Last night, after the children had gone to bed, Claire, Franceska, Polly and I had sat around the kitchen table, discussing plans for the house and drinking wine. Well I’d actually lain on the table, and dozed while half listening to them. Polly had already hired the builders, and they had done some of the work before we arrived — although, as the cottage looked as if it needed a lot more, I wasn’t sure what. But anyway, they were now going to be working under Polly’s supervision.
First job was to get the utility room knocked through to the back door so the sandy children could be contained. It had now been christened the‘sand room’. Apart from that, the main job they were starting on was the attic that I hadn’t seen. They were going to turn the space, which was apparently huge, into two bedrooms and a bathroom, which would be the children’s floor. The idea was that the boys could sleep up there in one room, the girls in another and a bathroom would adjoin the two rooms. They were keen to get that done so the children had their space first. Being a parent myself now, I was learning that parents were like that — always putting the children first. I knew from ‘discussions’ with the men that the house wasn’t being done up extravagantly but Polly knew how to get the best without paying the earth, and they had persuaded the men that if it was worth doing it was worth doing as well as they could. Basically it was costing a lot of money, but at the same time it would definitely be worth more than it was now by the time they finished. It made economic sense, Claire kept saying, but I had no idea what that meant. I just hoped that it was a bit brighter and more comfortable when they finished. All this cat needed from his holiday home.
However, they were all confident that at the end they would have a gorgeous second home and I know Claire spoke dreamily of the children all holidaying here with their families one day. Cynical Jonathan muttered often that it would be sold at some point but I knew when he came here again with the children and saw how much we loved it he’d fall in love too. Anyway, I digress. I watched as the breakfast dishes were cleared away, and then when George went to play with the children, I cleaned myself up and got ready for our day.
We had been out for a runaround and seen the children off for their trip to the beach but I’d had to restrain George once again. He was so eager to go but I’d told him we needed to check it out together, to make sure it was safe for cats. After all, I could see that water was involved, so we needed to be cautious. And Claire hadn’t suggested taking us so I didn’t want to take anychances.
‘George, we’ll go a bit later so we can check it out properly,’ I said sensibly.
‘But I want to go now,’ George persisted.
‘George, be a good kitten, we can’t just do what we want, you know that. Anyway, I promise if you are good today I will take you later.’
‘OK,’ he conceded but he didn’t really like having to give in.
I was just about to lead George back in the house when a van pulled up outside. A stocky man got out and made his way towards us.
‘Well hello,’ he said, bending down to stroke us both. We both purred and nuzzled into him. He was big and burly, with not much hair. The front door opened and Polly emerged clutching a mug.
‘Hey, Colin, nice to see you,’ she said. She was wearing flip-flops, her hair was tied back and she was smiling broadly. Polly was beautiful, she used to be a model, and I saw Colin’s eyes light up at the sight of her. She had that effect on people.
‘Alright, Mrs, I mean Polly. How are you?’ he said, striding towards her. We trotted along after him.
‘Good, although chaotic. Right, come in and we’ll go through the plans again. When are your men getting here? We really are on a tight schedule.’ Her forehead wrinkled in worry.
‘I’ve got three lads and the big van on the way, don’t you worry.’ He was cheerful with an accent I hadn’t heard before, but it was nice and friendly; a Devon accent maybe?
We followed them as they headed to the kitchen where Polly showed him what she wanted doing with the utility.
‘That won’t be a problem. I see what you mean, you want to knock through so you come in the back, straight in there, and don’t get a desert of sand in the house.’
‘Exactly. We’ve got six children, as well as the two cats, it can get messy.’
‘So, you’ll be using the cottage a lot then?’ Colin scratched his head.
‘Yes, that’s the plan. As there are three families there’ll be someone in the cottage most of the year I expect. I mean, holidays definitely but also weekends — we want to use it, not just have it empty most of the year. We want it to be a home.’
‘That’s good, Seabreeze needs some love, that’s for sure,’ Colin said.
‘It’d be good to get the downstairs toilet cordoned off.’ It was in the utility space but there was no door on it.
‘Right you are.’ He seemed agreeable. ‘We won’t order a new toilet until we order the rest of the bathrooms though, to keep costs down.’
‘That’s fine, if we can get a door that’ll do for now.’ Polly beamed. She was in her element. Since going to study interior design when the children reached a certain age, Polly had bloomed. She’d been modelling before she had Henry, and then she’d been a full-time mum to him and Martha. When she first arrived on Edgar Road, Henry was a baby and Polly was suffering from postnatal depression. It had taken a while but she’d recovered, thankfully. Last year, when Matt was made redundant from his job, Polly had thrown herself into interior design work. She had worked long hours in that job, it’d been difficult for both her and Matt, but now she freelanced, which meant she got to pick and choose her jobs a bit more carefully and, although she had some work to do, she was able to do most of it while sorting out the cottage, which was definitely lucky.
I felt exhausted as I followed them round, listening again to what was going to be done. It was another good thing about being a cat, we got to live in houses (well the lucky ones did) without having to worry about all this.
‘Right, well when the lads get here we’ll get stuck in. It might be best if the kids stay out of the way, and the cats,’ he said, pointing at George and me. ‘We don’t have hard hats to fit cats.’ He laughed at his joke, although I didn’t get it.
‘Don’t worry, the children will be out as long as this weather stays, and the cats are very clever,’ Polly said, picking George up.
‘Fingers crossed the rain stays off,’ Colin said.
Yes, paws crossed. If we had to stay out of the way at least the sun should be shining for us.
Shortly after that, a larger van pulled up. It blocked all our cars in, not that we needed them, and three men, younger than Colin, each with more hair, jumped out. Suddenly there was a lot of noise and bustle. It was clear we would be better out of the way. I looked at George, and thought perhaps we could risk checking the beach out now.
‘Remember, George, don’t leave my side and be very vigilant,’ I said as we slid under the gate.
‘Yes, Dad, of course,’ he replied. His fur was bristling with excitement, I could see how much this meant to him. We stood on the pavement, there were cars driving slowly past, as the road was quite narrow, and there were lots of cars parked on the road opposite. When it was safe we crossed. Weboth jumped up onto a wall and looked out onto the beach.
Wow, I had never seen anything like it. There was a lot of flat sand, but also these sandy hills which looked like a lot of fun. The sand was yellow in colour, there was grass poking out of the hills, and in the distance I could see the water but it looked as if it was miles away.
However, before we could go further I spotted a real danger.
‘Oh, George, look, there’s a dog,’ I yelled, moving closer to my boy protectively. I saw a solitary dog running around in circles nearby. How annoying, the whole beach could have been ours but a dog was going to ruin it. However, just as I was going to get George and run back to the cottage, a man came up to the owner.