Changing Seasons. Summer part 2

Chapter 2 I found out what I’d let myself in for! I figured I was going to have to keep her sweet. I mean – I could see and hear her. What if she decided to pay a visit to Old Perch and tell him all about me. I’d told her my name! And I really didn’t want to be found.
“As you can see, my dear Clara, this fascinating building has been sadly neglected. Not to say vandalised. You could be of immense help – for one thing, these walls could be scrubbed clean.” Quick! Find an excuse! A polite one!
“I don’t think my nailbrush is going to be up to shifting that,” I said politely, pointing at the nearest wall. "And I don’t want to ruin it. Clean nails are one of the hallmarks of a gentlewoman, I always think.”
And it’s true. Nice, clean, unpainted nails, and people think you’re much more innocent than you really are. A nice open-eyed gaze helps too. “Oh, I do so agree with you. But I know where you might find some cleaning implements. There’s a house over there” – she gestured – “long empty now, but it used to belong to the caretaker of the graveyard. The other graveyard, but he also took care of this one too, as a kindness. You could go and investigate as to whether there was anything left behind. I know the house was not properly cleared.” “Steal something?” I was beginning to like this old biddy, but I did the sounding shocked thing.
“Borrow,” she said firmly. “For a good cause. Naturally, if a new caretaker were to be appointed, we would return his possessions.” I saw what Adelaide-Miss-Kirk-to-you meant when I got to the house. Anything left there was fair pickings. And it looked like the same wall artists had been busy here too. I went in carefully. Breaking my ankle by putting it through a rotten floorboard would be a seriously bad move. But actually the wood wasn’t rotten – I think the holes were where floorboards had been ripped out for firewood. The stairs bore my weight too, and so I raided kitchen and bathroom alike. And Addy was right. A quick search round did produce leftover cleaning stuff. Including a washboard and tub – easier than washing my underwear under the tap. I swiped – sorry, borrowed – some old bits of rag as well to use as cleaning cloths. I had a feeling I was going to be forced to use them And boy, was I right! She had me scrubbing the graffiti off the walls – my arms ached so much afterwards. And then she started me on the floors as well. And that church had a lot of floor! If I’d known what I was letting myself in for, I’d never have picked this place to stay. And she supervised me! Told me how to do it properly. “This lovely building deserves to be treated with more respect,” she said. I cleaned up in the vestry on my own initiative. Dear Great Aunt Addy didn’t seem to think the vestry mattered as much, but I was living here. If out there was going to be clean, so was in here. Then it was, “Get the broom to those cobwebs. We don’t need that many spiders in here.” “Now the next thing that needs cleaning is…”
Oh no, lady. I’ve been inside cleaning for you for long enough. Time to stand up for myself a bit before you walk all over me. I put on my sweetest smile.
“The next thing that needs cleaning is my lungs. All this dust I’ve been raising isn’t good for them, you know. And I saw another empty house over that way. I thought I’d see if anything got left behind there too.” I escaped before she could give me chapter and verse on who’d lived there.
“Ah yes,” she’d said, and I’d had a feeling a long story was coming. So I coughed a bit – well, a lot – and made my exit.
It was a nice-looking house, but in such an old-fashioned style! Someone with money had built it, I reckoned and had wanted to copy a house they’d seen somewhere else once. It was looking a bit the worse for wear now though. Paint! And a roller and a paintbrush. Someone had been thinking of smartening this up, and then given up. But I could use this. And a block of soap as well – and there was food in the garden, that I was coming back for tomorrow. And I was going to check upstairs tomorrow as well. But it was beginning to get dark and, ghost or no ghost, I’d rather be back at that church than out here on my own. That house led to a lot of finds – not of them all good.
Good thing though – the veg and fruit in the garden. Maybe I should learn how to cook more than just campfire food. If there was a greengrocer’s nearby, I could sell this stuff – I should ask Great Aunt Addie (sorry: Miss Kirk). Amazing thing – I found a bike! Upstairs, in one of the bedrooms. Complete with basket, which was going to make things a lot easier. Really worrying thing: Great Aunt Addie had assured me that the only person I needed to worry about was Old Smollett. And he lived by the pier, and fished. But here was a farm, obviously being tended. And someone living there. And if her name was Old Smollett, I’d eat the carpet that Great Aunt Addie wanted me to clean. I watched her from behind a tree for a while. There was someone else there too – male, but not old. What was I going to do if they spotted me?

