“Dolly….DOLLY!”

Dolly ignored Arthur bellowing from the kitchen, he wasn’t going to upset her today. She put the last few pins into her hair and powdered her cheeks before going to see what he wanted.

“Bloody hell Dolly, where have you been?”

“Arthur, have you made the flask up? I’ll be wanting a nice cup of coffee when we get there”

Arthur had tried to make a flask of coffee, but in all honesty he didn’t know how. He looked at the kilted soldier on the Camp coffee label, who was being delivered his beverage by a turbaned gentleman. Arthur thought perhaps a fella in a turban should be making it for him too.

Whilst Arthur was pondering his apparent lack of servants, Dolly mixed the brown chicory liquid with some full fat milk in a jug, added 5 spoonful’s of sugar and some water just off the boil, stirred it and decanted it into the plaid Thermos standing on the worktop.

Whilst doing this Dolly envisaged herself pouring a cup of the steaming hot liquid and enjoying it with a slice of the Battenberg she was taking with her. Missing from her vision was the location. It being a Mystery tour she was embarking on today, she couldn’t be sure where she would end up. Chances were it would be over the bridge to the North Devon Coast, it usually was as the Mystery Tours arranged by Barrett’s Coaches had a very narrow menu of destinations. She had been to Weston Super Mare 3 times since 1965.

Dolly and Arthur had met on a coach tour in 1953. That one had been to the New Forest. Dolly had been 35 at the time and was with her mother. Arthur sat across the aisle dressed in a 3 piece suit made of heavy wool, even though it was June. On their stop in the forest Arthur rolled up his trousers and paddled in the cool shallow forest brook, pointing out to Dolly the different types of insect nymphs and larvae, while the ponies munched on spikey grass nearby. Later they had enjoyed an ice-cream in Mudeford, where it was Dolly’s turn to paddle in the sea in her tights. A year later they were engaged and had been ever since.

When Dolly’s mother died she and Arthur moved into the bungalow he had built. It had a room specially decorated to Dolly’s tastes, where everything was pink and gold. Only Dolly and the vicar ever used that room, Arthur spent all of his time sitting by the Rayburn in the kitchen. They had separate bedrooms and nothing very biblical happened, apart from one Christmas Eve in 1961 of which they never spoke.

Arthur still wore the same suit, with the trousers hitched up high above his paunch. Dolly had looked after him well, so well that he couldn’t be relied on to make a flask of coffee.

“Ready Arthur? I don’t want to miss the coach”

” It won’t bloody go without us” said Arthur doing up his shoes.

“Where do you think it will be today Arthur?”

“How should I know, it’s a bloody mystery tour!”