Writing Class Exercise

I went to my writing class today. The tutor passed round three envelopes and we had to take a piece of paper from each. I got ‘milkman’, ‘hotel’ and ‘bottle of perfume’. It never ceases to amaze me what my brain makes of some of these exercises. Here I was trying to write everything in the vein of my Nanowrimo project to save time, but this exercise refused. For a laugh, I share what I wrote below:-

Slow Burn

I was in love with the milkman. He wasn’t your average hero with his bald head (usually covered with a tweed cap), ruddy face and bow legs. Then, I wasn’t your average heroine, being the wrong side of fifty and rather plump to put it mildly. I worked as a cook in the little Barry Hotel in Broad Street and so, I had every excuse to talk to Alfred (the milkman). He arrived every morning wearing his white apron, breathing a little too heavily due to the weight of the crates.

I don’t know when I realised I was in love with him, but I’d been trying to move our relationship on from ‘Morning, Martha’, ‘Good Morning Alfred’, for a year now. He seemed to resist all of my attempts to be noticed. He didn’t say anything when I began to sleep in curling papers so that even at 6am I had tumbling curls under my cook’s hat, admittedly sugared with grey hairs. He didn’t notice when I began to wear more and more layers of make up or when my skirts got shorter. Maybe he just wasn’t interested.

Still living in hope, I continued with my beauty regime and always made sure I had a clean bright tent under my spruce white apron. Lovesick that is what my mother, God rest her soul, would have called me.

I’d all but given up, but one day as Alfred turned to leave, he said, ‘There be something for you in the bottom crate Martha. Be sure you find it.’ He winked and was gone before he saw I had turned puce.

Wrestling with the crates, I moved them until the last one was exposed. There nestling in amongst the white bottles with silver foil lids was a bottle of perfume.