This building and these characters were created by AlphaFen! https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9310815 Back story here: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17074021/#Comment_17074021

The Pole Renovacy Chapter 10

Chapter 10

This is based on Hi-de-Hi’s gift to me from the Holiday Gift Exchange. House here: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351043 And family here: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351042 One more year, and now the year had passed! The house had been extended a bit further. Tad had his easel and canvas and oils. And Ice had grown up and would be starting school.
“I’ll really miss having Miss Chandler for a teacher,” May said to Tad as he painted. “But Mr Norton’s great fun, everyone says. So it’ll be okay.” Ice still loved playing with cars! And he was still as friendly and outgoing as ever. Tad wasn’t worried about him starting school – he’d fit in just fine.
“Do I get Miss Chandler?”
“No. Not until you’re nine.”
“But I know her.” Ice did – this was a small town and from time to time, they’d met up when they were out, had a coffee together the four of them; occasionally Miss Chandler and May had fished together if they’d both been at the fishing pool at the same time. Tad was making the most of the end of the holidays. Teaching Ice to fish for a start-off, with May encouraging him and telling him how she’d found it hard at first, but he’d get there soon. He’d learn because she had learnt.
“And Dad’s a good teacher.” “Check out this Harbottle!” Tad yelled. May grinned at their private joke and Ice looked suitably impressed. Sure, he still had to keep an eye on Ice, but he didn’t have to carry him around anymore. They visited MamaD’s park and Tad could finally let his inner cowboy out. Then it was Ice’s turn to go wild on the waterslide, while May whacked a gnome for all she was worth. “Can I try this?”
“Yes, why not?” Tad didn’t have to say, no, we can’t afford it all the time now. Sure, they still had to be careful with their money, but it wasn’t the near-poverty that they had been living in when they first arrived. “Just one go?”
“You can have three tries. No more.”
“Three tries like three wishes!” Ice loved stories. “I wish for…”
“A bunny?”
“Maybe. A car would be best! But I can give the bunny to May.” “It dropped it!” Ice shook his fist at the machine.
“Sometimes that happens. Sometimes things get dropped. You’ve got two more goes if you want them.” Sometimes things get dropped. His and Star’s happy-ever-after had fallen through their fingers. But May and Ice were safe and well. You just have to have another go at things, Tad thought. He’d lost something so precious, but that didn’t mean that there was nothing at all left to enjoy. And this time Ice picked up the bunny and moved it safely to the drop zone. “It’s for you. Because you like pink.”
“Ice! Thank you so much! That’s so kind of you!”
“And come and see what I got too!” “I got a sheep! To go with the cow you drew for me.” And May put her pink bunny in her pink bedroom, next to her bed.
“So I can see it in the morning and it will make me feel cheerful.” This was it. Ice following his big sister out to the school bus. Something new for him and something new for Tad too. Time to paint. Time to paint a let’s-see-if-this-sells sort of picture as well as the ones that he knew would sell. Time to be an artist again. He’d missed this too, he realised – not as much as he’d missed Star, but that same feeling of something essential gone from his life. Yes, he liked that. He rather thought that he was a better painter than cook – though trying another new recipe probably wouldn’t hurt any. The menu at café Tad was getting predictable. “Look what I learnt how to do today!” It was an impressively neat knot.
“And I’m going to try a new recipe. We’re doing good, you and me. Well done!” Fish and chips. He could grow the potatoes, catch the fish – time to learn how to cook them as well! “This is really good! Ten-three, Dad!”
“What’s ten-three?” Ice asked.
“Ten good new meals, three dreadful ones,” May explained. “You won’t remember the early ones, but I do!” “Hi! How’s your day been? And how’s your new class?”
Two weeks into term now, and Tad had nipped out for a breath of fresh air in the evening while Ice and May played in the garden for a bit. He could hear them from here easily, having fun together.
It was nice to bump into Miss Chandler again. He missed her when they didn’t cross paths for a few weeks. Quite a lot, actually, now he thought about it. “I really miss last year’s class. There might have been some – interesting – children in it, but they were also interested. Lively. And bright. And you won’t repeat that to anyone, will you? I shouldn’t really have said it. It just slipped out.”
“Of course I won’t.”
“No. I know I can trust you.” “It must be hard being a teacher in a smallish place like this,” Tad said, slowly and thoughtfully. “You can’t really talk to anyone, can you?”
“No. Especially given how fast gossip can spread in this digital age. It’s very lonely sometimes.”
Tad knew lonely. And he could see it in Bindi’s face.
“You deserve better than lonely. You give so much to others.” He took a deep breath.
“I’d like to help.”
“Really?” The efficient teacher was gone, and the somewhat isolated young woman was looking at him, her heart in her eyes.
“Really,” Tad said gently.
“Really and truly.” “But what will May say?” Bindi asked as they came up for air.
“She already loves you,” Tad said. “She’s told me so more than once. Will you come and be part of our family? I miss you so much when I don’t see you. And now that you’re not teaching May…”
“It makes things so much easier. I’ve been being so careful to be professional – but yes, I’ve missed you too when I haven’t seen you for a while.” That night, after May and Ice were safely asleep, Tad went out into the garden and looked up into the night sky. At the stars. And thought about Star. What would she think? But he did know. He knew what she would say, because she’d said it to him before she died, telling him to listen, this was important. “Don’t forget me. But don’t remember me like this either. Remember all the joys we shared. Tell May and Ice our good stories.” She’d paused to gather more strength.
“And love again, Tad. When the time is right, be able to love again. I want you to be able to be happy again. Because I love you.”

