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

simply listened, taken on Sallie’s point of view and offered some little nuggets of kindly advice.

‘Wise. You’ve got enough on your plate at the moment, too,’ Juliette said, taking a sip of her tea.

‘Yep and it’s been such a busy few years. What about you, how’s work?’ Sallie asked and leant forward on the table.

‘Same, really busy - the new student is brilliant though and it’s really helped with the load, just hoping the funding continues.’

‘And Will?’ Sallie looked at Juliette expectantly. Juliette had met Will through Ben. He was one of Ben’s best friends and had been down for the weekend from the City one Saturday when Juliette was coming over for dinner. They’d ended up staying up into the early hours with a few bottles of wine, sitting down by the water and having a lovely time. The two of them had clicked and chatted for hours.

‘Not much more to tell than you already know.’ Juliette looked over and checked to see that Maggie wasn’t listening.

‘He’s nice but I’m not going there - not after what happened with Jeremy and the divorce and everything.’

‘Right,’ Sallie replied.

‘I’ve just got too much to think about.’ She pointed to Maggie, ‘I’ve got the girls to think about and then he’s in charge of all those children - I suppose it could be very complicated and I wouldn't want to even get started on it all... we’ll see what happens, but if you want the truth, it’s a no from me.’

Sallie finished off her tea, ‘I’m with you, no point in rushing into things. By the way, did you see the little cottage right down the end of the lane is for sale?’

‘Yes, I saw the board go up. Shame I’m not ready to go yet, not that I’m sure if I’d be able to afford it, but it’s so tightly held down this road, it’ll be forever before another one comes up.’

Chapter 6

Sallie woke up early after a night of strong winds and a huge blizzard. The snow had been lighter at first, but then, just as predicted, the winds lessened in the middle of the night and heavy snow started to fall.

She lay there thinking about Pretty Beach and whether or not the marquee had fared well in the storm and about living in the little apartment over the Boat House - it had started to get ever-so-slightly too small but Sallie didn’t want to live at Ben's house. It was modern and cold to her and so he’d suggested that they start tentatively being on the lookout for a house.

She’d thought about it for a while and agreed that they needed more space, and the more they’d talked about it and after seeing the odd one here and there, the more she had her heart set on an old Victorian house overlooking the sea. She lay there staring up at the ceiling listening to Ben’s breathing in and out and thought that there was one small problem with that - old Victorian houses overlooking the sea didn’t come along very often in Pretty Beach, if at all.

Sallie turned over slowly and quietly so as not to wake Ben and pulled back the curtain to watch the snow falling over the water. Soft, fluffy, snowflakes floated down over the back deck and onto the jetty and started layering another sweet coating of pure white over everything outside. It looked like just a scene from a postcard, only prettier.

Ben stirred and turned over. Sallie lay dead still - she wanted to get up quietly without waking him, put her dressing gown on and go and make a cup of coffee. Then she’d sit down by the French doors and watch the snow float down prettily over the rooftops of Pretty Beach. She waited a couple of minutes until she was sure he’d gone back to sleep, then gently pulled off the covers and slipped quietly out of bed.

She sat on the sofa with a coffee topped with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles, under a thick white rosette quilt with the curtains pulled back and the whole of Pretty Beach in front of her blanketed in white. She sat there for a few minutes watching it all and then opened up the spreadsheets on her laptop - there were a few weddings booked in over the next few months, a couple of Christmas work events and a Christmas party for the staff of White Cottage flowers. She’d thought twice about working so close to Christmas but people were willing to pay a premium and so she’d decided to go for it.

All the events were easy with straightforward menus, and the decor would be simple enough -  a very simple Christmas theme of golden lights and a huge real fir tree. Sallie was more than happy to make Christmas at Boat House Enterprises happen - she loved Christmas and Winter and everything that went with it.

She started to go through the spreadsheets and checklists and as the morning light came up and the snow came down, she tried to peer down towards the jetties to see if there was any damage. It looked like they were all intact and there had been no damage at all. She hoped that it was the same at the Orangery but she’d told herself that there would probably be a few broken panes and at least some damage with a storm the magnitude of this one. According to the first few posts on the Pretty Beach Facebook page so far though, nothing too serious had happened - but it was very early and lots of people would most probably be still tucked up in bed.

Sallie went down the stairs of the apartment, grabbed her boots from the cupboard, pulled on her beanie and put her coat on over her dressing gown. Greeted by a blanket of white covering the whole of the grounds she took out her phone and started to take pictures. It was perfect for