth of contact Alex was hopeful.
Because of her MS she was hopeful that her children would all find someone to share their lives with before she lost the battle with the disease.
Cally was the only one of her children that was all loved up but now there was the prospect of Annie joining her.
Annie was eager to get started on the Potter’s garden, but prior commitments prevented her from starting the job until the Friday after she and Karl had met.
Unfortunately this also coincided with an important meeting in Abbottsford which he had to attend and so he wasn’t aware that Annie had started work until he got home long after she had gone home again, to find a considerably smaller jungle than there had previously been.
Karl cursed under his breath to find he had missed her but he was more than compensated for that by her putting in an appearance for a couple of hours on Saturday and the same again on Sunday, during which time she told him that she had cleared her Friday schedule for the next two months as there was so much to do.
Karl used that information to ensure he didn’t commit to any out of town meeting on those Fridays.
In his mind Friday became known as gardening day, or Annie’s day, and Karl had taken to going home for his lunch on gardening day so he could see his buxom auburn haired gardener and he also made sure he left the office promptly so he could see her before she finished for the day.
Annie quickly became conscious of Karl’s lunchtime visits and his eager appearance’s at the end of the day but she was not concerned by them, on the contrary she looked forward to them.
They would often sit and eat lunch together and discuss the progress she was making and at the end of the day she would make sure she was still cleaning her tools for his timely arrival and then they would sit on the patio and drink a beer or a glass of wine and the duration of their cocktail hour lengthened exponentially.
(Part 07)
Karl told himself from the outset that it was only her friendship that he liked her for but try as he might his feelings deepened and he fell for her.
It wasn’t planned, it just happened, not that he intended to do anything about it, apart from the ethics of employer and employee there was also the problem of the age difference of 17 years and of course the guilt he felt for betraying his wife.
But despite all those impediments he still had feelings for her which were only deepening with the passing of time.
By August the Garden was pretty much finished and had really reached the stage where she only needed to do little more than maintenance, at least until the end of the season.
So Annie was forced to do something she had never done before, she padded out the work to make sure she still got to have lunch and their cocktail hour together.
She knew it was mad, being besotted by someone who was so much older than her, but she couldn’t help it, she was soppy about him, and she had never felt the way she did about a man before.
Not that it mattered a jot in her mind, because she didn’t stand a chance with him anyway, he was an educated man with a good job and she was just a gardener, plus the fact that he was a man of the world and she was a country bumkin, as well as him having experienced life and Annie being an innocent and because of her innocence and lack of experience with the opposite sex she wasn’t aware that he was as mad about her as she was for him.
Karl liked to watch her work, although she was quite a muscular girl and of statuesque proportion’s she was very agile as she maneuvered around the garden and toiled in the soil and she appeared to not be left wanting in the stamina department.
He also liked to hear her sing which she did all the time when she was gardening, especially when she thought she was alone, or she forgot she wasn’t alone.
It was while he was staring out through the French window’s watching her robust, yet graceful form moving a large planter that a voice said
“Why don’t you ask her?”
Karl turned around to find his eldest son Mark standing there smiling.
“Ask her what?” Karl spluttered “I don’t know what you mean”
“Ask her out on a date” Mark said
“On a date? Don’t be ridiculous” he snapped
“I’ve seen the way you look at her, and the way she looks at you”
“Nonsense” he said
“Just ask her” Mark said
“I can’t” Karl replied
“Why on earth not?”
“Because it’s only a year since your mother died and Annie is so much younger than me” Karl pointed out
“Well I don’t think Annie cares about that and as for mum I heard her to say to you at least 10 times when she was ill, that you were not to live your life alone, you needed someone in your life” Mark reminded him
“Remember?”
“Yes I remember” he said quietly “she said I needed someone if for no other reason than to stop me wearing ridiculous ties”
They both laughed at the memory.
“But it feels like a betrayal” Karl said
“Well it isn’t” Mark insisted “And mum wouldn’t have thought it was”
“What about Sean?” he asked
“He feels the same as I do” Mark replied “he wants you to be happy”
Karl hugged his son, and knowing that he had their support helped, although he still had to ask Annie and he wasn’t as convinced as Mark was on her disposition towards him.
