Lettuces and Cream Read Online Free PDF Page B

than me -I like my sleep,’ Keith replied.
    ‘Typical, though if I remember, you didn’t worry about getting to sleep last night,’ retorted Chris, and stomped off with half-hearted annoyance.
    Keith watched her-and her neat, bouncy rump, as she headed back to the house, and he grinned at the salacious memory of his exertions of the previous night.
    Shopping in the tiny Market town of Porth was proving an interesting experience for Mike, Jan and the kids. It was so very different from the familiar city of Aberdod, to which they used to travel the eight miles to do their major shopping. It wasn’t that they missed the variety of large shops or the grand Victorian civic centre, they didn’t. In fact they were enjoying the quiet relaxed old-fashioned atmosphere of the place. Here, there was no Marks and Spencer, Woolworth or the like. Come to that there were very few people, well not on this Monday morning anyway. But they supposed on market days it would be a different story with the busy cattle mart on the outskirts of the tiny town, and various stalls cramming the narrow main street.
    Most of the shops were local one-man affairs, and the tiny post office, the butcher and general grocery shop, seemed from another age altogether. The problem was that they just didn’t know where to look for what they wanted. But soon their meanderings lead them past a railway station shut by Mr Beeching, and there, amongst the disused sidings, stood a Farmers co-op store. Well, really a middle sized wooden shed with a roof of corrugated iron, and they cautiously ventured inside. And caution was indeed needed because as they stepped through the battered doorway the first surprise was the wooden floor of the place. It had seen much better days and customers and staff had to step over holes and areas patched, either with flattened pieces of old biscuit tins, or ill-fitting bits of wood, and the rest of the old planking wheezed and groaned with old age.
    The counters themselves were old-fashioned slabs of wood, polished smooth and glossy with years of use. Goods were stacked everywhere and even hung from hooks hanging from the rafters. There, they espied the much-needed Wellington boots nestling between shiny new stainless steel milking pails, and lethal looking billhooks, all dangling dangerously at head height. This hazard, together with the patched floor meant that everyone moved at a careful pace having to watch feet and head at the same time, and perhaps accounted for the seemingly steady nature of the locals which they had had mistaken for bucolic indifference. More tools, spades, pitchforks, picks and axes were heaped haphazardly along the walls, and on shelves behind the counters, various animal drenches and unguents seeped a pungent unfamiliar odour into the building. David and Mandy gazed with bewilderment at the unfamiliar miscellany and were unusually speechless.
    Whilst they waited to be served, Mike and Jan took in the local ambiance and it’s endless Welsh chatter and felt somewhat out of place. Particularly when friendly chat was directed at them, at which they stared back, apologetically, ashamed at their very limited knowledge of the language. David translated for them what he could, but even he couldn’t follow all of the conversation for all of the time. Eventually, they made their essential purchases of the Wellingtons, a small axe that Mike needed to chop sticks for the fire, and, of course a new chemical toilet - sophistication would be theirs…
    By the time they reached home it was lunchtime and Janice busied herself feeding the starving hordes. Mike headed for the ‘lavatory room’ and set up the new toilet. The chemicals ponged a bit, and reminded Mike of the factory where he had worked, but they all agreed it was better than the dark and spidery horror of the shed in the yard. All in all a very successful morning.
    ‘What you going to do this afternoon Mike?’ Jan asked, as she began clearing up the lunchtime