A Cosy Christmas at Bridget’s Bicycle Bakery, page 1
A Cosy Christmas at Bridget’s Bicycle Bakery
Alex Brown
One More Chapter
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
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Copyright © Alex Brown 2021
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Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Cover illustration © Clara Angunuzzi / Illo Agency
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Alex Brown asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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Source ISBN: 9780008463694
Ebook Edition © October 2021 ISBN: 9780008463687
Version: 2021-09-06
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Make Your Own Louis (Sourdough Starter)
Bridget’s Top Drawer Potato and Rosemary Sourdough
Freya’s Favourite Biscoff Hot Chocolate
Bridget’s Special Festive Sausage Rolls
Jack’s Prawn and Chorizo Beach Barbecue Kebabs
Jack’s Harissa Sardines
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading…
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About the Author
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About the Publisher
All You Knead Is Love and Baked Treats
For my best friend, Lynette, often in my thoughts.
Chapter One
Jingle bells. Jingle bells. Jingle all the way.
I turn the volume down on the radio that’s playing festive favourites and grip the steering wheel of my cherry-red Mini Clubman, inwardly willing the temperamental old car not to conk out before I reach the crest of the steep cliff road winding down to the cosy seaside town of Mulberry-On-Sea. Or worse still, for the double doors at the back of the car to burst open and scatter the boot paraphernalia all over the road. It’s happened before. A few years back when I was going up this very same steep road, my unzipped weekender bag fell out and tumbled away, flinging the contents into the hedgerows and front gardens flanking the road. I ended up having to retrieve my best, and most comfortable, bra from a sailboat moored up on a driveway after an extra keen seagull had swooped down in search of food, only to deposit the bra in the hull on realising that it wasn’t actually edible. And now, with my children, fourteen-year-old twins, Oscar and Olly, and Freya who is six, two guinea pigs called Snuggle and Chewy (on account of his gingery Chewbacca style fur) and Henry, the family dog – a retriever with a wild, curly coat the colour of golden syrup – not to mention an enormous pile of luggage and my old bicycle strapped to the roof, the car is crawling under the strain.
‘Any minute now,’ I say as brightly as I can muster, in an attempt to keep all our spirits up.
It’s been a long journey in the chilly winter weather, and it’s starting to get dark now too. We are all tired and hungry and in desperate need of a hot drink, or a large mug of mulled wine in my case. There’s a bottle of my homemade cranberry and orange spice-infused Christmas concoction in the back and I can’t wait to arrive, get unpacked, and put my feet up in a bubble bath to unwind with a mug of warm wine and one of my baking books. I love looking at the tantalising images of festive orange and cinnamon swirls, or a batch of floury, soft baps enveloped in a comforting mist of steam straight from a hot oven, wondering if I can create the same look as they do in the pictures. Not that I’m a master baker, definitely not – very much an amateur baker – but I like to have a go. I even did a bread-making course many moons ago, and have the proper food hygiene and safety certificates too, to go with my dream of one day opening up my own little bakery business. I’ve always wanted to take my bread-making skills further, but never had the opportunity to pursue this in the past. Baking soothes my soul, which might sound a bit woo-woo but I absolutely do feel all Zen and serene inside after a good baking session. Plus, forty minutes or so of peace and tranquillity with a baking recipe book behind a locked bathroom door is often just the thing to perk me right up. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children with every fibre of my being but it is fair to say that they can be very full-on and trying at times. I’m often exhausted and spend much of the rest of the time wondering if I’m even equipped to be a proper grown-up parent. Like lots of us, I mostly feel as though I’m making it all up as I go along. Either the twins are bickering or Freya is complaining about it not being fair when she has to go to bed earlier than her much older brothers, or some such other ‘end of the world’ problem is the order of the day. Yes, a lovely hot bath is often a welcome relief to recharge my batteries and get me ready to start all over again the following day. And being a single parent now means it’s all down to me to keep the four of us, plus three pets, alive and thriving.