(Part 08)
After the conversation Karl had with his son Mark regarding his attraction to the lovely gardener, Annie Wilson, he spent a very tortuous few days as he wrestled with the dilemma of whether or not to act on his feelings, and Mark’s advice, and ask his alluring young horticulturist out on a date.
The problems being many fold, firstly that he was only widowed the year before, secondly she was 17 years younger than him and lastly the thing that was upsetting his sleep pattern was the very real fear that she would repel his advances or laugh in his face.
However by the last week of august he had decided to go for it and as he was on leave for two weeks he was going ask her as soon as he saw her on Friday.
Unfortunately his plans were scuppered when he found out that the Wilson’s were going to Sharpington for a week.
He found out when Annie popped round to the Potters on Sunday afternoon and if he had had his wits about him he would have taken his chance and asked her out then, but instead he was speechless at the prospect of not seeing her at all on his week off that his mind went blank and all he could do was to say he hoped she would have a nice holiday.
Having committed to taking a fortnight’s leave he filled his time as best he could.
He did have plans for his time off, other than asking Annie out, or watching her doing the garden, his main task was to get his son Mark ready for University.
They had a long list of items they needed to buy for his year in the halls of residence, so that occupied quite a bit of his week but that still left plenty of time to stare wistfully out of the French windows.
Every time he looked down the garden he wished Annie was toiling down there in one of the beds or bent unintentionally salaciously over a planter while she softly sang something by Rumor or Eva Cassidy.
He liked her singing, she had a lovely voice, which was one thing she very definitely didn’t share with his wife Rose.
Rose could not in any way be described as a singer, in fact she was totally incapable of carrying a tune.
He used to tease her about it all the time and she would say
“I’ve had my voice trained I’ll have you know”
And he would reply
“Yes but it escaped and returned to the wild”
He completely lost track of the time as he stood gazing out across the lawn
“Don’t give up dad?” Mark said and patted him on the arm after he discovered him.
“She’s only away for a week”
“Oh I don’t know, I think I should take this as a sign” he retorted despondently
“No” Mark said firmly
“I was just being foolish” Karl said “There’s no fool like an old fool”
“Look dad it’s hard enough finding someone special even when you’re my age” he said “But it’s even rarer to have that special someone come knocking on your front door”
“I wish I was as confident as you are” Karl said
(Part 09)
Karl Potter was not the only one to be taken by surprise by the Wilson’s holiday in Sharpington, Annie was also shocked by the disclosure by her parents that they had booked a week at the sea side on a whim.
Annie was going to cry off but her sister Cally told her privately that she had found her mum crying the day before.
With her confinement to the house she often fell victim to depression and found herself in despair.
She felt like a prisoner and needed desperately to get out of the house so her husband quickly organized a brief escape from captivity to Sharpington-By-Sea.
Their destination was to be one of the properties owned by the Mornington Estate, one of the historically significant buildings that had at one time or another been under threat from modernizers.
The other jewels in the crown that the St George’s had also saved from the Philistines were the Sharpington Pier, the yacht club, and the Fun Park along with a number of shops and businesses in the historic seaside town of Sharpington-by-Sea.
The traditional seaside resort was a place which held particularly fond memories for Alex Wilson and her family, where they spent their summer holidays throughout the years when the children were growing up.
They all loved the Pier, the kids loved the beach, the crazy golf, amusements, the Fun Park and the illuminations.
Alex and Lloyd’s fondest memories were of the theatre and dancing at the Palladium ballroom.
Even as a child Annie was drawn towards the numerous well maintained gardens along the promenade, when she wasn’t at the Fun Park enjoying one of the many rides, like the Rotor and the Wild Mouse, the Cyclone and the Morehouse Galloper.
The whole family drove to Sharpington on Monday morning as they had done on many holidays in the past, however on the numerous Wilson summer sea side holidays of years gone by they didn’t spend it at a Hotel, the Wilsons stayed in a static caravan up at the Whitecliff Hill Caravan Park.
Lloyd parked the car and because they had an hour to kill before check in they walked along the promenade with a gentle breeze blowing off the sea and reminisced and laughed as they related in turn events that occurred on previous visits and the things that held special memories for them.
