Lettuces and Cream Read Online Free PDF

well. Ann, the happy smiley one, wasn’t too bad, and because I didn’t, they eventually stopped doing it. Still, it was good job the kids were outside playing. But they all seemed nice enough people, it seems around here even the women accept swearing as normal.’
    They both had a thing about swearing, especially the naughty four letter ones. It wasn’t because they were snobs, they just weren’t used to it. They simply didn’t like it and didn’t want the kids going around cursing this and that.
    ‘Anyway they said they had just popped in to say hello, so I haven’t done a thing. By the time they left, it was time to feed you lot,’ Jan said cheerfully, banging saucepans about, most of which were still packed in a cardboard box, trying to find the right size for the task in hand.
    Mike watched her. He enjoyed seeing her in these energetic happy moods. But it never really seemed right for her. It appeared to him that she wasn’t all together comfortable in this busy role and some how she was acting the part, making an effort, and going against her phlegmatic, steady nature. Of course it could be a case of Mike over analysing the situation. Jan had often told him that he thought too much about things that can’t be analysed. Or perhaps she simply hadn’t had enough to do in town and got bored. Here, she would be very busy indeed. In any event, maybe this was going to be one of the changes their new life would bring. Perhaps she would change in other more intimate ways as well.
    ‘I’m starving mum,’ David moaned
    ‘And me mum,’ Mandy added in similar tone.
    ‘And me mum,’ Mike joked.
    ‘Baked beans on toast, okay?’
    ‘Oh, great,’ the kids said in hungry unity.

F OUR
    Monday morning and another dry sunny late summer day, and a couple of miles away from the newcomers place, the daily routine had begun. Chris and Keith had moved into the area from the north of England some eight years previously and now raised beef cattle on their 250-acre farm, named Penlan. Keith came from a farming family, Chris from the city, and when they were married he had wanted his own farm and had found land prices in Wales cheap. So had moved to their present place some four miles from Mike and Jan. In the converted old stone barn, now used to house cattle, Keith sat on a traditional three-legged stool hand milking their ‘house cow,’ as she happily chomped on her food. They had other cattle, but this beast was a bit of a pet and kept to provide the family with milk.
    ‘Those new people moved into the Davis’s old place last Saturday,’ Keith said, his voice somewhat muffled because his head was up against the cows’ flank as he continued the steady milking rhythm.
    ‘I know, the postman told me this morning. I suppose we should call over and say hello. Be nice to have some more English people to talk to,’ Chris replied cheerfully, busy with her task of throwing straw onto the floors of the other cattle pens.
    ‘Are you sure they’re English with a name like Jones?’ Keith asked, his Geordie accent making Jones sound more like Junes.
    ‘Yeah, think so, it said in the local paper last week they were from South Wales but it was written in English so they must be.’
    ‘Oh aye, but I still think it’s bloody funny, you know, the way its written in English if you’re English, or in Welsh if you’re Welsh.’
    ‘Well, yeah I know what you mean, but if it was in Welsh they wouldn’t know they were being written about would they. And we couldn’t read it either,’ Chris said with a little laugh.
    ‘ Aye, Okay we’ll go over some time.’
    ‘Oh yeah, did you hear Cindy barking last night? Something was outside again, about midnight’
    ‘A fox, I expect.’
    ‘It’s funny how the fox is usually here when you’re away.’
    ‘Just a coincidence I expect.’
    ‘Does seem a bit odd, though. Perhaps we should stay up and watch out for what ever it is that upsets Cindy,’ Chris suggested.
    ‘Rather you