Changing Seasons. Summer IV, part 1

Summer IV, part 1 I can’t quite believe this! Me, Clara Hayes, just told someone where I came from. Well, Great Aunt Addie knows, but she doesn’t exactly count. She’s pretty safe really. Marcus asked me if I was homesick ever – Patience misses Woodville sometimes, though Marianna doesn’t miss Harbour Bay, which sounds like a really romantic place but was actually a dirty, run-down, polluted industrial port. And did I miss…and I said “Grisburg? No, not at all!” And just then Blake came into the room, and Marcus just said he was glad living here was such an improvement, and we didn’t mention it again. Marcus might be a bit happy-go-lucky on the surface, but he’s got a deeper side too, and he knows a bit about my past from what I’ve told Annette. I still can’t quite believe I said it though.
Actually, I think what I can’t quite believe is that I’ve found people I can trust. No, I didn’t suddenly redecorate my room. And no again, the river hasn’t moved. This is me living with Marcus and Annette. Staying there for the time being. After Annette had talked to me and Marianna, she talked to Marcus. And told him how she was really feeling. Then Lachlan took a fairly stunned Marcus for a long walk, told Marcus his own story (he’s learnt a lot from Great Aunt Addie!) and generally encouraged Marcus along the lines of You Haven’t Completely Blown It, You Know.
Then Patience and Euan talked to him as well. And then Marcus really got the bit between his teeth (you can tell I’ve been chatting to Artie, can’t you?). Once he’d understood…I mean, we all knew he cared about Annette, but he surprised us all by how far he was going to go for her. Major building works! And major spending too. The church renovations are still going to start on schedule, but most of the already saved money has been used. Though as Marcus said, this is looking like a good crop, so it might not make any difference.
The back of the house is bigger! This is the kitchen extension, kitchen table extension, new dishwasher. And in the extra bit, a laundry room. Washing machine, dryer for the wet days, clotheslines outside in a nice fenced area, sink and storage shelves at the other end. I asked Marcus how he’d found the yellow appliances and he looked at me like I was a bit dumb.
“It’s Annette’s favourite colour. I had them painted specially. I knew it would make her happy.”
It did. She all but hugged them! And upstairs, where there was a huge open space that they kept meaning to do something about as soon as they had time and definitely before the baby arrived, there are now lots of finished rooms. There’s Mary’s current bedroom, the one I’m in now (which is for Mary when she’s out of a cot. So not for a while yet), an ensuite shower and toilet for this room, another bedroom for the new baby and Marcus and Annette’s bedroom is now huge! So why is yours truly here? Because the other thing Annette admitted she wanted was company. Female company. She can’t be out in the fields with Marcus all day long any more, doing the things they’ve always done together. And she’s lonely.
So they both asked if I’d come and stay for a bit. Annette actually cried when she said how much I meant to her. Marcus begged – and there was a suspicious gleam of moisture in his eyes too. And me? Well, let’s just say it was a good job that there were plenty of paper tissues around… Clara Hayes, you’ve changed. I have exams in a few weeks and I want to pass them, and pass them well. So I’d better get studying in my spare time, and I must admit that working here is pretty close to ideal. Annette says I can take the desk with me when I move into my own place. I’m planning to do a few more exams next year. Looks promising, doesn’t it? After all, that’s a hundred per cent increase in my potato crop. Two bad quality potatoes. And the pumpkins? Half of them I can only describe as putrid. The other half’s not as bad – merely foul. I can’t sell these. More planting and fertilising and maybe these will get better. It’s a good job I’ve got so much other work, or I’d be starving to death and all my clothes would have holes in them. I’ve been able to paint the walls though. I’ve bought a table and a chair. I’ve hung up my certificates (working for Marcus got me some qualifications!). But this is still just the barn. I’m no closer to rebuilding the house.
And I’ve been so busy as well! I’m just about finding enough time for the basics on the garden, and it’s taken me weeks to paint the walls. I haven’t seen anyone else apart from Marcus, Caleb and Chris for ages. And Annette and Clara as well, of course. I don’t count Mary as she’s still so young. I’ve smartened up my outhouse bathroom as well. Artie gave me his left-over blue paint. I figured painting the furniture would be easy – Clara does it no problem – but it turned out to be a lot harder than whitewashing the walls. I don’t seem to have got the same smooth finish that she does. Good job she’s not going to see this! Fish for dinner – again! But I can’t eat at Marcus and Annette’s every night. And I do know that the fish is fresh. And the leftover bits went into the good old fish bucket. I will improve those crops, one way or another! “It’s starting to look real nice downstairs now – Old Tench and I, we did a good job on the walls and the floor.” Artie had been writing to Bess.
