CHAPTER X

PLANS

Daisy, years before she lived with Nancy, never thought she would have to cook much in adult life, let alone that she would ever be a competent one. But when she and Nancy became close friends and eventually began living together as a couple she realised that it was one area of day to day living that Nancy could not be entrusted with or at all relied upon.

Like most girls of her generation she had been the taught the rudiments of cooking at school and resented she was not allowed to do woodwork or metalwork like the boys, so when she and Nancy began to live together she reluctantly cooked but was surprised to find she actually enjoyed it. What could have been a chore ended up a pleasure, with the planning and production of their meals becoming an important part of each day. When they had the croft they grew much of what they ate in the way of fruit and vegetables, and at least Nancy could be relied on to dig and weed their vegetable plot. Nancy was also not bothered by killing and gutting animals they occasionally were able to catch for the table, whereas this is where she drew the line, she was happy to make it her job to prepare and cook what ended up on the kitchen table, how it got there she left to Nancy.

Once she and Dick were back at the cottage she began the preparation of the meal, she had bought meat in the Town for them all and sent Nancy out to the cottage garden to gather the vegetables she required.

Dick was pleased to see Titty once more, even for such a short separation he had missed her, and when she smiled at him on his return to the kitchen he sensed that she felt the same. The two of them asked Daisy what they could do to assist her, and they were not really surprised when she declined their offer.

"What you could do is go across the lane and pick some blackberries, if you go back through the main gate and follow the footpath in to the field you'll find a lot of bushes in the hedgerows." She took a large bowl from one of the kitchen cupboards and passed it to Dick. "You may see some sloes too, if you do pick as many as you can get." Dick looked confused, types of fruit and vegetables apart from the obvious ones were a mystery. Titty stepped in and rescued him.

"Don't worry I know what to look for, you can tell he didn't grow up in the country Daisy!"

The left the kitchen and went on through the back door of the cottage to the garden, they told Nancy where they were off to. Having picked quantities of blackberries, and Titty introduced Dick to sloes, they returned to find the table laid and Daisy busy, she was waiting for the blackberries to prepare for dessert.

That evening they ate well, Daisy was, somewhat to their surprise, an excellent cook and when the meal was over Titty and Dick told her stay sat at the table and they would deal with the washing up. The two of them found something comforting about carrying out the task together, though neither said as much, just as Nancy and Daisy said nothing.

Once the washing up was finished they all sat around the table and despite having much to talk of all of them avoided the subjects uppermost in their minds, Nancy and Daisy wondered about the how the relationship between Dick and Titty would progress and the two of them wondered about why Nancy and Daisy had ended up in the cottage in such secrecy.

Later in the evening Dick and Titty felt it was time for them to return to the Albion, knowing they had missed high tide and they had to ask Nancy to take them back to the Town in the Land Rover.

"Of course, what are you doing tomorrow?"

"We'll have to come back and get the dinghy, we have to return it by high tide to the boatyard."

"Yes, I'd forgotten that. Why don't we meet you at the Albion in the morning, drive you to the Wade them meet you back in the Town. We could go and look at the Naze and the tower, the council have bought the Naze and made it public land now. This they all agreed to and thanked them both and said goodbye to Daisy.