Beneath the surface 6

November 8th
My last day in England. I met up with Jen in Boscombe garden’s clock café. That little café made the best soup in the world and sold the best carrot cake and chocolate brownies ever! I was going to miss it; actually thinking about it - it was amazing what you missed while you were away : toasted cheese and pickle sandwiches, friends, Cadburys chocolate and home made carrot cake.
Anyway Jen and I sat giggling when Jill, soup maker extraordinaire, came over wearing her most appropriate soup making outfit: white jacket, white hat and dark blue trousers. Jill was salt of the earth and you could only imagine the delight on her face when she created a new soup flavour.
‘We’re going to miss you Felicity. I always know when the pair of you’re here because there’s always raucous laughing. You know I thought about you and your travels and came up with the idea of a silver flask being parachuted into Antarctica.’
‘Good idea, but Antarctica is pretty huge,’ I said.
‘We’ll need a homing device then,’ said Jill matter of factly.
‘Jill you know I’m going to really miss your carrot cake… Please make me a whole carrot cake for my return…’
‘Will do, we’ll ice it with your name on. It’ll be waiting,’ she said. ‘In the mean time I’ll be wishing on the star for Mummy Jills café to come about. You know how I wish on that star…’ she said with her hand on her hip.
She was such a star herself and I genuinely wished that her dream would come true by the time I returned.
‘I hope it works,’ I said.
Jill grinned, ‘it will,’ she said toddling off.
Jen sighed and shook her head; her female partner in raucous laughter crime was abandoning her.
‘I can’t believe you’re buggering off on a ship! I feel so abandoned. What about Salsa? God I’m going to miss you. I don’t blame you though. Business is crap. The winter is coming. God I wish I was going too,’ she said with a loud sigh.
‘You could go if you really wanted to,’ I replied.
‘You know I can’t leave my business,’ she said shaking her head.
Her business was recruitment and at that time in England, where job losses were thick and fast, it was probably the worst job she could have, other than banking.

The rest of the afternoon was spent packing. I am such a limited packer. I just took two of everything except knickers and socks of course - I take more of those. My mum once asked whether people on World cruises took a pair of knickers for each day. I have never found out the answer but it would explain why some women turned up with twenty four suitcases. They probably wore very large knickers!