The Ghost Train in the Fun Park, Sharpington Day Parades, Halloween Fright Nights, Firework displays, Candy Floss, sand castles and paddling in the sea.
Quite naturally the mention of paddling problem the four younger members of the family to discard their footwear and run headlong down the beach, where they spent the next hour on the water’s edge, splashing in the waves, as their parents watched from the promenade.
They were so absorbed in what they were doing that they didn’t realize how far down the beach they had gone and when they looked up they were close to the pier.
They all looked at each other and then the pier and then each other again
“Ice cream” they said in unison and raced up the beach towards the steps which led firstly to Pier and then to Bizzoni’s Ice Cream Parlour where they always went to on days in Sharpington after which they walked back the way they had come and checked into the Seaview Hotel.
(Part 10)
Despite the fact Annie hadn’t really wanted to be there, she and her family had a brilliant week by the sea, the kids, even though they were now very much adults, threw themselves whole heartedly into reliving their childhoods and doing all the things their former younger selves did without a second thought.
And while their grown up children spent the week acting like they were children again Alex and Lloyd revisited all their own haunts from their courting days and although Alex was no longer able to dance they spent every afternoon at the Palladium Ballroom tea dances.
“Look at the way they look at each other” Annie said to her siblings as they walked along the promenade one afternoon.
“I wish someone would look at me like that” Patsy said
“Me too” Annie agreed
“You already have someone that looks at you like that” Cally pointed out to her big sister and Patsy nodded in agreement
“What are you two on about?” Annie asked
“Karl Potter” her three sibling said in unison
“Tosh” she exclaimed “He does not”
“And you look even soppier when you look at him” Andy said and burst out laughing and his sisters soon followed, all except Annie who stopped in her tracks and protested loudly
“No I do not”
Which just made them laugh even more as they walked on, and Annie trotted after them still protesting her innocence.
On the last mornings Annie didn’t visit the Sharpington Fun Park with her siblings, who wanted one last go on the Rotor and the Wild Mouse, The Cyclone and the Morehouse Galloper.
Nor did she amuse herself in the arcades or thrashing her siblings at crazy golf, Annie chose instead to sit in the well maintained gardens on the promenade and looked out to sea and mused over all the happy hours she had spent in Karl Potter’s garden that year and how she wanted to be doing it again soon.
She also reflected on how wonderful it was to see her parents together, and how marvelous it was that they were so very obviously still in love and enjoying every moment of their time together.
They knew that because of the MS every second was precious because Alex’s health was getting progressively worse and they didn’t know how much longer they would have each other.
But watching her parents all week long she couldn’t help but see they were still so in love, and she was envious because she wanted that passion and longing more than anything but it wasn’t until she spoke with her siblings that she realized it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
She already had someone in her life who she looked at like that and who apparently looked at her the same way.
So she decided to make it happen on her return to Mornington but not until after she visited Mazzone’s in the village and had her unruly auburn hair sorted out.
(Part 11)
Karl had spent a very dull week off and despite filling some of his time fulfilling the items on the comprehensive list of requirements for his son Mark to take off to university, he still found that time hung heavy when he was not fully occupied.
When he got to the beginning of his second week he was hopeful that he might see Annie at some point, however fleeting, but he was left disappointed, it bucketed down of rain from about 10 o’clock on Monday and the forecast was for more of the same and he thought it unlikely he would see her before Friday.
Annie was also disappointed not to have seen him but having taken a week off at short notice she had a lot of work to catch up on and she had to work from dawn until dusk.
Plus the fact that if she intended to make the best of herself she did not want to get her hair done at Mazzone’s on a week when the weather had forecast torrential rain for four days.
She wanted to make a better impression on him than that of a drown rat.
By Friday the weather was supposed to finally clear up and according to the met office the Vale was in for a prolonged spell of warm, dry days, a proper Indian summer.
Karl wasn’t holding his breath however, he had little faith that they could manage to predict the weather for 3 weeks hence when they struggled to forecast with any certainty what would happen that afternoon.
