Here is the concluding part of the saga, I hope you have enjoyed it. Please leave me a comment or a review on my Facebook page. I have enjoyed writing it very much, as it is full of great memories. Many of the ideas I write about are based on real experiences, I just tweak them bit. To all of my women friends, thank you for your friendship and I hope to share many more great evenings and experiences.
It was one of those west coast days where the light is bright, the wind is still and the sea is an indigo blue. You could imagine you were in the Caribbean. Dora motored down the west coast road of the Kintyre peninsula. They drove through small hamlets, past lonely farms, all the time their attention was diverted by the landscape and the distant islands shimmering in the heat haze.
“Are your chakras balanced today Helen?” shouted Betty over her shoulder.
“They are so well balanced they are singing and, that is why I am not going to get wound up by your jibes, Betty,” answered Helen.
“No, don’t be wound up by me. I think it’s great if it works for you Helen. Have you tried any of that malarkey Joni?”
“No, I don’t know anything about chakras,” answered Joni.
“No, but you have been studying your hormonal profile,” Betty laughed.
“Well, I did once go to see a spiritualist to see if I could find out about my future and she told me I have a spirit guide who sits on my shoulder and watches over me and guides me. She said we have a main spirit guide who is with us from birth and then we have others who join our spirit guide team as we go through different stages of life.”
“So did she tell you who your spirit guide is then Joni,” asked Fran.
“Yes, she did.”
“Well, who is it?” demanded Betty.
Joni laughed: “apparently my spirit guide is called …. Tracey!”
The women laughed as they conjured images of Tracey the spirit guide in their imaginations.
“I’m getting a cross between Tracey Beaker and that woman off Birds of a Feather,” laughed Betty.
“So there are other spirit guides who join you at different stages in your life?” queried Fran.
“Apparently, wonder what my menopause spirit guide is called?” asked Joni.
“Frigg!” shouted Fran, “she would be called Frigg!”
“My spirit guide would be called Jack Daniels,” said Betty, “just saying.”
“So, how do people choose their spirit guide or does the spirit guide choose you?” asked Fran.
“Well, I did a wee bit of reading up about it after I went to see “Chindra of the Circle”, and she said choose a name which has some significance for you or something you overhear which feels right.”
“Oh well, Jack it is!” laughed Betty. “What else did you learn?”
“After you choose your name it takes a week to ten days for the spirit guide to become known to you and then life is just supposed to be better. But one thing is funny, seemingly you become very aware of things coming in 3’s , like numbers, or seeing three of the same breed of dog and so that is why…. the magic box is so significant to us all,” she finished a little lamely.
“Oh ye of little faith,” commented Dora, “Get that dog off my upholstery!”
“Yea, well I’ll just stick to liquid spirits actually,” finished Betty.
“So what about this last item in the magic box then?” asked Joni.
“Who knows but …look, isn’t that Iain?” Dora shouted.
Dora pulled over to the side of the road where Iain was standing with his thumb held out hitching a lift. He started to move towards Dora, picking up a heavy bag as he did, when he saw who was in the van he stopped and hesitated. Helen slid open the heavy side door and smiled but Iain seemed to panic and turned away. At that moment Angela jumped out and rushed to him jumping around his legs, demanding attention. He stood, as if stuck to the spot, staring wildly around him but then suddenly relented and scooped the wriggling puppy up in his arms and made his way over to Dora. He reached out to hand Angel to Helen and turned away.
“What’s wrong Iain do you not want a lift? I thought you were hitching,” Fran called after him.
“Yes, I do need lift to work after my bike got broken, but..” he tailed off.
“What’s wrong?” called Joni.
“I’m scared to get in there with you lot after what you did to me. Do you know a picture of me with ta… well those things, stuck to my wounds has gone viral.”
“What does that mean?” asked Dora.
“It means that one of my “friends” who met me at the hospital when I was getting out of the ambulance took a photo, put it on Facebook and now it has had over one hundred thousand likes and the comments make me weep. Betty was quickly trying to access Facebook on her phone.
“Ha, here it is! Wow, you have over two hundred thousand likes now and fifty thousand shares. You are apparently called Tampon Boy!”
“You don’t need to tell me.”
“Oh come on Iain, you’re safe with us, really, sit up front with Fran and we’ll all crowd into the back. Where are you going?” Betty gestured for Iain to climb into the front passenger seat. He looked at his watch and said, “Well, alright but only because I’m late.”
As they drove along Iain seemed to be unable to relax. Through constant questioning they found that he was working at a surf school at Westport Beach hiring out equipment and giving lessons. He was training to be a vet and this was a summer holiday job. On reaching the beach car park he jumped out of Dora almost before Fran had put the hand brake on, he ran towards a large rusty metal container, fumbled with the padlock and almost threw himself in slamming the door with an almighty clang.
“Blimey he was really scared of us!” laughed Helen.
“Take him over a pair of reiki pants, he needs his chakras ordering,” stated Dora with only the slightest hint of sarcasm in her voice.
“Can you imagine, he would just die,” said Joni.
As it was a glorious day women decided to take Angela for a walk along the beach, the waves were breaking and they watched as some young men ran past them carrying long, brightly coloured surfboards.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to have a go at surfing,” sighed Fran as she looked longingly at the waves.
“We could, Iain could teach us!” laughed Helen, “I am sure he’d love that.”
