It was 'that' time of the year again, annual inspection of our rented property, I had been through hundreds of these inspections, no, you've got me all wrong; I've not lived in the rented house for hundreds of years. My husband's family own a shitload of properties, ours included, I had been out with James on holiday many times and had been around properties that James was doing the annual inspection on. We got seven or eight weeks free holiday each year and all James had to do was inspect two houses a day while we were away. James could easily have done the inspection on our own house but his mother insisted on another member of the family doing the inspection, this year, it was James's father Ron's turn to inspect the family houses.
James was out, he had driven the village priest, Father Patrick, to the interdenominational council meeting in London, something James did four times a year and he loved every minute he was there, chatting to the leaders of every faith under the sun. Ron turned up just as the kids ran out to catch their school bus. I didn't have any plans for the morning, well, above slipping back into bed after the kids left for school. I hadn't even watched them as I usually did, I saw the bus pull up early from Amy's bedroom window, all three kids were up with me getting their book bags sorted out. I knew that the bus wouldn't leave until it had all the kids it expected or the scheduled time came around, so there was no real panic. I made sure that all of the book bags were correct and they kissed me and ran for the door; I was in my bedroom by the time I realised that they hadn't closed the front door. I guessed, wrongly, that they had expected me to follow them down and stand on the doorstep to see them off.
I had slipped out of my dressing gown and was about to climb back into bed but decided, even though we lived in such a quiet village, I couldn't go to sleep with the front door open. As I stepped out onto the landing in just my nighty I bumped into Ron, he had just climbed the stairs and was heading for his son's bedroom. "I see you're still sleeping in separate bedrooms then, so how long has it been?"
I mumbled, "Six years!" and headed back into my bedroom for my dressing gown.
I picked up my dressing gown and started to slip my arm into the sleeve as I turned to return to the landing but Ron was right there, just a few inches from me, I realised that my nighty had provided little protection from Ron's view, it was summer, so I guess I was actually lucky that I had put a nighty on at all as it got so hot at night, but I had no bra or panties on and I was sure that Ron had totally spotted that point through the ultra thin cotton of my white night dress.
"You don't need to put that on for my benefit, you look a lot better in just your nighty!"
I finished pulling my dressing gown on while Ron flicked through the sheets of paper on his clipboard, "May as well start with your room!"
Ron started looking around; he had a moisture meter that told him if there was any damp in the fabric of the building. He checked the decoration on the walls, no problems were found, the window frames were all good and the paint still in good order. Then he opened my wardrobe, "Was this new when you moved in?"
"No!"
"Well, I'll put it down on the list; you could do with a new wardrobe, perhaps a little bigger than this one!"
Ron ran his hand along the hangers, he stopped at my white poly-cotton sun dress, one of my favourite dresses for the summer, well, around the house anyway, it was a little too revealing to wear out in the street if you know what I mean? Ron pulled it out, I love seeing you in this dress, I think you should wear it without a bra on though, that would look really great!"
I followed Ron around the house, once again, the kid's bedrooms and their play room all needed repainting because they had been drawing on the walls again, any other tenant would have been charged for redecorating 'vandalised' rooms but these kids were the grandchildren of the owners. As Ron checked the kitchen I made us coffee, Ron checked his watch, "Don't you have to see anyone in the Library this morning?" It was almost ten o'clock, normally I would have been leaving to help people with their computing problems but I had a free day for the first time in over a year.
"No, free day today for once, I was going to go back to bed when you came in!"
Ron went back up to the bathroom next to my bedroom, he checked my peddle bin, there were three plastic sanitary towel wrappers in the bottom of my bin, Ron worked out that I must have just finished my period as I wasn't wearing panties under my nighty, not something a woman would do if she were still on her period. This time it was Ron's turn to turn around and find me standing behind him, "So, James doesn't sneak across the passageway in the middle of the night to see you in your bedroom?"
"You know he wouldn't, he's not into sin, and visiting me in the night while I'm on birth control would be a sin, wouldn't it?"
"But you're not on birth control are you?"
"James thinks I am!"
Ron and I went back down to the kitchen while Ron finished off his survey and his coffee he said nothing more to me, then, as he signed and dated the last page of the form, he turned to me, smiled, almost menacingly, then said, "If you don't have anyone at the library today, is there any chance of helping Sid Patterson out with his retirement presents?"
I shrugged my shoulders, I had hoped that we could get the inspection over and I could still have a couple of hours sleep, not that I felt the least bit sleepy anymore.
Ron took out his mobile phone and called into his office, Sid Patterson had worked for Ron for over thirty years, he was sixty-four years old and he was winding down to his retirement, they had his pre retirement party recently and Ron had given Sid a new, state of the art, laptop, Sid's workmates had brought him a new digital camera and, although Sid still had a year to go officially, Ron had put Sid on wind down leave, Sid was only going into work for a few hours each day, as the garage manager, Sid had actually stopped working on the plant some years before but his knowledge was still invaluable to the other mechanics, especially on some of the older farm machinery.
Ron told Sid to meet us in the library with his retirement gifts and that I would show him how to use both. Then Ron closed his phone and turned to me, "Why don't you give old Sid and me a treat, put on that lovely white summery dress and leave the bra off for us!" Ron was smiling but I knew that he was serious about the dress and the bra; I knew very well that Ron seldom made jokes about things like that.
The library would open at ten o'clock, so I had ten minutes to get washed and dressed, Ron drove me over to the library, he actually complimented me on my dress, I didn't feel at all comfortable, I had to keep pulling the top up, I usually wore the dress with a bra on, my thirty-six inch bust really did need the support from a bra and if I ever went outside the house in the dress, I always had a t-shirt on under it, as Ron drove me to the library, just a five minute walk, so thirty second drive, it felt like my 'Thrupenny bits' were slipping out about ten times and I had to pull the front of my dress up each time.