He hoped they were right but doubted it so on Friday morning he got up early and loaded the car with all of Mark’s goods and chattels and then went indoors and got Mark and Shaun up and into the bathrooms while he cooked them some breakfast and after they had eaten and Karl had cleared away he went up and showered himself.
Friday was gardening day, and so by extension it was also Annie Wilson day but due to the amount of rain that had fallen and having seen nor heard anything from her he was not filled with any conviction that she would appear.
However he thought it would be nice to get out of the house, he had confined himself at home since the weekend, in the forlorn hope that he might have a visitor.
But he decided on Friday that he would end his self-imposed exile and take his son Mark to Abbottsford and help him move into the halls of residence and he was taking his younger son along as well to help with the unloading.
“Ok you two” he called up the stairs, “we’re leaving now”
The he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.
As he stepped out into the sunlight of Friday morning he saw a sight which took his breath away, he found Annie standing only a few feet away where she was taking the dead wood out of a climber on the pergola while she sweetly sang to herself and he gasped in surprise at the beautiful vision in front of him before giving her a smile.
“Hello Karl” she said and returned his smile with interest
(Part 12)
As he stepped out into the sunlight of Friday morning he saw a sight which took his breath away, he found Annie standing only a few feet away where she was taking the dead wood out of a climber on the pergola while she sweetly sang to herself and he gasped in surprise at the beautiful vision in front of him before giving her a smile.
“Hello Karl” she said and returned his smile with interest
“What a lovely surprise” he said failing to keep the delight out of his voice “I wasn’t expecting to see you today”
Annie just smiled in response, because she knew instantly by his reaction to seeing her that her brother and sisters had been right, he did look at her the way her dad looked at her mum.
As she smiled at him he just stood looking at her, with her neat auburn curls, courtesy of Antonella Gardelli at Mazzone’s in the village, her sweet smiling face which had been delicately made up, thanks to her sister Patsy and her lovely eyes given to her by God.
“You look lovely” he said, and thought now was his chance to ask her out, this was the opportunity he had been waiting for, but just as he had the sentence perfectly phrased in his head and he opened his mouth to speak, his boys came bursting out through the door chattering loudly.
“Hi Annie” they said and Mark grabbed the car keys from his dads hand and then they went noisily down the garden and out the back gate.
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked with smiling lips
“Yes I’m taking Mark to the campus in Abbottsford I’m afraid” he replied “if I had known I….”
“No problem, I’m not going anywhere” she replied with another dazzling smile
“I’ll still be here when you get back”
“Promise?” he asked “because I was rather hoping we could talk, it was something rather important”
“Yes I promise” she replied “And we could talk over dinner if you like”
“Excellent idea” Karl said enthusiastically “I can’t wait”
“Well you’d better get going then” she said as he made no move to leave and smiled again “Then you’ll be back all the sooner”
“Ok see you later” he said reluctantly taking his eyes off her and headed towards the gate.
He turned and gave her one last smile before he went through the gate and as he closed it he heard her start singing again.
“Well?” Mark asked when he got in the car
“We’re having dinner tonight” Karl replied
“Sweet” Shaun said
“Great” Mark agreed “You see I told you that you just had to ask”
“She asked me” Karl replied
“That’s even better” Mark said and hi-fived his brother as Karl drove away.
And While Karl was being congratulated by his sons’ Annie was on her phone to her mum.
“So how did it go?”
“Dinner tonight” she squealed in reply
“That’s wonderful darling” her mum said
“You’ll never believe it but I actually asked him out” she said “I was quite brilliant”
“How wonderful, I had to do the same with your father” Alex said “and that turned out ok”
Tales from the Finchbottom Vale – (55) Sweet Twenty Something
Every morning he saw her on the Finchbottom Express, in the same seat, she was a twenty something, a sweet young thing who smiled at him each day, occasionally a “Hello” or “Hi” was exchanged but nothing more profound that that.
The carriage clicked and clacked as it rushed us towards the throng of Abbottsford, the train wheels singing their staccato song and he looked at her and instantly pictured her beside him and holding his hand and she looked up from her book and gave him a quizzical look.
“Can you read my thoughts?” he asked inside his head and promptly decided to think about sports but that didn’t help in the slightest because he then saw with him at the football stadium.
