After the meeting with Randy and Veronica, they’d gone into a frenzied period of organisation. They made sure they had everything needed for the two masterclasses they were going to run between them, and did a couple of practice runs, the Oakley West residents being very willing volunteers acting as students.
Once Olive was happy there was nothing more to worry about on that front, she set about planning her Santa’s grotto surprise. With what had happened with Skylar and Lucas over the past few weeks, there was more determination in Olive than ever to make sure they knew there were good people in the world. It was hard when the people who, in theory, should have been the key parts to life ended up letting them down, but it didn’t mean there weren’t others able to become those pillars. Surely that was what Christmas spirit was all about?
Internet shopping became Olive’s friend in her quest to be a do-gooder. It was amazing what she was able to get hold of with a few clicks of a button. She wondered if it was this easy for Santa? She’d never had any desire to date another man, let alone marry one, but maybe she’d consider it if it meant ending up as Mrs Claus. She reckoned that job would be pretty cushy.
What she hadn’t allowed for was the amount of wrapping required when she didn’t have little elfs around to help her. She was being a bit presumptious in assuming everyone would be onboard with her grand plan, but as it was mostly for Lucas’s benefit, she was pretty sure all of them would be. She wasn’t going to ask them until after the Gingle Bells weekend, though. It was better if they were able to concentrate on that first and she was the only one left distracted.
Because Olive was so busy, the weekend arrived so quickly she wondered if life was trying to give her whiplash. Rather than opting to be part of the welcoming party, Olive and her friends decided to have a rare restful evening at Oakley West before heading over to the gin grottos the following morning.
Part of the excitement for some of the guests was meeting the Oakley West trio. The concept seemed ludicrous to Olive. It was amazing what a bit of newspaper coverage could do. In fact, the local newspaper had asked to cover the retreat weekend to run a feature in the paper. It was very odd to think the paper was coming to them. So the three of them had vowed to get some proper sleep for a change, and it also gave them the chance to spruce themselves up a bit in the morning. It wasn’t every day that they were photographed with a view to having their mugs printed in thousands of papers. And that was if it didn’t filter into the nationals like it had last time. Lightning didn’t strike twice, though, so the chances were that wouldn’t be the case. But it never hurt to be prepared.
When the day came, the weather was really mild. It was cold, but with a few layers it was pleasant enough to be outside. It meant they could go ahead with their plan to host the masterclasses at the beach huts.
Spruced up adequately, the Oakley West trio headed out, Olive reunited with her Segway at last. It was going to be nice to cruise down to the beach without being wiped out before she even arrived.
‘Hold on a second,’ Randy said, stopping before she went to pick it up from where they now let her store it in the lobby.
‘There’s not a problem with it, is there?’ As Olive hadn’t ridden it since the battery had given out, she was worried there was something more terminally wrong with it. Randy had said he’d sorted it, but now Olive wasn’t so sure he’d been able to. Maybe he’d replaced it with a skateboard.
‘Here we go, here’s your one,’ Randy said, rolling the Segway out.
It looked pristine and unscathed from its adventures and Olive was happy to be reunited with it, hopefully with a fully charged battery and in working order.
Randy returned to the cupboard. ‘And here’s Veronica’s and mine.’ Both of theirs had been adorned with big capitals V and R respectively. ‘I’ve got you an O, but didn’t want to add it without permission.’
Olive laughed. She really was a trendsetter. She couldn’t believe her friends had been daft enough to get Segways as well. ‘Of course I want mine added. I can’t have you two outshining me.’
‘Give me a minute then.’
It took Randy a few minutes, but before long they were cruising along the street in single file until they were across the Royal Esplanade and able to ride alongside each other.
They spent a hilarious few minutes on their way down, trying to work out if they were able to spell anything rude with their initials. But ORV or ROV was as exciting as it got and even the acronyms they were able to come up with weren’t that offensive: Only Red Varieties or Rarely Organised Vegans. They were sure they would be able to say worse things, but they refused to use V as a variant of lady garden so managed to amuse themselves while maintaining an ounce of decorum.
They were so busy giggling as they came down the slope, they nearly missed out on the fact that there was a small crowd waiting for them along with a photographer.
Olive would have thought they were for someone else had it not been for them chanting, ‘We love the Oakley West trio.’
It was all a bit beyond anything any of them had ever expected and for a moment they had to cope with fans screaming delight and the paparazzi (if it was possible to class one photographer as that) taking multiple photos. They were even asked to re-enact the scene so Rory (the journalist who’d broken their story in the first place) was able to get the best shots possible.
It was quite comical really, but it turned out that this being an organised weekend with the chance to actually meet the Oakley West trio meant more than a few fans from Veronica’s Facebook page had turned up, including three girls all the way from Japan. It delayed the start of the masterclasses no end, but no one there seemed to be too worried.
Richard at some point managed to get a hold of proceedings and managed to direct everyone to where they should be. As there were six cocktail recipes to teach, in the end they’d split who was going to teach what so they had about twenty minutes to go through each drink in smaller groups.
It meant going through the same drink three times, but it would give the participants a chance to learn all the recipes, and moving them about hopefully meant it wouldn’t be too boring and send any of them to sleep.
