A Cottage Tale
Our little holiday spot sat in a sleepy village near a modest town in the Yorkshire countryside. The row of cottages lined the riverbank, with Val and Tamaras place next to ours, then old Grannys, and beyondwell, the rest didnt matter much to us.
Val had bought his plot seven years back and wasted no time breaking ground. Diggers rolled in, a crew of lads from down south, gravel deliveries, steel beams, trenches, foundationsthe whole shebang. By summers end, a proper estate stood there: a grand house, a well, an outdoor kitchen, sheds, a sauna, a garage Never a dull moment! Val wasnt just the foreman; he tied rebar, hauled timber, mixed concrete, and wired the place himself. Yorkshire folk are patientthey understood a man building his legacy. Except Granny. Every day, her screeching carried across the gardens.
Morning. The bus from town pulled up. First off? Granny. Always first! No one ever called her anything else. Shed race to her cottage in a ratty grey smock, a black headscarf, and scuffed shoes, lugging a tatty shopping bag and a five-litre jug of water. See, we didnt drink from the riverit wasnt some crisp mountain stream but a sluggish, algae-choked thing. Most of us hauled «drinking water» from the town. Some had wells, but the water reeked of sulphur, no matter how deep they dug. Only good for the garden. Val, though? He had a proper well and a pump system.
But back to Granny. Shed storm onto her patch and the shrieking began. The diggers diesel fumes, the pile-driving noise, the lads chatting too loud, Vals house casting shade on her strawberries (never mind the planning permits)you name it, shed gripe. And the names she called Val! Monster, rat, git, swine The woman had a vocabulary thatd make a sailor blush.
Val kept his head down, mostly. But sometimes, leaning on the fence for a smoke, hed mutter in his gravelly bass:
«Bloody hell, woman, youre like a horsefly on a summers dayeither youll suck me dry or Ill have to swat you.»
«Threaten me again, you mangy tomcat!» Grannyd bellow. «Ill burn your fancy manor to the ground! Think youre lord of the manor now, do ya?»
Needless to say, my summer retreats werent exactly peaceful. I started visiting less.
Years passed. Val and Granny never became mates, but they coexisted. Turns out, Val had two passions: classic rock and tomatoes. Hed play his stereo at a reasonable volume and vanish into his massive greenhouse. The man knew everything about tomatoesnew varieties, fertiliser schedules, crop rotation. Every spring, hed fumigate the greenhouse, layer manure and compost, drape thermal fleece to shield seedlings from frost or sunburn, rig up infrared lamps Yorkshire isnt the Mediterranean; tomatoes here need *work*.
Ever heard a burly bloke cooing to his tomatoes like theyre toddlers? That was Val. To the rest of the village, he was a tough-as-nails bossfirm but fair. But in that greenhouse? Pure softie.
Granny hadnt vanished, though. She *hated* rock music. Pink Floyd? The Clash? Dire Straits? All rubbish, apparently. Every evening she stayed over, the neighbourhood got a full review of the «noise» and «tasteless yobs» who listened to it. Val would seethe, pour himself a stiff whisky, down it in one, then kill the music and stomp inside. And yes, he did this *daily*.
Then came the floods. Weeks of rain (remember that year Leeds drowned? We were just 60 miles away). The river swelled, swallowing logs, fences, dog kennels, shedspure chaos. Folks marked the rising water, then bolted when it reached the roads. Buses stopped. Val held out till the last minute, then sped off in his Land Rover only to turn back when he remembered Granny was still puttering in her garden.
«Piss off without me, you devil!» she yelled. «Ive hauled my bits to the loft. Im not leaving my cottage to looters!»
The water stopped just shy of our gardensinches from disaster. A week later, we returned. Val turned up at mine with a bottle of Scotch.
«Steve, I dont get it,» he frowned. «My greenhouse was watered. Doors left open. I *know* I didnt do itI was in a panic!»
I shrugged. «Only one person stayed behind.»
«Granny,» he muttered, side-eyeing her cottage. «No way. Weve been at war for years!»
«Only Granny,» I repeated.
He knocked back his drink. «I dont believe it.»
«Only. Granny.»
Val left, stewing.
Next day, Granny was back, hauling water buckets to her plother little pump mustve washed away. She slipped, soaked herself, but didnt curse once. Val vanished for a bit, then returned after shed caught the evening bus. That night, hammering and sawing echoed from his place.
«Mate,» I asked next morning, «whod you wrestle last night?»
«Just running pipes,» he said casually. «Couldnt watch her hauling water like that.»
Two weeks later, Val invited me for the first tomato harvest and a barbecue. «Be here at seven.» I brought whisky and homemade wine.
«Shall we wait or start without?» I asked.
«Well wait,» Val grinned.
«For who? Toms already here.»
«Youll see.»
A knock. In walked Granny. But not *our* Granny. Her silver hair was neatly pinned, she wore a floral dress, smart sandals, a lace shawl, and chunky amber beads.
«Room for one more?» she smiled.
«Come in, Mary!» Val beamed.
I was gobsmacked.
We drank, ate, talked for hours. Mary spun tales of her orphaned childhood, raising two kids alone after her husbands accident, her 40-year railway career Later, she and Tamara sang old wartime tunes while Val and I listened, sipped, and smiled.
«Val,» Mary said later, «Tam says you wont go to the seaside cause of your tomatoes. Go! Ill water em, open the greenhouse. Wont let em wilt.»
«Was it you who saved them during the flood?» I blurted.
«Course,» she cackled. «Ive seen how he babies those plants. Felt sorry for em!» She winked at Val, who turned pink.
Val took that holiday. And when he returned, the rock music played againbut only from noon till two. For *Mary*.
