Week 4 started on 11 January but I have been so busy since the New Year that I have only now made time to post my latest stories. This was my story for week 4...
The old house with a peeling red roof stood atop a slight rise in the otherwise flat land overlooking flat paddocks, dry and yellowed after the relentless summer heat, so different to the relative green and deceptive coolness of her far away city home. Shirley blinked away her momentary homesickness, determined to look for positives in the property Alick was so proudly showing her, knowing that soon this would be her home.
Across the front of the house the veranda was barely standing and as they drew closer she saw several broken windows. Tools and other building equipment scattered near
the back door showed that some work had already begun on the interior.
Alick opened the door and ushered her in and the smell hit her: nesting mice had left their distinctive aroma in the wall cavities and the moth eaten carpet in the lounge room added its own perfume to the dry, dusty, old house smell.
He guided her through the house, room by room, asking her
opinion on the progress made so far; but Shirley was already imagining walls repaired and freshly painted in Milky Cream, wooden floor boards polished and gleaming, and their new lounge suite set up in the lounge room. A new fuel stove was already installed in the kitchen, but the empty bathroom with a chip heater was obviously waiting for a new bath and basin.
“My uncle Harold can get us a bathroom setting from McDowells in Sydney. I’ll ask Mum to chase him up when I
get home”, she told Alick, as she thought to herself, “I think I can cope with anything knowing I can have a lovely warm bath every couple of days.”
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