Edie Browne’s Cottage by the Sea: A heartwarming, hilarious romance read set in Cornwall!

Except by the time I’ve peeled the next strip of paper, I’ve remembered. I never actually expected my new job, because I’ve always been a chancer not an achiever, so that was a surprise. Then I shocked myself when I stood my ground and broke up with Marcus. And shocked myself all over again when I walked away from that perfect life we had.

One thing’s for sure – when you’re picking bits of sticky paper off the wall there’s plenty of time to ponder. As we work our way around the walls we get claggier and claggier, but I’m still no nearer an answer. We’re onto the last wall when Aunty Jo pipes up from nowhere, ‘That’s the other good thing about the classes, you can get a lot of information from them.’

‘Really?’ I’m bracing myself for another very long monologue about quilting. After Fun with Fabric she talked about wadding for two hours straight, but that was a relief because it meant I could skip the details about my afternoon.

The breath she takes is worryingly deep. ‘Yesterday I found out Barney’s not a window cleaner at all – he actually makes shepherd’s huts along the road. That’s impressive, isn’t it?’

That’s definitely not what I was expecting. I look up at the ceiling, count to ten and get to seven. ‘Maybe it’s significant if you keep sheep, otherwise not so much.’ Given a choice, I’d have preferred sewing tips.

‘According to Loella, people your age buy the huts and do Airbnb in their back gardens.’

‘Good for them.’ Not even having a teensy terrace to my name, I wouldn’t know. I was a week away from signing for a lease on my own tiny flat when my stroke happened and I pulled out. At least this way I might be homeless on paper but I’m not worrying about covering rental payments when my salary’s all but disappeared.

‘Unlikely as it seems, if I ever did have a lawn, a shepherd’s hut would be the last thing I’d buy.’ I might as well get it out there. ‘As garden ornaments go, I suspect they’re a bit like designer tree houses – mega hyped, overpriced and underused.’ Even when I lived with Marcus I never had that much cash to spare because we mostly spent it on his place, on eating out at weekends and on far-flung holidays in obscure places. If I struggled to run to a Hush pineapple sweatshirt – which was reversible, so you actually got two for the price of one – I’m damn sure a caravan you can’t actually tow would never have made it to the top of my shopping list.

She’s still going. ‘Every hut is unique, handmade by Barney to individual measurements.’

‘Good luck to his customers.’ I’m scraping so hard I’m making dents in the plaster. We’re going to have to agree to differ on the sun shining out of that particular bottom, because I couldn’t give a flying fuck. He could be making caravans for that ‘rags to riches’ woman’s fairy godmother, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has no idea about social norms. I mean, who hangs around for a conversation up a ladder when they’re crushed against you to stop you falling off, then takes you off for a boat trip you don’t want, or invites themselves in and starts pulling your wallpaper off? I can only hope he’s more appropriate with his boundaries with his clients than he is with us.

Aunty Jo has stopped again. ‘Oh dear, visitor alert. With all this rubbish on the floor too.’ Even though the patch of wall she’s stripped is tiny, Aunty Jo and the dust sheet where she’s standing are both plastered in pieces of gluey paper.

‘Bloody Barney.’ Not again. As I brush the claggiest lump off her cheek I’m suddenly baking in my sweatshirt. I’m picking the biggest pieces of rainforest out of my hair, but not because I give any kind of a damn. Tugging up my jeans because, whoever’s here, I don’t want to be caught out with a muffin top twice in one day.

‘Who said anything about Barney?’ There are wrinkles in Aunty Jo’s forehead.

‘What?’ As I follow her gaze and see Loella hurrying across the courtyard I’m ignoring the fact my insides just deflated faster than one of those things that go ‘pop’. She’s got so many kids with her she looks like a school outing.

As I pull open the door Loella’s smiling over the crowd of tousled heads. ‘Wowsers, are you culling the zebras? Tigers by the sea were never going to work, were they?’ At least she’s overlooked the festive pyjamas. ‘We were dropping Cam off, so I thought I’d pop in. We forgot to say – there’s a book group you might like to join. And the Wild and Blooming Cottage Garden group are having a talk tonight. I could give you a lift down if you’d like to come?’

