“Morning lovely, lovely morning.”
Kath, startled, looked up from her weeding.
“Bloody hell, Joe. You almost give me heart attack…”
Kath’s West Country burr still marked her out as a newcomer, though she had lived in the village for over fifteen years. The village leaned more toward estuary vowels – like Joe, the postman’s – but there was enough Silly Sussex among the population to take the edge off.
“And you can stop calling me lovely – you’ll have the neighbours talking.”
“Bit late for that, lovely. Your name’s mud around here. Talk of the pub with your wicked ways, you are.”
“…Taint true, neither. I was lovely, back in the day, but time takes the shine off, I can tell you.”
“Different thing, love. Beauty and lovely are poles apart. I’ll take the second over the first any day. Will you marry me?”
“Not sure how him indoors would feel about that.” She nodded toward the house and her husband inside. “He gets a bit possessive, like.”
“Selfish bugger,” said Joe.
There were birds singing in the pause as Joe walked up the path. They seemed louder these past few weeks, without the planes circling overhead.
“Anything worth having?” Kath asked, as Joe dropped a few envelopes into the hallway through the half-open door.
“Not unless you’ve been waiting for your gas bill with bated breath. Oh, and the circulars.”
“You know where you can stick ‘em!”
“Not before breakfast.”
“You can still ‘ave ‘em. Save ‘em for later.”
“More than my job’s worth, missus. The post must get through, you know. It’s our motto.”
“’cept on Sundays.”
“’cept on Sundays,” Joe sighed. “See, now that’s why they gossip about you. Smart mouth.”
Kath laughed as Joe stepped over the chain link fence to her neighbour’s garden.
“Laters, lovely,” he said, waving with a handful of envelopes. “Stay home, and stay safe.”
“Laters, lovely,” Kath echoed. She was smiling now, the frown she had been wearing lost in the ether. It is a lovely morning, she thought, looking up from the soil and weeds to the wide blue heavens. Very lovely, indeed.
She hardly missed the office at all.
The Imaginarium 