Dick tells Margaret to stop talking when she says things like, that, espcially in front of the Vicar.
One October day Margaret and Dick drove to Cod Beck Reservoir. It didn’t start well. As they left their road, Dick turned left. Margaret thought he was going to go over the centre line. ‘T’here’s a car coming,’ Margaret shouted.
Dick braked rather sharply, Margaret though. Dick looked right. ‘No, that car.’ Margaret pointed to the car coming from the left, on the other side of the road admittedly, but still coming towards them.
‘Stop talking. I know what I’m doing. I am not over the centre line.’ Dick was very cross.
Margaret was in the back with the dogs, because the dogs make a fuss if they’re alone. It can make Margaret feel sick if Dick doesn’t go very very steady. Margaret thought she’d better stop talking, but perhaps it was too late, because Dick was a bit too cross to go really steady.
Round the bends they went, swish, swish. On they went, until they reached Osmotherley, then turned left at a T junction. Margaret thought Dick was swinging out – a bit close to the centre line – again. Margaret said nothing. Margaret didn’t feel very well because the road had been bendy. The dogs were quiet too. They don’t like bendy either.
Dick was pleased because it had been a quiet journey, and there was a parking space in the car park too. It was pretty with the moors one side, and the way to Cod Beck Reservoir the other. Margaret was pleased because they’d stopped. The dogs were too. Out they all got, and off they all went, walking alongside the beck which fed into the reservoir.
They walked through the woods. It was quiet, and lots of things to sniff, for the dogs of course. Not Margaret and Dick.
Once they reached the resevoir they passed ducks that quarrelled, took off, landed, took off, and two swans took off too, fed up with the ducks The ducks soundeda bit like Margaret and Dick: chatter, grump, no speakers. Chatter again.
Margaret and Dick and Rosie and Polly went all round,, They were keeping up with a formation of ducks heading along a narrow strip of water when a drake came to meet them. How very dare it. It was clearly a one way stretch.
The formation broke, went into battle, flank left and right, the leader in the middle, about to charge. The oncoming drake stared, stopped, turned, and paddled very very fast to keep ahead of the charge, which had gathered into formation again. It seemed that difficult driving was the rule of the day, Margaret thought, but didn’t say anything.
Margaret and Dick reached the car park and stood and watched a nice lady trying to put her key in their car’s locks, but she couldn’t get it in because it was not her car. The nice lady went round to the other side, and tried the passenger door. But no. Her friend said, ‘But hang on, this is not your car.’
Dick laughed. ‘No, it’s our car. But never mind, it’s what Margaret would do.’
Oh how they all laughed, but Margaret secretly thought that it would have been nice to shove Dick in the reservoir, the deep bit.
Margaret is very very bad.
But of course, she knew that she had done just that last year, but she didn’t know Dick had seen. Margaret decided she must be more careful when she did wrong things, and make sure Dick was not looking.
Margaret, Dick and the dogs went home chatter, grump, no speakers, chatter, and had a nice cup of tea. It had been a nice outing, all things considered.