She was a twenty something, a sweet young thing, who looked at the ordinary thirty something, quizzically.
“This is the affect you have on me” he thought “so you had better not read my mind?”
Oh how he would like to brush the hair from her brow, and run his finger through her soft brown curls, before he caressed the softness of her cheek, and kiss those sweet young lips and then carry her off into the sunset, to have her stand beside him at the altar, and at the ecstatic moment of their union he smiles and when he looks across at her he sees that a smile had replaced her quizzical look, briefly before her eyes return to the pages of her book and he knew he would have those same thoughts the next time they travelled together on the train but she would never be his.
The carriage clicked and clacked as it rushed us towards the throng of Abbottsford, the train wheels singing their staccato song and he looked at her and instantly pictured her beside him and holding his hand and she looked up from her book and gave him a quizzical look.
“Can you read my thoughts?” he asked inside his head and promptly decided to think about sports but that didn’t help in the slightest because he then saw with him at the football stadium.
She was a twenty something, a sweet young thing, who looked at the ordinary thirty something, quizzically.
“This is the affect you have on me” he thought “so you had better not read my mind?”
Oh how he would like to brush the hair from her brow, and run his finger through her soft brown curls, before he caressed the softness of her cheek, and kiss those sweet young lips and then carry her off into the sunset, to have her stand beside him at the altar, and at the ecstatic moment of their union he smiles and when he looks across at her he sees that a smile had replaced her quizzical look, briefly before her eyes return to the pages of her book and he knew he would have those same thoughts the next time they travelled together on the train but she would never be his.
Tuesday 9 May 2017
Tales from the Finchbottom Vale – (54) Playing Around
(Part 01)
Twenty eight year old Paul Ingram was involved with an older woman, a forty year old woman to be precise, who was a beautiful unhappily married, Carrington Chase educated woman called, Francesca Carrington-Webber.
Paul and Francesca both lived in the village of Forest Dean situated equidistant between Shallowfield and Childean, she lived in a huge house that backed onto the The Forest Ridge Golf Club, and coincidentally Paul worked for the Golf Club.
They became involved after three chance meetings, two on a train and the third more significant one was on the Promenade in Sharpington, where he came upon her small huddled figure on the bench ahead of him in some distress and after some tender moments of consolation lead to them making love in his caravan.
Since that night they had had a non-physical relationship and on the rare occasions that they managed to get to spend some time together they always made the most of it, sometimes they had to create opportunities and sometimes they just happened.
Paul was the commercial manager at the Forest Ridge Golf Club which was a job that gave him the opportunity to play himself.
He was quite a good golfer but he didn’t do it often as he had better uses for his spare time, but after he started seeing Francesca he took to playing a round of Golf more often, although in truth it was just a ruse, he would tee off at the appropriate time and play the first three holes and then meet Francesca in the woods for a kiss and a cuddle and if he was lucky they would go into her house for a more comfortable cuddle, and as he was walking down the fairway he saw her standing ahead of him just beyond the treeline.
Francesca was a very attractive woman, but apart from the fact she was beautiful, sexy and breathtakingly sensual what set his heart racing was the fact that he loved her and she loved him.
It was a pleasant morning; warmer than it had been the previous few days, but as those few days were actually very cool that wasn’t really saying much.
But the skies were predominantly blue, for the time being, with only broken cloud, but the forecast had mentioned the possibility of thunder later in the day.
The wind had a slight chill to it but it was fairly light and so it wasn’t expected to affect anyone’s scorecards too much, not that he was worried, he wasn’t going to play the full 18 anyway but he was expecting a pleasant round anyway.
Considering the morning’s bright weather the course was very quiet when he teed off at 8.30 with no one waiting behind him and a couple of twosomes were at least three or four of holes ahead and he assumed that the majority had been put off by the mention of thunder.
As he approached, Francesca was looking lovely
“When didn’t she?” he thought to himself, and he smiled when he noticed her ensemble.
She was wearing a grey flat cap with her shortish brown hair scraped into a pony tail sticking out the back.
But it was the rest of her outfit that made him smile, it was as ever all matching and perfectly co-ordinated.