There’s that familiar feeling of steel hands closing around my stomach. How the hell am I going to explain my way out of this? Book group was one thing I always loved and really miss. Bella, Tash and I have belonged to the same one for years. Obviously I’m not going again until I progress far enough to avoid a pity party when I turn up. Let’s face it, if I was up to going I wouldn’t be here. Reasons not to go … Words … I’m flailing to get to grips with either, when Aunty Jo jumps in.

‘I’m so sorry, my concentration’s shot to pieces, so novels and book group are no-no. Just for now.’

I’m trying not to gasp at how easily she’s covering for me. Reading is the one thing she still does, her to-be-read pile is under the dust sheet and as high as the sofa and, even if she’s driven me to distraction all day wittering about mess, I want to hug her for this.

Loella’s reaching out and patting her arm. ‘Of course. I’m so sorry, Josie, I should have thought.’ Her smile is full of warmth. ‘But you will think about this evening? It won’t be late.’

If Loella bothered to take half a glance at the wreck of the lawn she’d get the picture. Outdoors equals mud, and dirt gives Aunty Jo a hissy fit, so I’m expecting to get a firm ‘no’, but I might as well give it a try. I turn to Aunty Jo. ‘Well, you’ve got a cottage and you’ve got a garden, so shall we try it?’

I know grow-your-own salad is huge now, but Marcus is the trend-freak, not me. I’d be totally out of my comfort zone here, yet again. But Aunty Jo is definitely brighter for getting out, so I’m up for persuading her.

She’s pulling a face. ‘I don’t know.’

Loella catches my eye, then leans in closer. ‘You’ve got quite a kingdom here, with your outbuildings too, Josie-pie.’

‘They’re next on the list …’ I peel a piece of wallpaper off my jeans ‘… after this.’ That’s on the list in my head, obviously. We haven’t got any further with the one on the clipboard. Realistically, seeing how far we’ve got after a whole day working here, and knowing how far the cottage rambles, and the size of the barns, I’m going to have to pull in some help fast. But with my ‘professional’ head on, I know it’ll be better to wait until we make more contacts. Which is another good reason to get out and mingle with the gardeners.

Loella’s straight back at me. ‘Great then, I’ll take that as a “yes”. I’ll pick you both up at seven sharp?’ She doesn’t wait for an answer. A moment later she’s marching off across the courtyard, followed by her band of children.

And I’m wondering what the hell I’ve let us both in for.

11 (#ulink_957bc5b9-8402-50ad-89b2-6c483d93d4ff)

Day 142: Friday, 23

March

At The Deck Gallery

Epic Achievement: Pretending to be a gardener, and not being found out.

If I didn’t know stripping walls was good for you before, I do now – my arms feel like they’ve had a full-body workout, and then some. Not that I’ve actually managed that many of those in my life. If I’m honest, I’m one of those classic fails who signs up for the gym in January then never goes. As I say to Bella, if it wasn’t for people like us, the cross trainers would be horribly overcrowded. But the good news from St Aidan is, we finally wave goodbye to the rainforest in the day room. I’m not the only one around here planning ambushes either. After a meticulous round of tidying up, Aunty Jo literally comes at me out of nowhere me with a pen and paper and an order to do some calligraphy practice. Luckily I get over my horror fast enough to persuade her there isn’t time to do that and get into my Audrey H slim tailored slacks and my little Gap cashmere polo neck. Obviously I will need to work on my writing. It’s just more auspicious when there’s less compulsion and, truly, my biceps have had enough exercise for one day.

For dinner we have grilled chicken and carrots, which suddenly come back on-limits when I explain that’s what Cheryl (formerly Cole) eats when she’s getting in shape for a tour. And I know this because Sadie the ‘do everything in the office’ person at Zinc Inc used to lend me her Closer magazine every Friday afternoon, then ask questions to check I’d read it from end to end. I just never imagined it was knowledge I’d ever get to use.

It was dusk when Loella pulled up in the lane, totally blocking it with her battered red off-roader. I can only assume she has some local artistic licence which allows that, or else shepherd’s hut man has seen the size of the thing and the scrapes down the sides, and on balance decided to shut the fuck up. I was worried Barney might hitch a lift too, in the hope of bagging more gullible Airbnb cottage garden owners, but luckily he didn’t. In any case, it was literally a couple of bounces around bends and then we were down at The Deck, blocking the mews there.

