Second Thyme Around by Katie Fforde

work out how to seat four people round her little gate-leg table without anyone sitting with the leg inelegantly between their knees. Eventually she managed it, providing that William wouldn’t mind having his knee pressed up against the leg. She also hoped William wouldn’t mind being the only man.
    Still, she thought, it would be difficult for him not to appreciate Janey, with her ravishing hair, green eyes and wide mouth. She didn’t need to be self-deprecating to feel that set against Kitty, beautiful indeed, but nearly ninety, and herself, passable, but older than William, and his boss, Janey was bound to shine. Which was the point of the exercise.
    In a washing up bowl, usually used to sprout pea seeds, was a hotchpotch of all she had in the garden and in her tunnels – broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, beet tops, Swiss chard, and some Good King Henry, in fact everything that she could find which looked like green veg.
    Kitty often wondered aloud how it was that Perdita was such a talented gardener and such an untalented cook. Kitty herself, when she could be bothered, was an excellent cook, feeling that if you’ve gone to so much trouble to grow the vegetables, surely they should reach the table at their very best.
    Perdita perfectly agreed with her, but as she usually ate things raw or stir-fried, the thought of cooking a lot of vegetables which all had to be ready at the same time, daunted her. Kitty, she hoped, would take pity and cook
them for her. In case she didn’t, Perdita had bought some carrots, which she was roasting in the oven under the meat.
    For pudding, Perdita had made Kitty’s version of trifle, which took a maximum of ten minutes to prepare and tasted delicious, even if it was very liquid and alcoholic.
    Perdita was collapsed in front of the wood-burning stove, which was blazing well, when Kitty arrived. She had walked over with a basket containing the promised sherry and wine, but also some ground coffee and a box of chocolates.
    Perdita kissed the wrinkled cheek offered her, and then hugged Kitty hard. Although they loved each other dearly, they usually kept their embraces fairly restrained. But Perdita was overcome with a rush of love for her elderly friend – probably, the slightly surprised friend commented, because she knew that Kitty was going to help her out in a difficult situation.
    ‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’ Perdita demanded. ‘Otherwise I shall just take your goodies and send you back out into the snow.’ She took the basket. ‘You shouldn’t have carried all those heavy things. You should have let me collect you in the van.’
    ‘My dear child,’ replied Kitty, allowing Perdita to relieve her of her ancient, but politically incorrect fur coat, ‘when I can’t walk a few hundred yards with a couple of bottles of wine and a box of chocolates, I hope you’ll have me humanely put to sleep.’
    Perdita ignored this. ‘I hope no one saw you wearing this coat,’ she said, taking the offending item. ‘They might throw things at you.’
    ‘Nonsense, that coat is even older than I am and it’s warm. Why shouldn’t I wear it?’
    Perdita didn’t waste her breath explaining again. ‘Well, if you leave it to me I won’t know what to do with it.’
    ‘I’m not going to leave it to you. It’s going to Sylvia, my bridge partner.’
    ‘Oh, you’ve got a bridge partner, have you? I thought no one ever played with you twice?’
    Kitty chuckled richly. ‘They don’t, but Sylvia kindly takes me to my bridge afternoons and brings me home, so I’ve promised her this coat. She doesn’t worry about animals which have been dead for hundreds of years. Now, have I time for a quick pipe before the others come? Then I’ll see what a muddle you’ve got into in the kitchen.’
    Kitty smoked her pipe looking at Perdita’s flower garden, taking the opportunity to do a bit of dead heading while she was about it, and then went into the kitchen.
    ‘What time are they coming?’