When I arrived at Milton Keynes on Friday I discovered that I had left my drabble at home! So here it is for anyone who wishes to read it... and apologies in advance to those who are mentioned!
The new girl stepped off the train nervously, holding her belongings close and looking around. What would it be like? This was the first time she had been away from home to stay with girls of her own age. The prospectus had made it sound a lot of fun, but now she was actually here she was having reservations. She knew she was being met at the station, but had no idea who would be meeting her or how she would recognise them. Carrying her rather odd selection of luggage (the list of ‘things to bring’ had been many and varied), she trudged along the platform to the exit, looking rather apprehensively at the big sign saying ‘Welcome to Milton Keynes’.
Arriving at the exit, she looked around hopefully, and then stood still in shock as a brightly coloured vision swooped down upon her. Through her confused mind she registered lime green pyjamas and a fuschia coloured dressing gown, with slippers to match. “Welcome to the CBB March Gather!” announced the vision. “I’m Lesley and I am your sheepdog.” The new girl looked for an escape route but it was too late to run away as she was swept away to Lesley’s car to be driven to the venue.
As the car went through umpteen roundabouts, Lesley kept up a chatter about the programme for the weekend. The new girl was slightly reassured by this, the planned activities sounded a lot of fun, and after all, it was only a weekend - how bad could it be? She would be leaving on Sunday afternoon to go back to her normal life again. Might as well have some fun while she was here, though (she sneaked a look at her ‘sheepdog’ again) she wasn’t terribly sure about the uniform!
They arrived at Heron’s lodge and went inside. Lots of sensibly dressed women (though lime green seemed to feature a lot) were sitting around talking, knitting, eating and drinking. “The lady in red over there”, said Lesley, “is Caroline. She is another of the organisers this weekend, and the person to go to if you want to buy books! She has a suitcase full of them.” Lesley then went on to point out Vikki, a very short woman with a camera in front of her face. “You don’t need to know what Vikki looks like,” said Lesley “she is always hiding behind the camera”.
“Hello,” another lady said, coming up to the pair of them with a dishcloth in one hand and a tea towel in the other. “I’m Kate - Katarzyna on the CBB. I vowed I wouldn’t spend the whole time in the kitchen this time, but it isn’t working out that way so far! There’s loads of food on the table - don’t wait to be offered it, just get stuck in - remember God helps those who help themselves!”
The new girl helped herself to chocolate slice, Pringles and a beaker of coke. She looked around at her fellow gatherers. One was wearing a red nose and she introduced herself as Clare. Two people called Rosie and Nell were having a race to see who could get around the room fastest, without touching the floor at all. As they were going in opposite directions they seemed doomed to crash together in the middle, but that was not perturbing them one bit. In one corner of the room was a little contingent of knitters and they were introduced as Helen, Dawn, Nicola, Ciorstaidh and the Arky-Helen. All their wool was tangling together and producing some very interesting results, but they were all talking so hard that none of them had noticed yet…
The new girl sat back in her chair and looked around contentedly. She thought she would fit in just fine here, after all. For a short Spring Break, March in Milton Keynes was going to be a fun place to be!
Song Title: Lady In Red
Book Title: Spring Break
Proverb: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves
