Lady Davinia was having the time of her life in the garden, chasing leaves, playing hide and seek, dashing hither and yon with Mary fast in tow making sure she did not get into the front garden and lost by going out onto the road.

Lord Thomas had found himself a perch on the window ledge inside and looked forlornly on, wishing it was him out there having such fun, but his turn would come but Mary thought he was too hard to handle to let out with the other one and she could not keep track of both.

It was this happy state of affairs that welcomed old Jeff when he arrived for his gardening duties. Mary greeted him warmly then hurried back inside with Lady Davinia, placing her firmly just inside the door and then closing out as she wanted to talk to Jeff.

"Jeff", she said in her quiet voice, and he looked up from where he was kneeling doing some weeding and then got up and leaned on his shovel while she was speaking.

"I've been thinking" she continued. "You know how I want a cat run" and he nodded his head slowly in agreement, "well I think I should move that old shed to a better location and have that old toilet out here done up a bit", and he continued to nod, not quite knowing what his place would be in all of this.

"Do you think I have enough room to have chooks here and would they need a pen?"

"Mary", and she was so pleased to hear her own name rather than the usual, luv, pet, darlin' she met with from so many in this village. "This is a very large section of land and what you suggest is more than feasible, but let's have a walk around and see what we can nut out together, you've already got someone coming, sometime soon, to do the cat run but he would not be able to do the other things, although shifting the shed would be no problem and he could even build the chook run, but re-doing the toilet and I assume you'd want to re-do the shed too, would be a bit beyond him and I just stick to gardening, at my age."

Mary nodded in agreement and they wandered around deciding where best to re-locate the shed and put the chooks, although Jeff was beginning to wonder what our Mary would be thinking of next.

"I think you need a younger man to renovate things, but they come at greater cost but I gather money is not a worry for you" Again Mary nodded in agreement and Jeff said she'd need to make a few enquiries in the village to see who she could get to do these things.

There was not much point in moving the shed until she knew just what she wanted to do.

These things having been decided she started to head back inside to bring Lord Thomas out for his play, opening the back door carefully but as she did so Lord Thomas shot past her and headed straight into the undergrowth, well hidden from sight.

Jeff was unaware of all this happening having returned to his gardening chores, with his back to the door.

Mary's cries of "Tommy, Tommy Tommy" produced no cat and Lord Thomas waited patiently determined to have his own little tour around the place and wanting desperately to explore out the front, Lady Davinia had, by now, set herself up at the very same place at the window where Tommy had been, and she too was interested to see where her dominant brother was.

Suddenly he made his dash with Mary just catching him before he escaped through the front fence and he let out a giant miouw as she grabbed him, whereby she held him tightly to her chest and stroked him lovingly, returning him promptly back inside for all his boisterous endeavours. he was shattered, his boyhood having been severely threatened.

Jeff, by now, could see what had happened and called out to her as she went back inside "you'll have to watch that one luv", and Mary grimaced both at her own plight and finding Jeff had already returned to the familiar luv, rather than her preferred Mary.

The two kittens now scurried playfully around the house and Mary left them to their own devices, they were now well toilet trained and she was no longer worried about puddles and deposits in unexpected and unseemly places.

She made herself a cup of coffee and one for Jeff, which she delivered to him carefully making sure there was no wee kitten in hot pursuit, returning to her own and a nice piece of cake which one of her Artist friends had given her yesterday when they were having lunch in the park after their morning of art. Mary was never going to be an artist and there were others there equally as unskilled as herself but a couple seemed to be very talented indeed. In any case she loved the company and being made so welcome although while they were painting you could hear a pin drop, as no-one but the teacher, Phil, did any talking, just sketching and drawing.

She wasn't sure what she would do the next day although she would go in and have a talk to Betty about the best place to learn to drive before she bought herself her own little car, and would sound her out as to who she thought could best help with the garden shed and toilet having decided that for the internal renovations she'd need to seek help elsewhere but in the village.

When she'd deposited her wages in the bank, already having more than sufficient on which to live from her weekly allowance from Great Uncle Cyril's estate she noticed her balance had gone up by another $10,000 deposit and she wondered whether that was for her to spend as she wished or if it was for some specific purpose she did not know about.

In any case it would come in handy for when she purchased her new car.

So Thursday she set off bright and early and went around to the pet shop to ask about chooks, she was referred to one of the local farms and knew she'd have to hire the horse and buggy taxi service to get out there and back.

She wandered around happily doing the weekly shopping and leaving some for delivery also by horse and buggy before she popped in to have lunch at the milk bar and wait her chance to have a discussion with Betty, her friend and mentor since she'd first arrived in town.

Betty was able to assist with the name of a young contractor but round here young could either mean 18 or close to 60 but tactfully Mary didn't mention that.

She thought Mary would do better in another town for driving lessons or even the closest city so Mary knew she was still not sure about when she'd manage to get those, her life was moving along nicely but she was becoming impatient to be more mobile and also to arrange her internal renovations as well as her external ones.

How privileged she felt having the money to just go ahead and do things but she was still somewhat uncertain about her financial expectations and wondered why the solicitor was taking so long, no doubt the $10,000 was something of a pacifier but she really did need to know just where she stood and what her future plans could be.

Certainly just having a house to call her own and a weekly allowance in excess of her previous wages was a wonderful experience for her and such a relief but she wasn't really a country girl at heart although she loved the wide open spaces and the more relaxed way of life. The city was ugly, bare and barren by comparison, especially for someone without kith and kin like Mary was and who had little other than neighbours there by way of friends, at least she felt that here people did treat her as a friend, thinking of Betty and the young Jake, who was ever so much fun on the rare occasions he called by.

It was mid afternoon when Mary returned home looking forward to seeing her little kittens and thinking she may well take Tommy out into the garden as that was what he wanted so much, but she would have to watch him.

Her pace quickened as she saw the edge of a white envelope sticking out of her letter box, this was unexpected, no-one ever wrote to our Mary.

Pulling it from the box she could see it was from her great Uncle's solicitor so she rushed inside to peruse its contents, Tommy would have to wait just that little bit longer for his play in the garden.

This is a short story, in serial form, which turns into a book as each serial concludes.

If you'd like to see the first serial in this series go to the following link and after that you can gradually work your way through the others, unfortunately with the 'filing' system around here, you may need to be patient in working out the episodes but I hope they bring as much sparkle to your life as they have to mine, in writing them. So here is the link to the first.

http://hubpages.com/hub/LIFE-EXCURSIONS--WITH-MARY--selected-short-stories