WARNING TO NEW READERS TO THE SERIES - This is a long, rambling story and VERY British which has been divided into several parts for ease of editing and reading. The individual parts will make more sense if read in sequence as they follow straight on chronologically and therefore new readers should start reading from Chapter 01.
Most, but not all chapters contain some sexually explicit sections and the story has a strong incest theme which some readers may find disturbing and might wish to cease reading now.....
My apologies! This chapter may meander even more than usual as it is part of a collection of several short 'day in the life' journal style entries which have been linked to make up Chapters 38-46
THE TOUCH Chapter 44 Down in the Dell
If I am honest about it Thursday passed in something of a haze. Spending Wednesday on my own at the fabulous gardens at Sudeley Castle had given me time to come to grips with the awful emotional trauma that parting from Gill had provoked.... I had never felt that way before.... Knowing that I was likely never to see her again was one of the really horrid experiences of my life. It was made worse by the knowledge that I could not find consolation from those people who were closest to me and whose comfort I desperately wanted to seek, Gwen and Maggie.
After leaving Sudeley when the garden closed to the public at 4 pm on Wednesday afternoon I had driven across to Cirencester and booked into the Cirencester Park caravan site run by the Caravan Club which is on the Bathurst Estate. As it was still only early evening once I had parked up I took a walk over to the site office and signed up for membership of the Caravan Club, it seemed sensible, their sites are always clean and well kept, the facilities good and the club gave a small discount to members. As there was no restaurant or café on the site and I really did not feel like cooking for myself I took the 15 minute walk into the town via the rambler's trail.
Cirencester in a pretty, historical market town which even after the shops have closed for the day seemed to be bustling with locals and tourists and after wandering around for an hour I finally settled for a pub meal at the Golden Cross in Blackjack Street. The evening was warm and so I settled down at one of the outside tables with a plate of well-presented ham and eggs followed by a large slice of lemon cheesecake and washed it down with two full bottles of red wine a quite decent French Merlot and spent a couple of hours just quietly drinking and smoking.
By the time that I eventually found my way back to the camp site and Vera it was dark and I was feeling decidedly weary.... more from emotional backlash and the Merlot than physical exhaustion I think, but just made myself a cup of instant coffee, sat outside and read the first chapters of Tom Clancy's Patriot Games and then pulled out the bed and settled down for the night. Perhaps it was the wine but to my surprise I slept soundly through until six the next morning.
My original intention had been to not go into work on Thursday morning until late, but it was a bright morning and after I had consumed a pot of coffee I packed Vera for the road and left the camp site about six-thirty and arrived home just after eight-fifteen. After parking Vera in the drive I went into the house, showered, changed into my work clothes and then rode into the garden centre on my moped. I needed to work to shake off the gloom that parting from Gill had caused and cleanse my soul so that she would be only the happiest of memories.
As I walked up from the car park to the office I noticed that Steve was standing by the big lorry which was loaded with a large flat packed shed, several water butts and a pallet of compost sacks. It was already nine-thirty and he should have been long gone and out doing his deliveries.
"Everything OK, Steve old mate?" I asked.
"Dennis has called in sick this morning so I am waiting for one of the lads to finish up so that he can come out with me. That big shed is a bloody beast to erect single handed....." Knowing Steve he had already suggested that he attempt the job alone but Emma would have squashed that idea flat....she had become red hot on health and safety recently and was terrorising all of us into doing things the right way. She had ordered a whole load of protective clothing for the delivery and erections team and insisted that we kitted up when we went out. Even Maggie was not exempted but in my mind she could make even a yellow hard hat and rigger boots look cute and sexy.
"OK, just wait whilst I check in with Emma and then I'll come with you myself, " I told him and ran off to the office told Emma what I was intending and then collected my heavy gloves, steel capped rigger boots and knee protectors from my locker and sprinted back to join Steve. A day's manual labour delivering compost and erecting a shed was just the therapy that I needed.
By the time that we had done the deliveries, fitted the three water butts with down pipe converters at a house in Alderbury on the A36 to the south-east of the city it was lunchtime and we stopped at the Green Dragon pub for a ploughman's lunch and a pint. The pub is an old late medieval half-timbered farmhouse opposite the village green and we sat outside in the sun beneath a row of hanging baskets which were unmistakably Jack's work... the pub floral decorations must have been one of Maggie's new contracts that I had missed.
Steve had been perfectly correct in his assessment... the big shed which we had to erect at a house on Shaftesbury Grove off the Old Blandford Road was a total pig to put up and took the two of us the best part of three hours even though the customer had adequately prepared the site for us in advance. By the time we had finished we were both sweating buckets and were happy to accept cups of tea and coffee and take a half hour break in the client's garden before returning to base.
"I really need to get in touch with the rep for the manufacturer..." I moaned to Steve as we drove home. "That shed is fucking useless, tomorrow I will get Benson to take down the demo model...I really don't like selling something that difficult to put up.... An amateur would seriously struggle..."
"WE seriously struggled...remember..." Steve chuckled. "Might also be worth thinking about investing in a couple of those new-fangled cordless screwdrivers..." He suggested. It was a good idea, I would take a drive to the builder's merchants soon and see what they had to offer.
We got back into the garden centre just as Jack was closing up for the night and so I waited until he and Steve had got their cars then let them out and walked over to the admin block. The shop was closed up but there were still lights on in the upstairs offices. Emma's little soft-top Beetle was not on the carpark and so I guessed that she had left for the night...I vaguely remembered her mentioning something about going over to Shelby's to help Janice with the horses so she would probably be late home if she didn't stay over. Maggie's Range Rover was parked by the office block and so I guessed that it was probably her working late.
The lights were out in the main office and I could see the little red blinker flashing to indicate that the telephones had been switched to the recorded message for the night and so crossed the hall and looked into the office that I shared with Maggie. We had enough room now that we could have had our own separate offices but we had both chosen to remain sharing the one large room we had occupied from the start. I guess we both just liked being together... I certainly did.
Maggie looked up from the pile of invoices that she was studying. "Hi stranger.... I see that you have managed to find your way home eventually...."
"Didn't Emma tell you....about the deliveries....?" I started.
She laughed. "Yes of course she did....thanks for helping Steve we would have been shorthanded if I had needed to send Benson out with him......how did the jobs go?
"Good; except that the bloody shed took us all afternoon to erect..... we really need to change our supplier unless they can improve their specs and quality...." I replied. "Anything special happening here today?"
