by Bethan and Kate
The rain gently tip tapped on the windowpane as the fire crackled in the grate. It was a dark sort of day; dreary but comforting.
‘A day in which tea should be constantly warming in the pot’, pondered Marjorie. She was sat in her deep armchair, listening to Radios 4’s Woman’s Hour’s most recent broadcast on ‘masturbation in mid-life’. Marjorie determined to give it a go sometime as she polished off her most recent cup of tea.
Despite the modest fire, Marjorie’s hands felt rather cold. She tottered into the kitchen to refill her cup with steaming Yorkshire.
‘Golly’ thought Marjorie, ‘its gone cold already!’
Then Marjorie chuckled. ‘That’s today sorted, I shall knit a tea cosy!’
She pulled out her bundle of deep blue wool and skillfully cast on.
All of a sudden a knock came rapping frantically on the door. Marjorie looked up from her knitting, her hands not skipping a beat in their task as she didn’t like to stop craft projects for anything less than an emergency. After a couple more frantic knocks Marjorie decided the poor fellow must be desperate. So, she rushed to the door but not before noting down that she was on a purl stitch of row 23 (she wouldn’t like to ruin the pattern).
Reaching the door, Marjorie flung it open to a strong gust of wind, rain and a dripping wet Susan.
‘You silly thing!’ cried Marjorie as she sat Susan on a kitchen chair, (after placing down a plastic bag to save the upholstery). ‘I’m only next door for heavens sake!’
‘Oh please don’t swear at me Marj’ wailed Susan, ‘it’s an emergency, look’.
For the first time Marjorie could see what Susan was grasping.
Marjorie understood immediately. Susan had been saying for years that she wanted to join vertical fitness but objected to the lycra shorts and now, here she was clutching a half-finished knitted pair of hot pink shorts, with an obvious and potentially catastrophic dropped stitch.
‘I’m so embarrassed’ gushed Susan.
‘No need,’ replied Marjorie, ‘I just wish you’d told me about this sooner.’
‘Oh I know Marj but it’s not an easy thing to admit.’
‘No bother’ replied Marj, already matching wool colours.
‘Oh you really are a brick’ cheered Susan.
The following day Susan sat outside the village hall wondering whether she had made the right decision.
Several lycra clad ladies began to arrive and linger around the hall. She studied each of them intently, worrying they might think her silly in her pink knitted shorts.
She sighed and tried to gather her nerves.
‘Hullo Susan’ a bright familiar voice called.
‘Susan looked up… then gasped… then beamed.
Marjorie was walking towards her in a pair of deep blue hand knitted shorts.
The two women marched confidently into the village hall arm in arm and gave vertical fitness everything they jolly well had.
Nobody noticed a small spout shaped hole in the side of Marjorie’s shorts.
