Gardeners Rest #18 (2023)

[Nicos]

..a shiny silver sixpence on the floor
thought Rary…
thought gf ….at the thought of Rary claiming the misplaced 6d she’d put aside for her next Xmas pudding….
Thought everyone else….

[greenishfing]

Unfortunately, due to the bang on the head, Rary was now seeing stars and was convinced the sixpence on the floor was the full moon. He wobbled around with a bemused expression as gf sneaked the sixpence away and told him that it was getting cloudy.....

[Nicos]

…he looked up …oh my….he could hear Santa’s sleigh bells….how could that be so soon?.
He stood there dazed, gently swaying back on forth in time to the bells when he realised the sound wasn’t coming from above, but from his sporran…,those keys he’d hidden in there were jangling in time with his swaying….

[Snoop Puss]

Got to put a stop to that, Rary thought. But how to do so? And to his own advantage?

'Give me a double of your finest whisky and then I'll go and have a lie-down to recover from the blow', he said. 'Oh, and somebody fix that floorboard.'

Snoop, who had recovered from the asphyxiating mince pie, decided that she too could usefully use something to drink and went off to rifle through the bottles.

'I'll have one too', piped up...

[rary]

If only one of thees girls was agile enough to dance, thought rary, we could have a good party as the bells were giving off a great sound, but wait the bells are on the 1st of the year l, have I been kept prisoner since before Christmas, a sudden feeling of panic came over him, what if...

[Snoop Puss]

'What if I were Quasimodo (famed for saying 'The bells, the bells') or in some poem by Edgar Allan Poe?' he wondered. But fortunately, he was wrong.

Nicos, who had winked and grinned so knowingly at Snoop, had come across the GR's jukebox. And she had put on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyEA...hannel=7clouds

(though they were all obliged to listen to an ad, seeing as she didn't have the tokens once used to make the jukebox work)

[rary]

But rary has keys thought Snoop I must ask him if he can open up the jukebox, so sliding up to him she asking him about the keys, but rary looked very apprihensive, what's wrong with you rary she whispered, don't ask about keys, he said especially in front of Nicos, give me time to throw suspicion on GF or Flo especially regards keys, as she is bound to find out that......

[Snoop Puss]

But before he could finish, the ugly sisters waltzed back in. They were in high dudgeon...

[rary]

So rary decided to slip out before they laid eyes on him, bad enough all those women and not one of them opening their purse but two angry women coming in made thing a lot.....

[Snoop Puss]

more complicated. So out he went, his keys clanking and making him sound like he was Mr Moneybags.

At this point, Snoop decided she needed to tell someone about that was under the floorboard...

[Nicos]

….but first, she really needed to….

[Snoop Puss]

...have that drink. She poured a double ready for Rary for when he came back and everyone else's usuals. And then, a bit cheekily, she poured two Fernet Brancas for the sisters. The bottle had been sitting around in the GR for years, as nobody would drink it, it was so bitter. 'That'll get rid of them', she thought.

Fortunately, at that point, greenishfing suddenly remembered...

[rary]

Organise the cleaning of the Gardeners Rest, why does rary always disappear when there's housework to be done, she wondered, then getting a lightbulb moment she thought, I will offer to by a round of drinks, that's sure to bring him back in, but first I will need to brush up the broken lightbulb

[Snoop Puss]

As GF looked up at the lightbulb, everyone's eyes followed hers. And what should they see but...

[rary]

A microphone ,Nicos started to put two and two together, but unfortunately she had a problem, she was holding some cleaning material in one hand and had mitts on the other therefore she couldn't count her fingers, so she said I would place a bet on who put that there, who always turns up when someone is buying the drinks it's.......