Lost & Found in the Normandy ✓

Lost & Found in the Normandy: 1

Welcome to this completed summer short story! I'm looking forward to your feedback - so feel free to vote and comment and let me know what you think!

Yours,
norafelane

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
It was his favourite part-time job during the summer months. Every morning and evening, he was paid to search the beach area of Villers-sur-Mer with a metal detector to find lost belongings of the beach sides' summer guests. That also meant being paid for enjoying the sunrise and sunset every day and knowing the area very well.

Situated at the French coast of the English Channel, more specifically, the Côte Fleurie and the Pays d'Auge in Calvados, the Normandy, Villers-sur-Mer was a popular vacation sport for French people from across the country. Also, foreign visitors enjoyed the coast, notably the Dutch, German, and British.

The small coastal town was inviting with a long sandy coastline, small waves and cliffs, and a flowery countryside. The architecture featured villas built during the Belle Époque.

His searches had been moderately successful in the past three years he had been doing it, but it was worth it for every time he did return something valuable. When the lost item was reunited with its owner, the delight was big, and so was the finder's reward on top of his regular pay.

He remembered fondly the day a year ago when he had returned a lost earring to an older couple. In tears, they had explained at the reception desk that it had been their wedding earrings treasured for many years.

For their silver wedding anniversary, Daphné, the wife, had worn them as a surprise to her husband. Only at the end of their day at the beach did she detect that they were gone. The couple had retraced their every step and searched their place at the beach thoroughly, but it remained missing.

That's when Léon's glamorous moment had come in.

With his metal detector, he had searched the area described by the couple two times. It had taken him three hours: he had found sandals, hair clips, sun glasses, a keychain ...and when he thought there was no chance to be successful anymore, one of the earrings became visible after following the incessant beeping noise and a bit of digging in the sand. In the following half an hour, he searched the area subsequently wider turning circles. But the second earring remained missing.

When he returned with the earring, Daphné had happy tears in her eyes. They invited him to a meal the evening of the next day. When Léon turned up at the restaurant, he had seen that Daphné was wearing the earring as a necklace on a beautiful, filigrane chain. It was a great hook that started a pleasant conversation that continued until the sky turned dark and stars began to twinkle.

He learned that the couple had met at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona 1992 in Spain. They had hit it off instantly - she a volunteer at the sailing site, and he a sailing athlete. They had kept in touch. Then Louis had passed by Villers-Sur-Mer, Daphné's hometown, and they figured out they could never be parted again. They married in 1999. And in 2024 they celebrated their anniversary, where they had decided to tie the knots.

It was only one of many beautiful stories he had come across since he began this summer job.... Maybe it also was a reason why his bar was raised quite high for epic encounters that led to everlasting love.

He himself had been less lucky in his 24 years of life.

˚｡⋆𖦹𓇼𖦹⋆｡°

Léon was ashamed to admit it, but for many years, he had been very picky. He knew he had a type: blond beauties with light eyes and gorgeous smiles. In his head, he wanted to meet someone who was all this plus kind-hearted, beautiful, and funny. Here in Villers-sur-Mer in the Normandy, a holiday paradise for French people but also foreigners, he did meet women who were exactly his type.