February: Two Weeks to Go
‘What the hell is that hole doing in the middle of our lawn?’ screeched Holly as she and Simon walked round the corner of their house. They’d travelled back from London the previous evening, arriving home in the dark, both exhausted and needing sleep. As it was a sunny day, though, he insisted they take their morning coffee round to the gazebo.
‘Simon?’
He looked sheepish, but undeterred from walking down to the gazebo, which overlooked the tiny beck that tumbled along the boundary of their property. Holly didn’t follow him but stepped carefully to the edge of a massive irregular-shaped hole that had clearly been excavated in their absence. You could fit a car in it, or maybe even two, one behind the other. It wasn’t deep, only five foot maximum, but with a small area down at one end that was maybe deeper. Very odd, she thought, but then it occurred to her what it could be. She turned and chased after Simon, who had disappeared through a wooden arch that led down to the area near the beck.
If the hole hadn’t been enough to wake her up, what greeted her by the gazebo definitely did. Someone had been busy over the weekend. A barrel sauna complete with glass door stood with a view over the beck. It had been constructed on a new section of decking, along with a wooden tub, which she assumed was a hot tub. New pots, artistically arranged around the tub, contained evergreen plants and solar lights, but there was also a canopy of fairy lights woven between the four wooden pillars at each corner of the decking. It was as if the Scandi nisse had house sat for the weekend and left his trademark magic in her favourite corner of the property.
Simon had gone into the gazebo and was now standing on the decking with just a white towel around his middle. He beckoned her over, took her cup of coffee, and pushed her gently into what had been turned into a comfortable changing room.
‘Fancy a bit of hot and cold?’
How could she refuse? Then it all made sense. The hole wasn’t for the foundations of a new building, but was the start of something far more exciting, something she had never ever imagined she would need in her life: a natural swimming pool of her own.