Chapter 51 - An enjoyable day
After the very pleasant intermezzo in the middle of the night, Louisa slept like a log. When she woke up, it was still very early, but through the gap between the curtains, she could see that the it would be another lovely spring day.
Loiusa looked at Martin, who was still fast asleep. It looked like hadn't moved at all, he lay on his right side, with his back to the window. She really hoped that he would sleep a good deal of the morning away. She loved watching him sleep, she loved seeing his face so relaxed, without the usual scowl.
Not wanting him to wake up, she stepped out of the bed as quiet as possible, grabbed her dressing gown and left the room. Carefully, she closed the door behind her, without any noise. She was glad that they had put the suitcase with her clothes on the spare bed in James' room.
Her intention was to go into the living and to read for a while, but when she passed James' room, he just started the vocal exercises he used to do in the morning. As sweet as she usuallly found it to listen to them, she now hurried into his room to shush him and to pick him up.
"Shh, James, daddy is still asleep, he needs his rest this morning", she whispered and to underline her message she put her index finger against her lips. James gave her a big smile as an answer. He seemed to understand his mummy's words and kept quiet. He made Louisa smile, because he tried to copy her gestures, putting his chubby little hand against his mouth.
Louisa grabbed some clothes for herself and the nappy bag for James. She would change and dress him in the living, which was the farrest from the sleeping room as she could get. She was glad that the bathroom was in between. She closed all doors and hoped that, doing so, the sounds they would make would be muffled by the distance and the doors.
She changed James and put him in his high chair for an early breakfast. She made herself some tea and treated herself with a couple of digestives. She had been pleasantly surprised to find them so easily in the supermarket here. Of course Martin had shown his deepest scowl, but she had said
"We are on holidays and it's just a package of digestives... and not even chocolate digestives!"
Then she had simply put the package in the shopping cart.
While chewing on a digestive and supervising James eating his breakfast, Louisa was thinking about what she would do afterwards. She couldn't keep James quiet for a very long time. Then James pointed to the big sliding doors. He saw a little rabit on the grass. He gestured enthousiastically, but, much to Louisa's surprise, he didn't make a lot of noise. "Clever boy", she whispered. "Yes, we will go outside!"
Louisa, still concerned about Martin's emotional state after yesterday's events, wrote a note for him, telling where she had gone and that she would be back within an hour. Understanding now a bit better how he would reason, she was afraid that he would think that she'd left him. She knew that despite her telling him twice that he shouldn't be ashamed, he still would reason that she'd come to her senses and couldn't love him anymore. Which was of course the biggest nonsense, but still...
She left the note on the table, with a glass on it to prevent that it would be blown from the table by the draft of the door. She decided that she would go for a walk with James and she chose the direction of the farm. There would maybe be some chickens or other animals for James to see. Farmers, she reasoned, were alwas early risers.
The walk to the farm didn't take very long. Louisa discovered a path along the small stream and it was even possible to manoeuver the stroller on it fairly easily. Every now and then, there was a small sign with the name of the farm on it. On the same pole there was also a sign in the opposite direction, with the name of the cottage. "Clever!", she said, more to herself than to James, who was babbling away happily and pointing to all kinds of things that caught his interest.
When they reached the farm, Louisa immediately saw the lady she had met the previous day. The lady was feeding some ducks and some chickens.
"Good morning, Mrs. Ellingham, hello young man!" Is something wrong at the cottage? Or did you miss something for the breakfast?"
"No", Louisa replied, "not at all, but my husband was still asleep and I didn't want James to wake him up. He has had some very tiring days recently, so he needs some extra rest".
"I understand. If you want, you can let James closer to the animals, they don't do any harm. But inside, I have a litter of Jack Russel puppy dogs. Our Lola gave birth to them six weeks ago. Would you like to see them?"
James was enjoying himself with the ducks who came close to him and pleased him with their soft croaks. So they stayed there for a couple of minutes, until both James and the animals lost interest.
"Come in, then, I'll make you some tea, would you like that? By the way, my name is Klaartje"
"Like we say in the UK, it's always time for tea, so yes please! My name is Louisa".
Louisa lifted James from the stroller and entered the farmhouse behind the kind woman. In a corner of the kitchen there was a large box, that served as a provisory bench for the litter of puppies. Louisa crouched next to it to show the puppies to James. The mother of the puppies came close to them and sniffed Louisa's hand, checking if she could trust her with her puppies. Maybe because Louisa was carrying her own "pup", she passed the test. Lola carefully grabbed one of the pups in his neck skin and lifted the little dog into Louisa's hand.
"Aww, look James, this puppy looks just like Buddy!"
Louisa assured that James couldn't just pinch or hurt the little puppy and guided her son's little hand to pet it. James squealed with joy, much to the liking of Lola, who rewarded the toddler by licking his face.
"Oh James, good that daddy doesn't see that", Louisa joked, laughing.
Nevertheless, she stood up and wiped his face with a wet baby tissue from the baby bag. The Ellinghams had very soon after their son was born understood that, however short your outing with the baby was, it was better to always bring the baby bag with basic baby stuff with you.
The tea was ready and Louisa sat down at the table. She gave James a cracker, also taken from the well supplied baby bag. Her hostess poured her a mug of tea and presented some oval biscuits covered with sugar.
"Home made", she said, "they are called 'Arnhemse meisjes' - girls from Arnhem. That's where I come from originally, before I married my husband Kees."