Tucking a chunk of curly chestnut hair back inside my knitted bobble hat, I glance in the rear-view mirror, my freckle-speckled rosy cheeks lifting into a big grin as I hope at least one of my three children will meet my eye and give me a reassuring thumbs up. But poor Freya is leaning forward with an earnest look on her face as she holds on with dear life to a length of bungee cord hoisted over her tiny shoulder, the other end attached to the inside of the car’s back doors as a ‘just-in-case’ insurance measure to stop them bursting open again. And the twins, well… they are oblivious as usual, with the screens of their mobiles glowing mere millimetres from their fixated faces as their thumbs feverishly tap away. Only Henry seems excited, sitting up in the front passenger seat on account of his windy bottom banishing him from sharing the back seat. The twins refused to even get in the car unless Henry sat in the front, and so his tail is now sweeping the blanket-covered seat in feverish anticipation of all the cavorting in the sea and sand dunes he has to look forward to. It’s extraordinary how, every time we reach this point in the journey, he always seems to know where we are heading and does his exuberantly panty dog-breath thing with his mouth wide open and his tongue lolling out to make the windscreen steam up. ‘OK, handsome boy, nearly there,’ I soothe, giving Henry’s unruly mane a quick, affectionate ruffle before swiping at the glass with the back of my coat sleeve, keen to actually see the road ahead. Safety first and all that. Plus, I don’t want to miss the moment I’ve been looking forward to ever since I came to the conclusion that moving back to Mulberry-On-Sea is the best possible option under the circumstances.
Any minute now and the powder-blue art deco building with arched windows and the golden, glittery Christmas window display that is Carrington’s department store, is going to come into view. A landmark synonymous with arriving in the lovely little traditional seaside village with the peppermint-green railings leading down to the harbour and a glimpse of the sea beyond, it’s the place where tourists take their pictures and the locals let out a sigh of contentment, happy to be home. And I can’t wait, even though returning to Mulberry feels bittersweet. You see, I grew up here and first moved away in my early twenties, and it has been far too long since we have been back to visit as a family. We used to come here in the summer holidays and spend six long glorious weeks sunbathing and swimming in the surprisingly warm sparkling sea. But things are different now. Losing your home this close to Christmas time would do that, and so I packed up our whole world inside the car.
Apart from Ted, of course.
I think of the framed photos and his cartoon caricature sketches carefully stowed in the footwell of the passenger seat beside me, remembering lifting one of the lovely pictures from the mantelpiece to wrap in tissue paper for packing, running the tip of my index finger over the perfect beach scene it portrays: seagulls caw-cawing as they swoop and soar up high in a cloudless turquoise sky; the sun shimmering on the crystal-capped waves as they lull back and forth on the sandy shore; the grassy dunes rising in the background, nestling amidst the row of ramshackle old fishermen’s huts; my late husband, Ted, as a child, making sandcastles and laughing into the camera as Jan and Ken, his proud mum and dad, captured the happy scene that now lives inside the silver photo frame. The other picture is a festive one taken of Ted as a young teenager with a red Santa hat on his head, grinning as he sits on a sledge in the snow-covered grassy slopes that lead down to the other end of the beach where a row of pastel-coloured beach huts hug the coastline. If it snows at Christmas time, it’s a tradition for everyone in the little seaside town of Mulberry to go sledging on the slopes and I’m really hoping we might get to give it a go this year to help create some new happy memories.
It was just over a year ago that Ted died in the prime of his life at the age of thirty-seven, doing what he loved best: second only to drawing cartoon caricatures, he was playing football with his mates, when an unknown heart condition took him in an instant. ‘Just like that,’ as the late, great comedian Tommy Cooper used to say, according to my granddad who was a big Tommy Cooper fan. But on that fateful Sunday morning we had all thought Ted was messing around when it happened, staggering back and forth, with what looked like his daddy-dinosaur face on. The same goofy face he used to pull for the twins when they were little, and then for Freya, our ‘surprise’ baby girl – gasping and roaring, before clawing at his chest, making the children squeal and shriek in pleasure and faux fear at being caught and eaten up by the daddy dinosaur. And we had all been there that day, cheering Ted on as we did every Sunday morning before piling into the pub garden for a roast dinner and a good old family bicker about what film we would watch when they got back home. Whose turn was it to choose? And whose turn was it to hold the TV remote control and the enormous bowl of popcorn with mini marshmallows and Maltesers mixed in. None of the Carrington clan, as Dave, the pub landlord, called us, could ever remember any of these vitally important details for our afternoon of fun. I used to love those days all snuggled up on the sofa together, laughing and teasing one another. Only, there wasn’t a film that day. Or a roast dinner, come to think of it. I’ve blanked out much of what went on. The section from when the referee realised what was really happening with Ted and blew the whistle, followed by an ambulance hurtling across the muddy field, has all turned into a hazy, muddled memory that hovers on the periphery of my consciousness, never quite coming back into sharp focus. But maybe it’s better this way. Who wants to relive the moment their husband died over and over on a loop, like some kind of sadistic ritual? Not me, that’s for sure. Instead, I try to remember the good times. The life I had with Ted before he died. And focus on trying to build a happy future for me and children.