“Good grief Fran, it’ll be freezing in there,” shivered Joni. “Maybe in the Caribbean.”
They walked a long way along the beach, turning when they felt hungry. As they slid back Dora’s sliding door they could see immediately that the magic box was shining.
“Here we go!” said Dora.
Fran opened the box and pulled out the cardboard box, the lid was loose and she reached in to pull out four black wetsuits with blue side panels.
“Ah, there you go Fran, your wish has been granted,” laughed Helen.
“And so has yours Helen. We get to go and scare Iain again,” commented Betty.
“You mean, really go surfing?” laughed Joni. “I’m a wee bit worried about getting my frame into one of these wet suit things.”
“Let’s get them on and go and knock on Iain’s door.” Helen grabbed a wetsuit and jumped into Dora to get changed. She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the wet suit. Dora was watching and whispered to Fran, “she’s putting that on back to front, but let’s not tell her.”
“This is really uncomfortable,” moaned Joni as she pulled the zip up.
“Probably you’re just not built for wet suit wearing,” stated Dora.
“Probably not, but it shouldn’t feel this uncomfortable,” agreed Helen as she struggled to adjust the unyielding neoprene.
The women took turns using Dora as a changing hut and soon were assembled staring and laughing at each other. Helen studied the others and it slowly dawned on her why her wetsuit was so uncomfortable.
“Do you think you can get a reiki wetsuit?” teased Betty.
“Enough of the reiki jokes,” snarled Helen as she climbed back into Dora to rectify her situation.
“Taking me back to my roots,” mused Dora as she studied the women. “Back to my days driving along the north Devon coast, the surf beaches and the barbeques.”
“All set then Ladies?” asked Betty as she set off leading the others towards Iain’s base, the battered and rusty container standing in the corner of the carpark with the salt encrusted sign advertising surfing lessons and equipment hire – “Westport Surfing – surf’s up!” Betty knocked on the door, the sound echoing through the metal box. The door opened and Iain stepped out smiling until he recognised the group.
“Blimey, it’s a group of Grey Bellies. Good God, am I to get no peace?” Iain looked absolutely stunned.
“That’s a derogatory term for older surfers,” called Dora.
There was a moment of embarrassed silence and then Betty laughed. “Not up to the challenge then young Iain? I think the grey pound is worth just as much as that of people who look good in wetsuits.”
“You look pretty good in your wetsuit Iain,” stated Helen. Iain seemed to shrink visibly.
Iain sighed and then turned reaching into his container bringing out surf boards which he passed to the women. He didn’t speak, picked up his own board and set off for the beach with the women struggling after him trying to carry their boards but not really knowing how to do it. On the sand he placed his board flat on the sand and instructed the women to do the same. They followed his lead as he lay down on his board and demonstrated swimming through the waves. The women waggled their arms energetically and giggled. Iain acted as if he wasn’t there. Next he demonstrated moving from the prone position to his knees in one smooth movement.
“Not a hope in hell,” screamed Betty as she failed to get to her knees for the fourth time.
“Fran, are you okay?” asked Joni as Fran rolled off her board and lay on her back on the sand with her knees pulled tightly into her chest.
“Just the back twinging a bit.”
Suddenly Joni stood up and ran into the water, lay down in the waves and then jumped up and raced back to her board.
“Blimey, that was a hot one, mind you these wetsuits don’t help.”
Iain looked completely bemused. “Ladies, can we focus?”
“Actually, probably not!” answered Betty. “But we can try,” she added quickly when she saw Iain’s face. Over the next ten minutes the women tried hard to throw themselves onto their knees but instead of mastering the movement they just got more and more tired. Eventually Iain gave in, he lay down on his board, put his hands behind his head and let out a huge sigh. The women glanced at each other and giggled.
“We are a wee bit pathetic I’d say,” laughed Fran.
“All this jiggling about is causing me a few issues,” whispered Helen, how do I get out of this bloody thing to have a pee?”
“You just pee in your wet suit, it’s a wet suit!” called Iain.
Helen blushed. “You forget how good young people’s hearing is, don’t you?” she rushed into the sea and sat down.
“Ladies, I have a plan!” Iain picked up his board and gestured them to follow him. Back at the container he collected in their boards and gave out body boards. Body boarding was a great deal easier and the women enjoyed trying to catch waves and mostly falling off them.
Later, having helped each other peel off their wetsuits and availed themselves of Dora’s facilities the women sat in their deckchairs on a grassy bank overlooking the island of Gigha. They sipped a cool gin and mused over their recent adventures.
“I’ve almost forgotten about feeling miserable,” said Joni. “Thank-you for your intervention ladies, thank-you for dragging me kicking and screaming away from my hormonal profiling and fussing instead of doing.”
“You are welcome. We’ve all had a great time.” Betty knocked back her gin and rose to fill the others glasses.
The sun was setting and the sky was filled with dramatic colours – reds and oranges and then deep purples.
“It’s breath-taking,” sighed Joni.
“You know, the happiest times in my life have been the times I’ve spent in the company of women. I have the best laughs, the best support and felt the most relaxed.”
“Does that include me?” asked Dora.
“Yes of course it does Dora, we wouldn’t be here without you.”
“Slainte Dora,” called Betty.
“Slainte,” said the women together.
“Till the next time,” smiled Dora.
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