‘Alright, Mrs, I mean Polly. How are you?’ he said, striding towards her. We trotted along after him.
‘Good, although chaotic. Right, come in and we’ll go through the plans again. When are your men getting here? We really are on a tight schedule.’ Her forehead wrinkled in worry.
‘I’ve got three lads and the big van on the way, don’t you worry.’ He was cheerful with an accent I hadn’t heard before, but it was nice and friendly; a Devon accent maybe?
We followed them as they headed to the kitchen where Polly showed him what she wanted doing with the utility.
‘That won’t be a problem. I see what you mean, you want to knock through so you come in the back, straight in there, and don’t get a desert of sand in the house.’
‘Exactly. We’ve got six children, as well as the two cats, it can get messy.’
‘So, you’ll be using the cottage a lot then?’ Colin scratched his head.
‘Yes, that’s the plan. As there are three families there’ll be someone in the cottage most of the year I expect. I mean, holidays definitely but also weekends — we want to use it, not just have it empty most of the year. We want it to be a home.’
‘That’s good, Seabreeze needs some love, that’s for sure,’ Colin said.
‘It’d be good to get the downstairs toilet cordoned off.’ It was in the utility space but there was no door on it.
‘Right you are.’ He seemed agreeable. ‘We won’t order a new toilet until we order the rest of the bathrooms though, to keep costs down.’
‘That’s fine, if we can get a door that’ll do for now.’ Polly beamed. She was in her element. Since going to study interior design when the children reached a certain age, Polly had bloomed. She’d been modelling before she had Henry, and then she’d been a full-time mum to him and Martha. When she first arrived on Edgar Road, Henry was a baby and Polly was suffering from post-natal depression. It had taken a while but she’d recovered, thankfully. Last year, when Matt was made redundant from his job, Polly had thrown herself into interior design work. She had worked long hours in that job, it’d been difficult for both her and Matt, but now she freelanced, which meant she got to pick and choose her jobs a bit more carefully and, although she had some work to do, she was able to do most of it while sorting out the cottage, which was definitely lucky.
I felt exhausted as I followed them round, listening again to what was going to be done. It was another good thing about being a cat, we got to live in houses (well the lucky ones did) without having to worry about all this.
‘Right, well when the lads get here we’ll get stuck in. It might be best if the kids stay out of the way, and the cats,’ he said, pointing at George and me. ‘We don’t have hard hats to fit cats.’ He laughed at his joke, although I didn’t get it.
‘Don’t worry, the children will be out as long as this weather stays, and the cats are very clever,’ Polly said, picking George up.
‘Fingers crossed the rain stays off,’ Colin said.
Yes, paws crossed. If we had to stay out of the way at least the sun should be shining for us.
Shortly after that, a larger van pulled up. It blocked all our cars in, not that we needed them, and three men, younger than Colin, each with more hair, jumped out. Suddenly there was a lot of noise and bustle. It was clear we would be better out of the way. I looked at George, and thought perhaps we could risk checking the beach out now.
‘Remember, George, don’t leave my side and be very vigilant,’ I said as we slid under the gate.
‘Yes, Dad, of course,’ he replied. His fur was bristling with excitement, I could see how much this meant to him. We stood on the pavement, there were cars driving slowly past, as the road was quite narrow, and there were lots of cars parked on the road opposite. When it was safe we crossed. We both jumped up onto a wall and looked out onto the beach.
Wow, I had never seen anything like it. There was a lot of flat sand, but also these sandy hills which looked like a lot of fun. The sand was yellow in colour, there was grass poking out of the hills, and in the distance I could see the water but it looked as if it was miles away.
However, before we could go further I spotted a real danger.
‘Oh, George, look, there’s a dog,’ I yelled, moving closer to my boy protectively. I saw a solitary dog running around in circles nearby. How annoying, the whole beach could have been ours but a dog was going to ruin it. However, just as I was going to get George and run back to the cottage, a man came up to the owner.
‘I’m afraid dogs aren’t allowed on the beach during the summer months,’ he said, pointing at a sign post behind us.
‘But Trevor loves the beach,’ the owner replied, looking distraught.
I wanted to squeal for joy. Dogs weren’t allowed on the beach and there was no sign about cats.
‘I’m not scared of dogs, Dad.’ George puffed his little chest out and I moved closer. George claimed not to be scared of anything, which of course scared me. As the owner put the lead on the dog and dragged him, huffily, off the beach, we prepared to join the others.
‘George, I am not going to say this again. Dogs are silly creatures, of course they aren’t as clever as us cats, but they are bigger and if they’re off the lead they might try to hurt us. We can’t risk that.’
As if to prove my point, the dog, Trevor, barked aggressively as he was being led away from the beach.
We went to join our family. As we started walking on the sand, I turned to George.
‘It’s a bit weird,’ I said, not really able to articulate what it actually felt like.
‘It’s, like, very sinky,’ George said, as his paws disappeared into the yellow, grainy stuff. It took us a while before we could actually walk properly, but we finally made our way to our families.
‘Oh, Alfie and George, I’m not sure that cats are supposed to be on the beach,’ Franceska laughed.
‘No dogs aren’t allowed,’ Toby pointed out. ‘I read the sign.’
‘Good boy,’ Claire said. ‘But is there a sign for cats?’
‘No, no sign for cats,’ Toby replied.
‘Toby, can I bury your feets?’ Summer asked, approaching with a spade. Toby nodded and put his feet out in front of him for her.
‘OK, Alfie, George, sit down here with us and don’t get into any trouble,’ Claire said, pointing to the blanket next to her. Trouble? What on earth could she mean?
We spent a very lovely morning on the beach. It was warm but at times there was a pleasant breeze that ruffled our fur. George let Summer bury his paws but then he didn’t like it and squealed a lot. George and I did attract a few funny looks and some people came over to talk to us but Claire and Franceska told them that we liked to go everywhere with them. Some people even took photos of us. And best of all there were no seagulls.
I lay down to enjoy the sunshine as I kept an eye on the children and my kitten. Aleksy was supervising building a very elaborate castle, Tommy was running down to get wetter sand from further down the beach and running back, Summer and Martha were looking for shells to decorate it, and Toby and Henry were in charge of something called a moat. Wow, I thought, this was really something special. Even George was now getting used to the sand and was only sinking a bit, but that was alright because all the children took delight in rescuing him. As I lazily watched everything going on, I felt as warm inside as it was outside.
I did feel a bit hot though, something which didn’t seem to bother George, who was basking in the sun. Aleksy was showing off his latest building — it was a sand igloo and he cleverly explained how it was hollow inside. I had to say, with its domed top and entrance hall, it looked quite inviting. While they were finding more wet sand to add to the sides and top, I thought I would see if I could fit in. I wiggled through the entrance with ease. Wow, it was cool, and just comfortable enough. I could hear everyone chattering outside as I lay down and decided to shut my eyes for a quick cat nap.