Ted and I were young when we first met, still teenagers, in the sixth form at the local school, with part-time jobs in Carrington’s department store in the centre of Mulberry, the place where we both grew up. Ted had arrived to work in the Christmas grotto, dressed as an elf, complete with tight green trousers that accentuated his solid-looking football-player thighs. I was working in Handbags and Accessories, having a laugh with my friends – the wickedly acerbic and completely camp Eddie, the funny and friendly Georgie, and her best friend, Sam, plus all the others that I knew from school. I lost touch with them all years ago after I moved away. I think Georgie spends some of the year in Italy these days and Sam runs the coffee and cake shop inside Carrington’s. The last I heard of Eddie, he was having the time of his life as a TV celebrity living in LA, but I can still remember us all nudging each other and finding excuses to go and ‘help out’ in the grotto so we could get a look at the hot new boy, Ted Carrington, his dad a distant relative of one of the original Carrington family founders of the department store.
I did try to play it cool but I’ve never been very good at doing that and literally ended up on top of Ted soon after we first spoke. Not on purpose. No, definitely not. He asked me where the stockroom was so he could get more of the wrapped presents to top up the wooden toy box beside Santa’s sleigh, and I had been so flustered that I tripped on the fairy-lights cable, bumped into Ted who put his arms out to break my fall, but skidded backwards on the fake snow strewn across the polished shop floor, and we both landed together in a clumsy heap. From then on, we were pretty much inseparable, laughing and flirting until the end of our shifts and I would have to go home and get back to my A levels revision. Not that I could fully focus on studying with thoughts of gorgeous Ted swirling around inside my head, and then inside my heart, with his cheeky, lopsided grin and twinkling blue eyes, and his wavy blonde hair that would flop into his eyes all the time and have to be pushed aside with his tanned forearm when he was busy turning the lever on the artificial snow machine.
I catch my breath, wondering for the umpteenth time if I’m doing the right thing in bringing us all here to Mulberry-On-Sea. It feels like the best thing for me, to be close to where I was happiest with Ted back in those early, carefree days of our relationship and then again on our family holidays there. It’s always felt like a happy place and one that I’m hoping will make my family feel happy again. But the children’s whole lives, friends and school, is all so far away now. Oscar didn’t want to come and told me so, his teenage hormones fuelling his anger as he informed me how selfish I am to completely ruin his life. But after ignoring me for nearly a whole week, he realised too that there really isn’t an alternative. Yes, our old home held all the precious, wonderful memories of Ted, but I struggled to manage financially after Ted died, eking out his modest life-insurance payment and then when the little local café I worked in closed down and I lost my job making afternoon cream teas, I fell behind with the rent. The landlord was very kind and understanding at first, but when his own circumstances changed and he had to sell the house, it meant that we had to move out as the new people were keen to ‘be in before Christmas’. So rather than us all be homeless, I went for the only other option, after the council said they might be able to house us in a hostel (without Henry, Snuggle and Chewy though, who would all have to be rehomed somewhere else or given to an animal rescue shelter) but couldn’t guarantee where the hostel would be, or for how long. The children had suffered enough after losing their dad, so there was no way I could even consider us being without our beloved family pets. Henry especially has been such a comfort; it’s true what they say about pets just knowing how you feel, as Henry always rests his chin on my lap when I’m having a particularity tricky day and need a little bit of cheering up and tender loving care. No, we couldn’t part with our gorgeous Henry, or Snuggle and Chewy, even if I do end up having to clean out their cage when Olly and Oscar promised me faithfully in the pet shop when they were pleading the case for me to buy two guinea pigs, that they would take care of all their needs. Of course, it never happened. But seeing the boys watching TV with a guinea pig each on their laps or nestled on a shoulder and the softening of their tense jawlines as they manage to unwind and release the daily stress of losing their dad… well, it’s the very least they deserve to not be taken away from them too.
So I took up Ted’s parents’ very generous and kind offer of moving into their old holiday home. Jan and Ken have lived in Australia for over ten years now and have no intention of using the tiny two-bedroomed weather-boarded fisherman’s beach house on the edge of the dunes and were very happy to be able to help us out. Although Ken made it very clear that the house needs some work and if I don’t mind cleaning it up and giving it a lick of paint then I’ll be doing them a favour too. And now that Ted’s pension payments have started coming through and there isn’t rent to pay each month, I should be able, with some careful budgeting, to keep the wolf from the door over the Christmas holidays and until I can find a new job. Even if the beach house is small and shabby and needs a bit of work, we’ll make the best of it and, besides, it has to be better than being homeless or being parted from our beloved pets.