In deference to the season she was dressed for the early autumn, in a white cotton shirt, beneath a pale blue argyle cardigan, a knee length pleated skirt, very flattering, in the same grey fabric as her cap and long argyle socks, and her ensemble was then finished off with black brogue Golf shoes and a pale blue glove.
“Damn she looks good” he thought
(Part 02)
In deference to the season she was dressed for the early autumn, in a white cotton shirt, beneath a pale blue argyle cardigan, a knee length pleated skirt, very flattering, in the same grey fabric as her cap and long argyle socks, and her ensemble was then finished off with black brogue Golf shoes and a pale blue glove.
“Damn she looks good” he thought
“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked when he got closer
“I’m blending in” she said “after all, who would look twice at another Golfer on a Golf course”
“I can see you have given it some thought, but you would look a little less conspicuous if you had a bag of golf clubs, or at least a club” he pointed out
“Good point” she considered “I’ll remember that for next time”
They retreated into the woods and when they had gone deep enough so as not to be visible she kissed him.
The early sun and blue skies had quickly been swallowed up by a blanket of grey cloud, and that cloud had since darkened and was then distinctly inky, and distant rumbles of thunder could be heard and it began to rain.
A fact that they were oblivious to, as they continued to kiss.
“I suppose going back to yours is out of the question” he said hopefully
“I’m afraid so” she said “the engineer is serving the boiler”
“That’s precisely what I had in mind” he said
“That’s so cheeky” she retorted but smiled
Which was the moment the heavens opened,
“Go on Francesca” he said “make a dash for it”
“No” she said and hugged him “I want to stay here with you”
“Ok” he said “but we need to move”
“God the rain is savage” she said as they withdrew deeper into the trees and they ran from cover to cover finishing up beneath the shelter of an old oak tree.
For a few moments they stood watching the rain fall like stair rods hammering into the ground as thunder rumbled nearby
“Are you ok” he asked
“Yes” she said with a chuckle “a bit damp but fine”
It was at that moment that he became aware of just how damp she was, the front of her shirt was soaked and had been rendered almost transparent.
Francesca noticed what was drawing his attention and covered it promptly with her cardigan.
“Paul!” She snapped “is that all you think about?”
And then she slapped him playfully and he just shrugged and then she reached up and kissed him gently in a long warm liquid kiss and then she broke away and smiled before kissing him again this time more urgently.
“I think that’s all you think about” Paul said
“oh yes” she said dreamily and kissed him again as she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck as the Lightning flashed and Paul pushed her back against the oak and thunder clapped overhead.
When the storm abated they stayed motionless against the tree just holding onto to each other in the moment and Francesca sighed.
“I have to go” she said
“Are you sure?” he asked
“Yes” she said very definitely and smiled sadly
“There is something I have to do first though” she said
“What’s that?” he replied
“This” she said and planted a kiss on his lips
“Now” Francesca said “I have to go”
And she rushed off through the woods.
Twenty eight year old Paul Ingram was involved with an older woman, a forty year old woman to be precise, who was a beautiful unhappily married, Carrington Chase educated woman called, Francesca Carrington-Webber.
Paul and Francesca both lived in the village of Forest Dean situated equidistant between Shallowfield and Childean, she lived in a huge house that backed onto the The Forest Ridge Golf Club, and coincidentally Paul worked for the Golf Club.
They became involved after three chance meetings, two on a train and the third more significant one was on the Promenade in Sharpington, where he came upon her small huddled figure on the bench ahead of him in some distress and after some tender moments of consolation lead to them making love in his caravan.
Since that night they had had a non-physical relationship and on the rare occasions that they managed to get to spend some time together they always made the most of it, sometimes they had to create opportunities and sometimes they just happened.
Paul was the commercial manager at the Forest Ridge Golf Club which was a job that gave him the opportunity to play himself.
He was quite a good golfer but he didn’t do it often as he had better uses for his spare time, but after he started seeing Francesca he took to playing a round of Golf more often, although in truth it was just a ruse, he would tee off at the appropriate time and play the first three holes and then meet Francesca in the woods for a kiss and a cuddle and if he was lucky they would go into her house for a more comfortable cuddle, and as he was walking down the fairway he saw her standing ahead of him just beyond the treeline.
