CHAPTER 20
It wasn’t the best day for flying, but at least the skies were clear. It was the wind that was the problem, and I wondered if my attempt at cleverness would backfire.

CHAPTER 18
Kate looked at me sharply the next morning.

“Why, Annie?”

“Why what?”

“Why no sleep? I can see it in your eyes, trust me I’m a doctor and all that shit. Nightmares again?”

CHAPTER 17
Of course they had to come round the next day for dinner, and that had to be arranged for a restaurant as we simply didn’t have the room, which meant a LOT of telephone calls to find somewhere that had space for well over twenty folk, and only the Parson’s Pig had space enough among all the office parties.

CHAPTER 15
“You need a hat in His house, Annie!”

“I am not playing Saburo in some bloody milliner’s nightmare, Merry! It’s a meal for crumblies and a carol service, not a royal garden party”

CHAPTER 13
Merry was quite direct in the car, as she woke from her daze.

“You, dear cousin, set me up”

CHAPTER 12
I rode into the school yard, looking at the surprisingly small number of bicycles in the stands. This was yet another of those schools that had decided that they preferred dozens of cars fighting for space outside the gates to children arriving healthily under their own steam, all in the interests of “road safety” as they saw it. Bizarre.

CHAPTER 10
We worked our way through the food, and the conversation settled down into that dichotomy that men and women deliver so well.

CHAPTER 8
Darren was partly distracted from the overt displays of affection by the view, but not much. I think he was in the time of life where the concept of such things being done by ‘oldies’ was almost disgusting. I had a sudden flash of Kelly…

CHAPTER 6
I rang Eric and let him know the change in my circumstances. The really good thing for us was that if I was now down as the schools ‘face’ I would be coming off shifts, which meant that we might finally be able to synchronise our lives.

CHAPTER 4
And, of course, we were all there that evening, in the long bar, and it was even better than the year before.

CHAPTER 1
There was a heavy dew that morning, and I expected Eric’s axe to be out of tune.

CHAPTER 102
Someone was trying to kick the front door in, and Eric’s arm was stopping me getting out. I finally managed to slither free, reassured Tabby and Jessica, then shot downstairs and launched myself at the two vicious thugs who stood outside the house.

CHAPTER 100
Eric took as much time off as he could, because the problem with cut feet is that there is no way to walk on them without flexing and opening the scars.

CHAPTER 98
Eric took me back to my little room an hour later. I was astonished at how tired I felt, how hungry and drained. He slipped me a bar of Green and Black’s, and though I did give him a piece the rest seemed to evaporate from the wrappings.

CHAPTER 96
I almost forgave her for that dreadful pun, but it was an indication of the truth.

CHAPTER 93
Giggling. It’s what girls do, apparently, and it was certainly what Chantelle did. There were moments, though, especially when Albert moved suddenly, that the startled rabbit appeared.

 
I was rehearsing the words in my mind as I walked in. Supermarkets were so different now to what they had been when I was younger, so many more things to buy, so many more to dream of. I had been through the big Asda store with the lies, and now it was time for Tesco. Pretty…there were dresses and tops, skirts and shoes, boots and bags, and unless I could gather the courage I would walk out lacking them all.

CHAPTER 90
We had to wind down in the end, and separate, with fierce hugs and promises to be home more often, and that word suddenly rang true to me. Home had become a simple concept: wherever I was with Eric, that was my home. Our house in Surrey, a tent at Shrewsbury, they were all I had believed I needed.

CHAPTER 89
Arwel was steering the male conversation around to the relative merits of bass and tenor balance in male voice choirs, and I half expected him to give a demonstration, but that would have been frivolity. Man’s voice was made for giving praise to the Arglwydd.

CHAPTER 87
There was a pub round the corner, and I watched Merry as she walked with us. There were hints in there of the young girl I remembered fuming when her favourite bra and three pairs of knickers had disappeared from the washing line.

CHAPTER 85
It was odd how easily I drifted into my new role as a ‘housewife’ and woman. Kirsty had been right, it was me, far more than Adam had ever been. Eric and I had a few differences of opinion, as couples do, but I got my way, as women mostly do, especially in redecorating the house.