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. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

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 to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by C.Lee Mckenzie and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. realise 

2. sticky 

3. chocolate-covered 

4. wrapped 

5. doorbell 

6. delight 

and/or: 

1. flummoxed 

2. diet 

3. stuffed 

4. inspected 

5. heart-shaped 

6. box

here is my story: (continued from last week)

We didn’t give much thought to Terry and Cynthia for the rest of the day. Valentine’s Day was coming up and the Cottage bedrooms in the adjoining wing were fully booked. We had to put in orders for the individually wrapped chocolate-covered cherries that were put on the pillows instead of the usual mints, the mini heart-shaped cakes with strawberry pink icing, that were passed out with every dessert order, (we gave them to those who didn’t order dessert too), and the pretty pink boxes for those that wanted to save their cake for later.

In years past, we had changed the dining room décor too, but this year I had decided to just use pink candles and pink serviettes at the tables, along with red roses in bud vases. The tablecloths were white, so they’d do, but changing the curtains was a bit too much now that Terry and I were both getting older. Neither of us fancied being up on ladders trying to balance the curtain rods with the weight of curtains added. We stood in the small hallway and inspected the contents of the linen cupboard. Terry looked at the stack of pink napkins, “Do you think we have enough of them?” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head towards the shelf which I could plainly see was stuffed full of pink cloths.

I elbowed him gently in the ribs with a “Ha Ha, Mister” and closed the door. I had been guilty of buying new ones every year for quite some time. “Remember a couple of years ago when we were shopping for pink napkins and little pink boxes and we met with Khoral coming out of the mid street bakery?” “I do,” said Terry. “He asked about all the pink and we tried to explain Valentine’s Day to him, he was pretty flummoxed about the whole thing.” “But he loves it now,” I said. “He orders pink heart shaped cakes and boxes of chocolates for the old people in the nursing home, then he takes them there personally to make sure everyone gets chocolates and he stays to help serve the cakes at afternoon tea.” “He still talks to Old Pete about the lighthouse too, asks about all the things Pete saw and did during the years he lived there.”

I headed to the kitchen to begin the dinner preparations, while Terry checked the batteries in the doorbell. “We really should hire an electrician and get this thing wired in,” he said. “Batteries are becoming expensive. What are you cooking for dinner?” “Stir-fried vegetables and sticky rice, I found the recipe in a magazine at the hairdresser and copied it down while I was under the dryer.” “Sounds good,” he said, “and probably better than my last few experimental failures. I don’t know what possessed me to put beetroot in the mashed potato that one time.” When I didn’t answer he came to the kitchen where I was staring through the window. “What are you looking at?” he asked. “Aiden and Cynthia seem to be having quite the argument,” I replied. “She has just tossed his open suitcase off the houseboat and luckily it landed on the grassy edge, not in the water.”

Terry frowned a little with just a “hmmm” in reply. Then, “I realise we need the money, but I think we should keep an eye on things down there. If we have to move them on and refund the money, we might not get another booking on it this season, but how did they know the houseboat was empty anyway?” “Perhaps they know Ben, the previous tenant,” I said. “He wasn’t exactly a delight either,” said Terry. “I’m having one of my funny feelings now. I think I’ll stop by the Police Station tomorrow and have a quick word with Sergeant Bennett. If anything blows up, he might have background information for us.”