While Loella goes off to find somewhere to double park, I send Aunty Jo ahead of me through the door with a shove that’s considerably bigger than she is. ‘No need to get all fidgety, Aunty Jo, there are lots of people we know.’

As we make our way towards the chairs arranged in rows in front of a white pull-up screen and Beth dances over, I’m waving back at so many people I feel like I’ve been here way longer than a week.

‘Josie, you must meet my dad, Malcolm. I saved you seats next to him.’ As Beth turns to me she drops her voice. ‘We lost Mum five years ago, but it’s been so much tougher since he retired in the autumn.’

By the time I wriggle out of my jacket and into the chair beside them, they’re already deep in some discussion about perennial geraniums, whatever they are. When they finally pause I hiss into Aunty Jo’s ear, ‘How do you know so much about gardening?’

She gives a sniff. ‘I’ve heard about it from Harry over the years. I can definitely hold my own on alliums.’ She glances behind us to where there’s a guy arranging boxes of slides. ‘And you can’t beat a good magic lantern show.’

As Loella claps her hands at the front I have a brief moment of polka-dot dress envy, then everyone goes quiet. ‘So welcome everybody. Jeremy’s standing by at the projector with an hour’s worth of slides showing his take on last year’s Wild and Blooming Festival in St Aidan. Then afterwards we’ll move on to coffee, cake and chat.’ As everyone claps she slips to the back, switches off the lights and sits down.

As I settle into my seat my main worry is about what’s going to happen if I snore. With the promise of so many flower pictures, probably all the same, I’m already biting back a yawn. Realistically, my concentration isn’t great at the best of times. In the dark, after a hard day of paper stripping, I’m likely to stay awake approximately a nanosecond. Then Jeremy starts clicking his handset, there’s a flash of lights on the screen as he flips through his first few slides to find where to begin.

My stomach clenches and I clamp my eyes closed. Why the heck did I not think? I prod Aunty Jo as I get up and whisper, ‘The flashing isn’t good, I’d better go.’

‘Shall I come with you?’ She’s wrenching her gaze away from daisies blowing in a summer breeze.

‘You stay – I’ll see you at the end.’ I ease into the aisle and dip to avoid the light beam from the projector. The last thing I want to do is disturb everyone by causing a big on-screen shadow as I go, so I drop down and crawl between the chairs, returning all the perturbed looks with smiles and little waves, trying to look like I planned this all along.

On my hands and knees, trailing my jacket along the rough-hewn boards might not be the most dignified way to leave, and it makes a mockery of how long I spent getting my eyeliner perfect. But it’s better than staying and ending up like I did a couple of weeks after my stroke – coming round on my parents’ living room floor, looking up at my mum and dad’s terrified faces with my words extra blurry and wet pants. And all because the strobe lights on the Top of the Pops revisit to 1977 gave me a seizure.

Afterwards my mum was furious with my dad for making us watch it, but those two love their nostalgia. That was the year of Queen’s Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy and they always go all moony when that comes on. My mum once confessed to Tash and I about having Freddy Mercury posters on her bedroom wall, but obviously Dad thinks it’s all about him. Usually Tash and I end up fake vomming over the chair arm, which they hate, so at least me sliding off the cushions and hitting the floor jerking saved them from that.

Even though the fit only lasted seconds it was lucky Tash was there to take control. Luckier still that Dad hadn’t given in and let Mum take up the old laminate floor and put down carpet instead. She’d actually got as far as choosing one, but it’s a point of honour in their relationship that Dad resists every one of her forward pushes. Imagine if I’d made a massive wet patch in front of the sofa on her brand new Nordic loop. She’d have been beside herself.

As it was, the puddle ran all the way under the coffee table and out the other side, where it hit Tiddlywink’s foot. Apparently Tiddlywink didn’t move a muscle, she just stood rigid and watched it soaking into the blue velvet of her Little Mermaid slipper. That child is one cool cookie, nothing fazes her. By the time I came round and got back downstairs in some dry clothes, it was all mopped up, and we got in before the Friday night rush at A&E. But, needless to say, I don’t want to relive that. Especially not in front of the happy gardeners.

Plum is waiting for me by the door, her paint-spattered overalls looking a lot like her sea pictures. ‘Everything okay?’

I nod. ‘I don’t do flashing lights, I’ll go for a walk instead.’ I’d rather they didn’t know the details.