“Thank you, Star,” Tad said into the night. “Thank you for everything.”

Changing Seasons, Summer part 1

Summer Part 1 Take it from me, if you want to disappear, summer is the time to do it. End of the school year, and no-one’s going to worry about you until the autumn term. Not when there isn’t anyone to worry about you anyway. And everyone will just assume you’ve changed schools when you don’t go back to the old one. Not that anyone’s going to be going back to our old school anyway. Not until it’s been rebuilt. It sort of caught fire. Nothing to do with me of course – nothing that anyone could prove, anyway. But I had a feeling it was time to get lost again. And I’d seen this town on some programme – mostly about its graveyard, but it had appeal. A ghost town, they’d called it. Long gone downhill from its Victorian roots, but the church had looked good and solid. From the outside, anyway. And the inside looked promising too. A bit draughty, but not damp, not round here. Nice and cool in fact, after the heat outside. Was my luck in! This must have been the vestry once upon a time. I didn’t much fancy the look of the bed, but that’s why I’d got my sleeping bag. I remembered that the programme had interviewed the town’s one inhabitant – a guy called Old Pike or Old Trout, or something like that – and made a big thing of how there was power and water still on because he wouldn’t move out. They seemed to think that he was some kind of hero or something, standing up to the company that had wrecked the town with their pollution. But power and water were what I was hoping for – water especially. Yep! Now with a bit of luck, behind that other door there would be… …Just what I was hoping for! A good old-fashioned toilet! And –even more than I was hoping for – a shower! This place would do very nicely indeed. This will be a great base for a while. The thing is to always have somewhere that you’ve come from, a place you can describe. Now let’s see what I can find in the way of food to add to my supplies. I’ve got dried foods – and I am very good at making a fire for heating water – but a bit of fresh food never goes amiss. And I know how to forage for things. I remembered this place from the TV programme. Used to be a thriving community garden and orchard, they said, and look at it now...Well, there’s still some stuff surviving and I’ll have it. And hopefully there’ll be some fish somewhere too. Always pack a collapsible fishing rod, I say. And some matches, of course. Must steer clear of Old Minnow, or whatever his name was. People do so like to see teenagers shut up in a school. There we are! I found some odds and ends in the building, did a bit of re-purposing, and voilà! One outdoor cooking facility! I’m setting it up at the back of the church – don’t want Old Whitebait spotting it from the front. And there’s plenty of old brambles to pull over it when I’m done, make it look like it’s been here for years. Clara Hayes, you have fallen on your feet here. Well and truly. Nothing’s going to spoil this for me. “And just who do you think you are? Taking things out of the church building? Messing around?” Whoa! What was this? Who was this? I couldn’t possibly be looking at a ghost – could I? “Well? What are you doing here? Up to no good, I’ll be bound. I can see right through you, young lady…”
Hang on. I’m not going to be harangued by a bossy ghost.
“See right through me, can you? Well, there’s a coincidence…And as for what I’m doing, it’s none of your business. If I want to spend my summer holidays investigating…um…the architecture of old churches, what’s it got to do with you?” “You come waltzing into my home without so much as a by-your-leave and ask what it has to do with me?” The ghost actually sniffed, in a decidedly annoyed way.
That got to me. I hadn’t liked it when the social workers had done that to me when I was younger. “Haven’t you been taught to knock and wait? Or to introduce yourself properly?”
You don’t get as far in life as I have done without learning when to trim your sails to the prevailing wind. And I am good at presenting the front people want to see. “Good afternoon. May I introduce myself? Miss Clara Hayes at your service. I must say you have a fascinating residence here. I’m charmed to make your acquaintance.” “Adelaide Kirk. Miss Adelaide Kirk. Miss Kirk to you.” Gosh, she was just like some scary schoolteacher. In fact, I bet that was what she had been when she was alive. But she was definitely sounding a bit mollified by my politeness.
“I will be happy to assist you with your researches into this fine building. In fact, I think you could be an invaluable ally in aiding its preservation. In my current state, alas, there are various things I cannot do.”
Hang on. Invaluable ally? Aiding its preservation? What did this old bat have in mind for me to do?


This building and these characters were created by AlphaFen!
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9310815
Back story here: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17074021/#Comment_17074021