day; the sun was high and strong. It was certainly a sunglasses type of day. Max ran off the lead and straight to the water’s edge. He loved to swim in the loch at home but we’d never taken him to a beach before. I made a mental note to check out the times dogs were allowed at some of the local beaches back in Kent. He splashed and bit the waves as they gently broke against the shore.
“How warm do you reckon this is?” I asked, as Ronan and I walked towards it.
“Bloody cold,” he replied, and he wasn’t wrong.
I let the waves roll over my feet and sucked in a breath sharply as the cold stung my skin. “Jesus,” I hissed, running back as quick as I could. “I’m glad I didn’t bring my cossie.”
It was nice to stroll along the beach, letting the sand slip between my toes. It wasn’t as warm on Jura as Mull, which was still many degrees cooler than Kent but I’d grown used to it. I wore just a T-shirt and my jeans, the bottoms of which were wet.
I held onto Ronan’s hand as we walked. “I can’t believe how beautiful this is. I didn’t think to bring my camera, either,” I said, cursing myself for forgetting.
Instead, I made Ronan join me in loads of selfies that I sent to Joe and Pam and Del. When I looked back on a couple with the sea in the background, we could have been at any exotic destination in the world.
We didn’t leave the campsite. We spent a couple of hours hiking, sitting on the beach just talking, and making love. It was an idyllic couple of days and I was sad to leave. It just wasn’t long enough. We returned home with the majority of food still in the basket but happy.
“I promise you, as soon as we have someone who can manage this, you and I are off to the Maldives, or somewhere else where we can do nothing but lie on a beach for two weeks,” Ronan said, kissing my temple as I stripped Christine of ‘our’ things and returned the campsite items.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I replied. I hadn’t had a long holiday in forever. The cruises Harry and I had taken weren’t as relaxing as I would have liked. We were off each day on tours and being shuffled from one place to the next, always watching the clock in case we missed the boat. Two weeks in the Maldives sounded like absolute bliss. It was, as Ronan had said, conditional, of course. We couldn’t walk away for that length of time.
The film crew had erected all their tracks and whatnots at the front of the property and, that evening, Charlie had us laughing when he told us the crew had an apprentice whose sole job was to check the peafowl’s nest every couple of hours to recover missing items. It seemed Clyde had been in his element strutting around, fanning his tail feathers all the while stealing whatever he could.
“He’s a clever wee one that bird is” Maggie said. “He puts up his tail as a distraction. It’s like that man Patrick Stellars.”
“Who?” Ronan asked.
“You know the good-looking man who played the thief. I loved his movies.” Maggie had folded her hands together and placed them on the top of her belly. She sighed nostalgically as she thought of Patrick Stellars. Her eyes took on a wistful look while the rest of us just stared at her.
“Peter,” I said, shouting as the name came to me. “Peter Sellers, and you mean The Pink Panther.”
Ahs sounded around the table as Ronan and Charlie understood. Maggie was still in Patrick Stellars mode.
“We should rename Gerald Kato,” I said, and then laughed, remembering the man that jumped out of wardrobes.
“Anyway, he’s been a busy beastie, right enough. He’s gallus that yin,” Charlie said, bringing us back to Clyde, the pinching peacock.
Charlie, in his wisdom, had written a list, describing items he wasn’t sure of the name for. The film crew, who, we were told, were not in the least annoyed, had claimed the majority. In fact, it was a source of entertainment for them. I knew, however, if it continued, Ronan would be having second thoughts about the peafowl.
“I’ll get on and make those platforms tomorrow. You see what shiny things we have around that they can gather. It might stop them looking elsewhere,” Ronan said. I breathed a sigh