Page 29 of Clara's Secret Garden
I collect Bertie from Jen’s house soon after six and headhome. And when I get there, I’m amazed to find that Lois has been out mowingthe lawns.
Inside, I supply Bertie with a drink then run upstairs tofind her. She’s lying on her bed, leafing through a gossip magazine.
‘Hey, well done.’
She frowns. ‘What for?’
‘For cutting the lawns.’
‘Oh, that wasn’t me. That was your friend, Rory. He’s justleft.’
I stare at her. ‘Rory mowed our grass?’
She shrugs. ‘He said it was on his way home and he had hislawn mower with him. Is he a gardener or something?’
‘Er, no. I think he’s just been... helpingsomeone tidy up their garden.’
‘Right. When’s dinner?’
I sigh. ‘Lois, why don’t you go and cook something while I’mhaving a shower? I could do with just relaxing.’
‘Why? What have you been doing?’
I shrug. ‘Been for a long walk. Getting some exercise, youknow?’
She peers at me suspiciously. ‘Were you rolling around inthe mud as well, then? You’re absolutely filthy.’
I duck out, calling, ‘That’s why I need a shower. Put somepizza in, will you?’
‘Okay.’
My eyebrows rise in amazement as I hear her running down thestairs.
Wow. Lois making dinner.
Wonders will never cease...
CHAPTERELEVEN
I spend the following weeks working in the garden.Bertie and Luke plant flowers for Gran, and Rory comes over every now and againand helps with cleaning up the potting shed, trimming the hedges and cuttingthe lawns again when they need it. Every time he arrives and I see his face, myheart sings. I can’t help it. I just love being with him.
And then finally, the day I’ve been secretly dreadingfinally rolls around.
Baking demonstration day.
All morning, I have butterflies flapping around in mystomach. And by teatime, I’m an absolute nervous wreck.
Why the hell did I allow Ellie to talk me into this?
The butterflies aren’t just because of today’s ordeal.
They’re also to do with the fact that Gran is slowlyimproving and might shortly be able to return to her cottage and her garden.I’m over the moon, naturally, but I’m also praying there won’t be any setbacks.It hasn’t been an easy journey for her up to this point, and she’ll need to getstronger before she has her operation.
The baking demo has actually helped take my mind off everything,and Bertie and I have had a lot of fun preparing for it. Trying to think ofways to make it a fun experience for the audience, we have a few tricks up oursleeve and there’s been a fair amount of hilarious practice going on in the backgarden. (How this will translate indoors is anybody’s guess but hopefully, itwill break the ice!)
I’m involving Bertie in the whole experience, and he’scurrently getting some great practice at reading hard words by working his waydown my list of ingredients and kitchen implements, as I check them all off,one by one. (We had a bit of difficulty with ‘spatula’ but we eventually gotthe hang of it. At which point progress was halted for a while as Bertie ranaround the kitchen, shouting ‘spatula’ at the top of his voice, before runningupstairs and surprising Lois with his mastery. She took it quite well, Ithought.)
‘Right, I think we’ve got everything.’ I glance at the boxeson the kitchen worktop. There seems to be an awful lot of gear needed for onebaking demonstration. Ellie said we could use the café’s equipment. But I knowhow hard it is trying to bake in someone else’s kitchen – it always takes twiceas long, as you hunt for the measuring jug or try to remember which is thecutlery drawer. So I thought it would be easier to take our own things with us.
