Green Smarties

In the shadow of the Great Giant of Cerne Abbas, a very large man with very large accoutrements carved in the chalk hillside which towered over the village and was renowned for its fertility prowess and all sorts of ancient rites, I lay listening to the sound of my new husband being violently ill in the bathroom.

I suspected he had upset the hotel he stayed at prior to the wedding. Apparently his brother and he had insisted on having an omelette for lunch – despite it not being on the menu. This was because neither Peter nor his brother David felt like eating much before rushing off to the church. The head waiter had been summonsed and an argument ensued and finally the chef emerged from the kitchen.

‘It’s not on the menu sir.’ the chef had said emphatically.

‘Surely you know how to cook an omelette,’ Peter had remonstrated ‘If not I’ll come out and do it for you.’

You should never say such things to anyone working in a kitchen. Peter may have got his omelette in the end, but what else was in it could have been anyone’s guess and he was now reaping the rewards of being bloody minded.

‘What a bugger,’ he said stumbling weakly back into bed after the seventh run to the bathroom. ‘And I chose this inn because it scores so highly in the Egon Ronay book for good food. I was looking forward to some fantastic meals tomorrow’.

After a fitful sleep, the wedding night having been ruined and made memorable for all the wrong reasons, we went to a communion service at the church in the neighbouring village of Sidling St. Nicholas early next morning, and then dined on bread and cheese – something simple for Peter’s delicate stomach.

Less than thirty-six hours after the wedding, at 5.00 a.m. on the Monday, we left the inn and drove speedily through the country lanes to the bungalow we had hired in Preston on the outskirts of Weymouth. There was not much time for Peter to get to Portland before the ship he was checking out was due to leave for its day of trials.

By 6.30 a.m. that morning I was already standing alone in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by unopened wedding presents and wondering just what had happened – it had all been so fast.

Peter had still not returned home by 11.45 p.m. that first evening – he was night flying.

The rented bungalow seemed so empty. It had been a rather lonely day – such a contrast from working in a busy hospital followed by all the excitement and bustle of the wedding.

For the first time I was experiencing the ups and downs of being a Navy wife.

I stood at the lounge window in the dark and could just catch glimpses of the lights of a Royal Navy ship as it sailed back into Portland in the distance.

I was listening to Radio 4 for company.

Gently the music ‘Sailing By’ wafted from the radio. The piece of music that always heralds the fifteen minute shipping forecast broadcast from the BBC just before midnight.

There was something strangely ethereal, beautiful and calming about it as the music rose and fell like the waves of the sea. I was transported to a strange land halfway between waking and sleeping as I stood there in the dark and watched the ship’s lights and black shape etched against a lighter sky move slickly across the water in the distance.