Summer of Love Read Free

was obsessed with dragons at the time –still is, to some extent. My mother had bought this chest of drawers for half nothing at an auction – she’s addicted to auctions – and as it needed something doing to it I decided to do more than just sand it down and put on a coat of white gloss.’ She chuckled. ‘I went to art college. I wanted to earn my living doing something that was actually connected to my degree but I could do from home. This is perfect – or it will be, when the business has built up a bit.’
    Fiona turned the pages. ‘But not all these are yours –your furniture, I mean?’
    ‘Oh no. But when my friends saw the chest of drawers they started getting me to paint things for them. Now I have a website and stuff, but I need somewhere where I can paint bigger items. I’ve done one or two adult pieces, too.’
    ‘So what sort of premises do you need?’
    ‘Do you think you might know of somewhere? I need a barn or something. Some of the paint is a bit toxic so I need plenty of air around if possible.’
    ‘I might indeed know of somewhere – my own barn in fact, just by my house – but it’s absolutely full of stuff.’
    ‘Well, if you did think you wanted to rent it out, I could help you clear it first.’
    ‘That would be worth it, even without the rent. I’ve been meaning to do it for years and have never been able to face it.’
    ‘I think that sort of thing is fun.’
    ‘I suppose I’d think it was fun if I didn’t have to make decisions about everything, but if you can help me with that, well, I’d be thrilled.’
    Fiona seemed a little tentative. Sian didn’t want her to change her mind about the barn and so nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’d love it. Apart from it being fun I might be able to buy some things from you that I could paint. It seems a waste to buy new when there’s so much perfectly good furniture around that just happens to be hideous –before I get my hands on it, of course!’
    ‘Personally I don’t think if furniture is hideous it can be described as “perfectly good”,’ Fiona said dryly, handing back the album to Sian.
    Sian laughed. ‘That’s just the sort of thing my mother would say.’
    ‘I hope you mean that in a good way!’
    ‘Oh yes, definitely. My mother and I have a lot of fun together.’
    ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Fiona put her hand on Sian’s briefly and got up. ‘I should go. Now, were you serious about being willing to help with the flowers?’
    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘Then I’ll pop by at about two tomorrow and we can pick the cow parsley and then arrange it. Will that fit in with nap times and things?’
    ‘I don’t have a nap now,’ said Rory. ‘I’m too old.’
    ‘I have naps all the time and I’m much older than you,’ declared Fiona. ‘But we won’t argue about it. Until tomorrow then?’
    When Sian had seen her guest out and renewed her thanks for the house-warming presents, she rang her mother. She would be thrilled that Sian had a new friend already. Sian was thrilled herself.
    *
    ‘It’s Fona,’ said Rory the following afternoon, looking through one of the small front windows at the person on the front doorstep.
    ‘Oh good.’ Sian went and opened the door. ‘Hello! Come on through to the garden, we’ll get picking.’
    Fiona was carrying a bucket in which there were a pair of secateurs and what looked like an old curtain. ‘Good afternoon. Hello, Rory! Are you going to help us put flowers in the church? There are toys there if you get bored.’
    The two women cut swathes of cow parsley, filling Fiona’s bucket and another one they found in a shed, and then set off for the church.
    ‘Can I carry the bucket?’ asked Rory, anxious to be involved. He’d been a little put out that he hadn’t been able to help with collecting the cow parsley but Fiona had said the secateurs were too dangerous and only to be used by adults and his mother hadn’t felt his pulling at the plants was achieving the desired effect.