Francesca was a very attractive woman, but apart from the fact she was beautiful, sexy and breathtakingly sensual what set his heart racing was the fact that he loved her and she loved him.
It was a pleasant morning; warmer than it had been the previous few days, but as those few days were actually very cool that wasn’t really saying much.
But the skies were predominantly blue, for the time being, with only broken cloud, but the forecast had mentioned the possibility of thunder later in the day.
The wind had a slight chill to it but it was fairly light and so it wasn’t expected to affect anyone’s scorecards too much, not that he was worried, he wasn’t going to play the full 18 anyway but he was expecting a pleasant round anyway.
Considering the morning’s bright weather the course was very quiet when he teed off at 8.30 with no one waiting behind him and a couple of twosomes were at least three or four of holes ahead and he assumed that the majority had been put off by the mention of thunder.
As he approached, Francesca was looking lovely
“When didn’t she?” he thought to himself, and he smiled when he noticed her ensemble.
She was wearing a grey flat cap with her shortish brown hair scraped into a pony tail sticking out the back.
But it was the rest of her outfit that made him smile, it was as ever all matching and perfectly co-ordinated.
In deference to the season she was dressed for the early autumn, in a white cotton shirt, beneath a pale blue argyle cardigan, a knee length pleated skirt, very flattering, in the same grey fabric as her cap and long argyle socks, and her ensemble was then finished off with black brogue Golf shoes and a pale blue glove.
“Damn she looks good” he thought
(Part 02)
In deference to the season she was dressed for the early autumn, in a white cotton shirt, beneath a pale blue argyle cardigan, a knee length pleated skirt, very flattering, in the same grey fabric as her cap and long argyle socks, and her ensemble was then finished off with black brogue Golf shoes and a pale blue glove.
“Damn she looks good” he thought
“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked when he got closer
“I’m blending in” she said “after all, who would look twice at another Golfer on a Golf course”
“I can see you have given it some thought, but you would look a little less conspicuous if you had a bag of golf clubs, or at least a club” he pointed out
“Good point” she considered “I’ll remember that for next time”
They retreated into the woods and when they had gone deep enough so as not to be visible she kissed him.
The early sun and blue skies had quickly been swallowed up by a blanket of grey cloud, and that cloud had since darkened and was then distinctly inky, and distant rumbles of thunder could be heard and it began to rain.
A fact that they were oblivious to, as they continued to kiss.
“I suppose going back to yours is out of the question” he said hopefully
“I’m afraid so” she said “the engineer is serving the boiler”
“That’s precisely what I had in mind” he said
“That’s so cheeky” she retorted but smiled
Which was the moment the heavens opened,
“Go on Francesca” he said “make a dash for it”
“No” she said and hugged him “I want to stay here with you”
“Ok” he said “but we need to move”
“God the rain is savage” she said as they withdrew deeper into the trees and they ran from cover to cover finishing up beneath the shelter of an old oak tree.
For a few moments they stood watching the rain fall like stair rods hammering into the ground as thunder rumbled nearby
“Are you ok” he asked
“Yes” she said with a chuckle “a bit damp but fine”
It was at that moment that he became aware of just how damp she was, the front of her shirt was soaked and had been rendered almost transparent.
Francesca noticed what was drawing his attention and covered it promptly with her cardigan.
“Paul!” She snapped “is that all you think about?”
And then she slapped him playfully and he just shrugged and then she reached up and kissed him gently in a long warm liquid kiss and then she broke away and smiled before kissing him again this time more urgently.
“I think that’s all you think about” Paul said
“oh yes” she said dreamily and kissed him again as she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck as the Lightning flashed and Paul pushed her back against the oak and thunder clapped overhead.
When the storm abated they stayed motionless against the tree just holding onto to each other in the moment and Francesca sighed.
“I have to go” she said
“Are you sure?” he asked
“Yes” she said very definitely and smiled sadly
“There is something I have to do first though” she said
“What’s that?” he replied
“This” she said and planted a kiss on his lips
“Now” Francesca said “I have to go”
And she rushed off through the woods.
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