"Arnhem is a city, right?", Louisa asked, "So you weren't from a farmer's family?"
"No, my father owns a butchery in the city center of Arnhem in a streat that's called Bakkerstraat - always found that funny, it means Baker street.. I met Kees at dancing class. Arnhem is about 30 miles from here."
"That explains the fine choice of cold cuts in the breakfast basket then! I am glad you didn't add roast beef, though. My husband suffers from a blood phobia..."
"Well, in that case, I won't give you the fresh meat I was going to offer you. We don't want to spoil his holidays, do we, Louisa?
"Best not!", Louisa replied.
Klaartje came back to the subject of the puppies and asked, "Do you have a dog at home then, called Buddy?"
"No, not really. A bit of a sad story.. He was the dog of my husband's aunt. But she died the day after James was born. So sad. She was the only person who really cared for my husband until that they. We're living in a small village, the dog is more or less cared for by other villagers. But everybody considers Buddy to be Martin's dog now. Something must have happened in the past, because my husband hates dogs.. I am not hurrying anything, but I am confident that in the end, he will accept Buddy as one of our family... would be good for James...".
The two ladies chatted for a couple of more minutes, but as soon as Louisa had finished her tea, she stood up and prepared to say goodbye to Klaartje.
"Klaartje, thank you so much for the tea and biscuits. I'd like to get back to the cottage now and enjoy the lovely breakfast".
"You're welcome, Louisa. Let me know what you'll need for tomorrow morning and I'll prepare it for you".
"Yes, thank you so much". She let James pet some of the puppies and Lola another time, before she left the house.
"Bye, Klaartje, see you later!"
She put James in the stroller and fixed the straps and then she walked away with a steady pace.
After a quarter of an hour, she arrived back at the cottage. It was nine o'clock, so she expected to find Martin busy with the preparation of the breakdast, but all was still quiet in the kitchen and the note was still on the table.
She installed James on his play blanket and went quickly to the bedroom. She carefully opened the door and stated that Martin was still fast asleep. Still lying on his side, he looked so much more relaxed than when he was lying on his back.
She closed the door again, but decided that she would start the preparations of a healthy and nutritious breakfast already. She guessed that he would wake up very soon now.
She started with pressing oranges. Then she prepared a fruit salad of blueberries and raspberries. Those must be import, it was way toonearly to have them picked from the garden, but anyway they smelled delicious. There were enough fresh eggs to make scrambled eggs for the three of them. Although James already had had his breakfast, he would love to get some mouthfulls of the tasty eggs.
She busied herself for about twenty minutes and looked at the table, satisfied with the results. Just at that moment, Martin, dressed in his pyjama's and dressing gown, entered the living space.
"That smells delicious".
He greeted her with a short, firm embrace from behind and a quick kiss on her cheek. Louisa turned around in his arms and asked,
"Good morning Martin, did you sleep well?"
Louisa, happily returned his kiss.
"Hmm, yes, good, fine.."
Alerted by his father's velvety voice, James left his blocks for what they were and crawled to the kitchen in a spurt. He tried to pull himself up, grabbed hold to the trouser leg of daddy's pyjama, but that wasn't succesful. Instead of pulling himself up, he pulled down his father's night wear. He fell back on his bum and Martin had to quickly hold the waistband of his trousers, otherwise they would have dropped down completely.
Louisa watched the scene. She made an effort not to laugh, but felt quite happy about this funny little incident. Martin scowled for a few seconds, but then understood that it wasn't James' fault at all. James, not totally understanding what just happened, sat still, but with his little arms in the air as a sign that he wanted to be picked up.
"Da..", he said. Martin quickly bent forward to pick up his son and to greet him by touching his son's forehead with his own. He was rewarded with James biggest smile.
"Let's have breakfast, boys, I could eat a horse!",
Louisa said, before she sat herself down at the table. Martin put James in the highchair between them and sat down as well. The three of them enjoyed the lovely breakfast in their usual quiet way. From time to time Louisa checked on Martin, but he didn't seem to be embarrassed anymore about his emotional outburst of the night before, which made her glad. He acted normally and busied himself with helping James with eating the scrambled egg Louisa had put on his plate.
By the end of their breakfast, Martin enquired,
"Do we have any particular plans for today?"
Louisa answered,
"No Martin, I think it would be good to have some quiet time here in or around the cottage, to get some real rest. Will do us all good, don't you think?"
"Good, yes.. You don't mind if I spend some time making some phonecalls?"
"Of course not, Martin, someone in particular?"
"Yes, Alex Brown, Morwenna, Chris Parsons and Ruth...",
Martin replied in his genuine honesty, but without explaining the reasons for his calls. Louisa didn't insist, not wanting to force his usual "I can't discuss my patitns with you" kind of remark, but she said instead,
"As long as you don't do it during James' nap time, it's fine with me!"
"Because?"
"Because, Martin, while James is sleeping, we can spend some quality time together. I can think of something we both enjoy quite a lot!"
Martin's eartips reddened instantly. He replied,
"Mrs. Ellingham, your physical needs are insatiable!"
"Sounds like a serious condition then? Well, doctor Ellingham, then I am just so glad that my favourite doctor is here to help me to keep the symptoms under control!"
Right after that, he hurried to answer with much love in his voice,
"You don't hear me complain about it, my beautiful Louisa"...
Then, he cleared his throat, stood up and started to clean the kitchen. Louisa smiled and followed him with her eyes. It promised to become a very enjoyable day!
To be continued, enjoy!