Winter at Pretty Beach by Polly Babbington (inspirational books txt) 📕

Chapter 10

Sallie sprinkled hot chocolate powder into a saucepan of hot milk, stirred it round, grabbed a flask from the cupboard above and poured the hot chocolate into the flask.

With the flask in a basket, a paper bag with some of Holly’s gingerbread buns and a couple of hand warmers just in case, she stepped out of the Boat House doors, walked over the pebble drive as Ben was putting his coat on and closing the door to the workshop. He jumped over the little fence between the two properties to meet her.

‘Ready to go?’ He asked, putting his hand gently on her waist and kissing her on the cheek.

‘Yep - I’ve got the hot chocolate, the gingerbread and some hand warmers. That’ll be enough, won’t it?’

‘Yeah, we’ll stop in the pub on the way home too, that’ll warm us up - nothing like a cosy pub, a warm fire and a cold day.’

They started walking up through the laneway, through Pretty Beach to the wharf and watched the ferry chugging around into the bay, the sea strangely calm for the time of year.

Sallie wrapped her coat around her, pulled her gloves out of her pocket and put them on as the ferry sounded its horn in the distance.

‘Are we nuts, going for a walk along a canal when it’s really cold and there’s a layer of snow on the ground?’ She asked, pulling her gloves on and looking up at the sky.

‘I’m getting used to it being married to you!’ Ben joked and took her hand as they strolled down to the end of the wharf. ‘We’ll be fine, and the towpath down by the canal is always full of walkers whatever time of the year - in my humble opinion a bit of light snow on the ground makes everything, well, as you would say, twinkle.’

They sat on the bench at the ferry stop, watching the ferry in the distance slowly making its way into Pretty Beach. Ben got out his phone and started to scroll through the houses for sale website with Sallie, hand on his leg, leaning over looking at the listings. He scrolled to the top, changed the search to newly listed and three new properties came up - a farmhouse over Strawberry Hill way which as they flicked through the images Sallie oohed and ahhed at, a fully renovated cottage in Mermaids, and a house in the Old Town which looked promising.

Ben clicked on the photos on the Old Town house and opened the listing - it ticked a few of their boxes being in the right location, was bigger than their apartment which was the main reason for their house hunting and it was still near to the sea which was a must-have. As they looked at it further, though, they saw that someone had also decided to stick a very modern extension on the back, knock out all the interior walls so it was open-plan and had annihilated the beautiful old fireplaces by either ripping them out or boarding them up.

Sallie shook her head vehemently, tutting.

‘I’m guessing that’s a no then.’ Ben said, laughing.

‘It should be against the law to block up a fireplace and put in a modern gas fire with pebbles,’ Sallie said and shuddered.

‘I quite like that modern look,’ Ben replied, chuckling.

‘Hmm, can we please just ascertain here that I do not.’

‘Ha, like I didn’t know that already - I’ve spent the last few months searching for Victorian houses with fireplaces in the Old Town and trying to persuade you to have a look at anything that was built after 1900...’

‘It just hurts my heart, Ben, to see all these old houses ripped apart - and all this cheaply made stuff with inferior materials breaks in a few years and then has to go into landfill when the good workmanship when the house was built could have been saved in the first place.’ She took a breath in about to continue with her rant about old houses and how it was criminal what people were allowed to do to them, or worse, knock them down.

‘Here we go - the floorboards, the chimneys, the windows were made to last.’ Ben said, chuckling and smiling.

Sallie started laughing; he closed his phone and put his arm around her as they sat there and watched the ferry churn up the water as it pulled into the wharf. Ben checked with the crew hand it was running to Pearl Beach.

‘Yeah mate, this one is the slow service, so we’re stopping at all the beaches to Newport Reef. You’ll need to check on the way home though, the Winter service isn’t as regular and only on the hour from Darling all the way through to Pretty Beach.’

‘Thanks, yep, okay, the app’s right then, good. I’ll make sure we check it before we head home.’

‘Yeah, make sure you do - the bus runs all the way through at this time of year too, so you’re all good.’

They stepped onto the ferry, sat up the top in the warm and looked out at the coastline as the old ferry meandered along stopping at Mermaid Beach, Seafolly Bay, then Ladybird Cove, Darling Beach and then finally Pearl Beach where they got off, waved cheerio to the crew hand and started to walk into the small town.

Tiny cobbled streets surrounded a harbour wall packed with colourful fishing boats topped with a small walkway pier all the way out to the sea where an old Victorian clock tower looked out to the ocean at the end.

Sallie looked around as the sails of the boats clinked overhead and harsh cold air whipped in off the sea, ‘Well this is lovely - how come I haven’t been here? It’s odd seeing as it’s right next door to Pretty Beach’

‘I know, when I mentioned the canal before I was surprised you hadn’t been to Pearl Beach.’ Ben replied.

‘I think it’s because it takes longer to get to Pearl Beach by ferry even though