Saving Kitty - completed

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Time elapsed quickly, one minute the clock said 11 am the next it was nearly 4 in the afternoon. Phoebe had spotlessly cleaned the rooms assigned to her, it had been hard work yet satisfying. The beds were changed with crisp clean sheets and the antique furniture polished and dusted. It would pass a white glove test! Phoebe thought, pleased with herself.

"Phoebe, Phoebe are you finished?" Aunt Martha called from outside the door.

"Yes, all done, what's next?" Phoebe collected all the cleaning tools and placed them back in the bucket given to her.

"Can you nip into Padstow for me and fetch these things," aunt Martha handed Phoebe a list of ten items, "you'll have to go into several shops, I don't like using the big supermarkets. We should support the locals, well... local employment anyway. Just tell them it's for me and they'll put it all on my account."

"Ok, have I time to shower?"

"Of course my luver... shops don't close till gone 6. You do know the way or do you want directions to Padstow? It's only a couple of miles up the road."

"Yeah sure I think I know, but you could give me a general idea, just in case, I'm sure I'll find it though," Phoebe wasn't the greatest of map readers but somehow she always managed to find her way, at the end of the day, as a dear friend once said to her, England is only an island how far wrong can you go?

Half an hour later, Phoebe fired up Boris, who had, unlike Phoebe, had a long rest, and had time to recuperate. Boris spluttered and backfired into life, the loud bang resembled a firework going off and broke the serene silence of the coast, and Phoebe felt sure it even scared a few off the irritating seagulls.

Once in Padstow, it took an age finding a parking space; at least one that Phoebe felt comfortable driving into. The car parks were crammed full of every make and size of vehicle, and what with pedestrians and kids running around, it was a terrifying task trying to park in such a tiny space. Yet, Phoebe did it and also paid the extortionate parking fee!

Even at 5 in the Afternoon, the small town was a bustling hive of activity. There were tourists of all nationality, size, shape and age. They all seem to have one thing in common, food. Everyone was eating! Food was obviously a big money-making industry, ice-creams, pasties, fish and chips or sweets.

There were not as many screaming, scrawling, thieving seagulls as Phoebe expected to find at a fishing cove, but then, there were lots of signs warning people not to feed them or else face a punishment of a hefty 'Fine! £50 if caught feeding seagulls'. Paying money is something that would hit everyone hard, it was a deterrent that seemed to work.

Phoebe looked at her list and whilst wandering through the narrow, people littered streets, gradually she found all she was looking for. Aunt Martha was methodical in her list, she had named all the shops where she wanted the items from, and they were all listed in a logical walking order.

It was difficult for Phoebe to imagine Padstow was once a quiet fishing village. Times had changed drastically. There were art galleries, book shops, typical gift shops (that mostly sold things from Japan or other such foreign countries), there was a cuddly toy shop, surfing shops, fishing shops, boat hire places, pubs and expensive restaurants. There was even a quaint old cinema with one screen.

Phoebe found an inviting antique shop and strolled through. She felt like a child, wanting to touch everything. After looking at the prices and feeling a bit like a bull in a china shop, she left, pre-emptying any costly disasters. In the next street, Phoebe fell in love with another antique store, but this was different it wasn't cluttered with china and glass. This was an Aladdin's cave of bric-a-brac. It sold weird things, useless things but wonderful things. Cornish artwork hung on the walls, as did old black and white photographs of the fishing dock. There were odd bits of debris that had been found on the beaches. Even bottles with messages sealed inside them that hadn't been opened.