Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.
If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the words are supplied by Elephant's Child and can be found here.

This week's words are:

1. tick

2. fresh

3. droplet

4. magnificent

5. juice

6. appeal

and/or:

1. clue

2. cancel

3. cheap

4. purple

5. whales

6. love

Here is my story:

We’d had kind of a rough beginning, born to poor working parents, never enough money or clothes, but at least our Dad didn’t get drunk and hit us, like Cheryl’s Dad did.  There was only Cheryl and her brother Simon, while there were eight of us kids, but we were the happier family.

Sometimes Cheryl’s Mum Joan would bring over cakes or biscuits she had made, saying there were too many for just her and the kids, “Dan doesn’t eat sweet things” she’d say and Mum was always thankful, but we all knew that Cheryl’s mum mostly came over for some company and the laughter that rang through our house daily.

As the years went by and we all grew up, and Cheryl’s Dad grew grumpier and harder to live with, Cheryl and her Mum came visiting more often, especially after Simon went off to live and work in another town.  Cheryl and I got jobs at the local towel factory, making bath towels in pretty colours; Cheryl was good on the machines while I was in the packing department.

Neither of us ever married although her brother Simon did and all of my siblings too. “We’ll just have to grow old together” she’d say.  And we did. We were the only two who stayed in the small town after all the parents died. Cheryl inherited their house, but chose to sell it and move into my happier, messier home with me.

In our fifties one day, saving for our eventual retirements, Cheryl brought home some travel brochures from a stand at the library. “Look at these Barbara,” she said. “What do you think? Could we take a little holiday away this year?” We studied all of them and discovered we both liked the idea of a Whale Cruise, four days at sea, leaving from a Port city several hours south of where we lived. “Do you get seasick?” I asked. “Haven’t a clue,” Cheryl replied. “Let’s find out,” I said. “I don’t know about myself either, neither of us have been anywhere near a beach our whole lives. Let’s cancel the caravan this year and try this cruise instead.”

With the travel brochure highlighting the cheap cruise managing to tick all the boxes for us, off we went, enjoying the fresh sea air, sipping orange juice each morning, marvelling at the magnificent views, the purple shadows on the icebergs in the evenings, catching sight of whales now and again. Neither of us were seasick and we loved every minute, even the few droplets of rain that fell the last evening. The whole trip had so much appeal for us, we did it again the next year.