BooksBarbecue
Back When Life Gives You Lemons
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS
  3. Dedication
  4. Part One
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Part Two
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Part Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  36. Part Four
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-One
  49. Chapter Forty-Two
  50. Acknowledgements
  51. Keep Reading …
  52. About the Author
  53. By the same author:
  54. About the Publisher

For the first time this century the laundry basket is empty. Having allowed myself the luxury of gazing into it for a few moments, I make myself another strong coffee and sit at the kitchen window as I drink it, wondering what to do next. I’d sit outside in the sunshine but Tim-the-rat-worrier from next door is in his back garden, along with Chrissie and their young son, Ludo. Being the same age as Izzy, he should probably be a friend of hers, but most definitely isn’t.

Tim is beavering away, pruning and hoeing and dragging enormous sacks of clippings about. Heavily pregnant now, Chrissie is barking commands from the patio. But only directed at Tim, it seems; apparently no one minds that Ludo appears to be intent on destroying their brick shed with a hammer. Even from here, I can see bits pinging off it, yet neither his mother nor father seem to be telling him to stop. This is how they ‘parent’: by letting the pint-sized vandal do whatever he wants.

They must reckon it’s a ‘learning experience’ for him, battering a shed.

A few weeks before all the Estelle Lang stuff came out, when life seemed to be reasonably normal, Andy and I were in pottering about in our own garden when we saw him throwing stones at a cat on the wall. ‘Don’t do that, Ludo!’ my husband called out in a perfectly pleasant tone.

Chrissie must have overheard as she zoomed out of their house. ‘We don’t say no,’ she admonished us.

And now, even though it’s not my shed, I find myself growing more and more agitated watching the kid attacking it, to the point at which I have to move away from the window and try to find something else to do instead.

I could call a friend. However, I remember now that Penny was planning a trip on her boyfriend Hamish’s narrowboat (Izzy finds it hilarious that I refer to him as her boyfriend, but it’s Penny’s favoured term, so what else should I call him?). I could try my oldest friends, Shelley and Isla – the three of us go way back to primary school – but it would feel kind of invasive, pinging into their weekends with no notice.