“Still a bit bare, of course, but I cleaned up the bits of furniture that were in here, and the rug – turned out it had a pattern and I never knew! – and that Clara bought me a plant for the room. She said now she’s driving the tractor, she’s got money to spare, so she asked Minnie to find her one that was pretty hard to kill. Called it a house-warming present…” “I got your card – real pretty it looks, up on my new notice board above my nicely cleaned-up desk, that’s all set up for writing letters. I found some old letter trays on one of those factories and cleaned them up, and they hold everything nicely: paper, pen, ink and letters. Minnie acts as postmistress for us all as well.
I’ve got a recipe up there too that Annette gave me. Minnie’s even stocking magazines now! So I said if anyone finds any easy recipes, can I have them when they’re done with the magazine? I’m not really much of a cook, and I could do with getting a little better if I’m going to have someone else living here.” But, like he’d said in his previous letter, he was still worried about Old Tench.
“That Maddie, she’s got her claws into that Blake guy and she’s been filling him up with stories about how noble and kind she is, and he hasn’t the wit to see through her…”
A knock at the front door brought Artie up from his seat and over to answer it, wondering who it might be. Not Old Tench: he’d just walk straight in, calling out on the way. Not Clara – too firm a knock. Rafe or Leo perhaps: they’d got nice manners and would always knock. But it wasn’t Rafe or Leo. It was a broad, well-muscled young man, carrying an enormous backpack.
“Mr Arthur Campbell?”
“Yep, that’s me.”
“I’ve come in answer to your advertisement.” English accent, too.
“My name’s Chas. Chas Woodside.” Well, Chas Woodside was bigger and heavier than Blake!
“Um, no offence, Mr Woodside, but I am after a jockey. And you’re a bit – well – big.”
“Oh, I know. Much as I love horses, I’ll never ride them competitively. No…” And as he stepped into the house, Artie saw the person who’d been hidden behind Chas and his backpack.
“It’s my sister who wants to be the jockey.” “No, Sal’s not a runaway." (Did this guy know loads of teenage runaways?) "I’m twenty-one years old, and I’m her legal guardian, since our dad died, six months ago. And really, that’s why we’re here. You see, when we went to the solicitor to get probate, we got this big surprise. A packet of papers that went back ages. A marriage certificate, a birth certificate – and we found out about our ancestor…” “Ancestor? Woodside? Chas Woodside? You telling me Charles Woodside was your ancestor? I thought he was kind of aristocratic or something? Shouldn’t you be going round with a butler or a footman in tow? And didn’t he get shipped out here for getting some girl into trouble?” “No,” Sal said bluntly. “He didn’t get her into trouble. He married her. Well, his family didn’t know he’d married her, but he had. And shipped out is exactly what happened – he woke up to find himself two days out at sea on the way here. She died in childbirth, ten months after they got married." Artie could tell that this story meant something to Sal, that she cared about the people in it. A caring heart - you needed that, to ride well.
"His letters to her were in the packet as well – he’d written and told her what had happened, and she was going to come out and join him once the baby had been born and she felt up to the voyage. But she died. And her parents told him that the child had died too – they didn’t want to lose their grandchild, their link with her.” Chas picked up the story.
“They moved somewhere new. They sold their farm, and they used the money Charles had sent to pay the passage: they decided it was okay to do that, as this was for his son. And they brought the child up by his true and legitimate name, Woodside. Michael Charles Woodside. I think that they were afraid for Michael, given what the family had done to his father, because they said that these papers were only to be opened by Michael’s great-grandchildren. Us.” “So we found out about where he went to, obviously. It was interesting, but nothing more – we weren’t planning to come here. And then we saw your advertisement. And it seemed like it was meant to be. I want to be a jockey.”
There was a determination about Sal that impressed Artie.
“So. How much riding experience you got?”
“I joined the local pony club when I was four. I was riding as soon as I could be put on the back of a horse – our grandparents were farmers, but they both loved riding too. Dad was an engineer, so he sold the farm after his parents died, but horses have always been part of my life. Dad paid for riding lessons, I mucked out at the stables, Chas worked there too…”
“Six month trial. And then if Old Pete likes you, and if I’m satisfied with your riding, we’ll make it permanent. For as long as you want to ride for me.”


Blake and his house were made by Jessabeans. Link here for Blake
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9352926
and here for the house
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9352888
which I tweaked slightly to fit in with the landscape and the story.

An Old Jockey’s Nightmare is here: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9394756 and that was by LMC6254, for the SummerFest gift exchange.
So were Artie and Old Pete https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9394755
I’ve altered the buildings very slightly, to fit in with the town – the telegraph poles are by Cyclone Sue at TSR.
The notice board and things on it and the mugs etc are by Sandy at ATS3