Olive had the Japanese girls as her first class. They were incredibly sweet without a great deal of spoken English apart from gin, which they liked to repeat loudly and enthusiastically whenever it was mentioned.
‘There’s one person who hasn’t made it yet. Hopefully they’ll get here before lunchtime,’ Richard said as he went between organising tasks and making sure everything was okay. Thankfully they’d told him how they wanted the huts set out and everything they’d needed was already there.
Olive was doing her Mince Pie gin recipe. It turned out it wasn’t a flavour they were particularly familiar with in Japanese culture, so, despite some language barriers, the masterclass also turned into a taste-testing experience as well. She would have to make sure, if mince pies weren’t part of the Christmas lunch, that she got hold of some for the girls to experience.
For her next teaching session there were more fans, only these ones were far nearer to Olive in age. Apparently they were visiting from Sunny Days Retirement Quarters in Brighton, another of the homes run by the owners of Oakley West. They’d heard about their story in the quarterly newsletter, followed them ever since and thought this weekend sounded like the most fun they would have in the run-up to Christmas.
Rory followed this group in and took discreet pictures while Olive carried on explaining about the preparation involved with the recipe. When he started taking notes, she started to worry.
‘Don’t be printing this. It’s going to be our winning cocktail.’ Richard was going to announce the winning cocktail that evening, so Olive didn’t know for certain if it was a winner, but confidence and her son’s expression told her it stood a pretty good chance.
‘Don’t worry. I’m noting it down for personal use only. Mince pies are my favourite.’
‘You’d best try a sample then in that case,’ Olive said, offering her version of Blue Peter’s “Here’s one I made earlier”. She’d be very squiffy if she had an entire drink with every demonstration.
The last group was a very jovial group of retirement-age friends who often went away on weekends together. When they’d seen this advertised they thought it sounded like the perfect excuse for their monthly get-together. They were a very merry group and Olive got the impression it was because they liked to get the most out of life and have a laugh as they went. There was every possibility this impression was brought about because they were indeed already squiffy, but really, if they weren’t, well, the weekend wasn’t doing what it said on the tin.
Hopefully all the different groups were getting on okay and, if so, it would make the Christmas dinner they were setting off for a really fun affair, which was just as it should be.
Richard was checking to see that all the tutorials were finished before ushering everyone along the promenade back towards the Gin Shack. That wasn’t going to happen without the group of girls requesting that everyone get together and have their pictures taken in front of the beach huts shouting out “GIN GROTTOS” and making peace signs for a multitude of photos with personal cameras and phones and Rory taking all of them, along with his own snaps for the paper.
‘I made it.’
It was Pete talking to the gathered group.
Olive really wanted to swing her peace signs round to signify a different message entirely.
‘What are you doing here?’ Richard asked.
Most of the people present, of course, had no clue as to why they weren’t pleased to see the man who’d just announced his arrival.
‘I spoke to you earlier to say I’d be late.’
‘But I didn’t know it was you.’
Olive was pretty sure Rory was still taking photos. He knew the Gin Shack tended to create headline news, so wouldn’t want to miss out on any drama.
‘Hils booked the weekend up. She might not be coming, but I thought I’d still take advantage. It’s not a problem, is it?’
There were a hundred reasons why it was a problem. Olive listed at least ten without even thinking on it. She was sure she would be able to come up with the other ninety given half an hour.
‘Well, I’m not sure.’ Richard seemed a bit lost. No doubt he was thinking about the law and how it would stand up in a court of law. This man had played dirty, attached bottoms to their establishment and tried to desecrate the name of the Gin Shack. But Richard was bound to be thinking, did they have any evidence to back it up?
‘I’m sure,’ Olive found herself saying. ‘I am absolutely one hundred per cent certain that you are not welcome at this weekend or on the premises of the Gin Shack. Richard can refund your money, but I am not having bullies coming and spoiling the enjoyment of others. You’ve done quite enough of that in recent weeks and I for one will not stand for it.’
‘Me neither,’ Veronica said, really having no idea what it was all about, but backing up her friend all the same.
And in a succinct chorus of unison, even though none of them knew the complete story of why this man was a bully, everyone there carried on the chant of “Me neither”.
Olive was pretty sure the young girls didn’t actually know the meaning of what they were saying, but everyone else was helping them stand up against a man who’d turned up in Westbrook Bay expecting to get his own way wherever he went.
‘I better bloody get my money back. And this is going on Tripadvisor.’
‘Oh great,’ Richard said. ‘Yet another attempt to sabotage our business for your own benefit.’
‘You’re sabotaging yourselves if you’re turning customers away for no good reason.’ Pete started to trounce off, eager to be the one giving the final word in the conversation.
For a moment there was silence. That was one way to have the weekend ruined, but at least he was gone. Hopefully there would be no more from him.
Olive’s concern about it potentially ruining the weekend vanished on the back of two words.
“GIN GROTTO” was announced and, with that, everyone was saying it again and making peace signs and taking silly selfies and having a wonderful giggle, possibly due to all the gin that had been consumed and enjoyed.
It was one of those wonderful moments and, because everyone was a bit distracted, Olive wasn’t past taking the brief opportunity to whip her fingers round the other way in the direction of Pete. No one was going to come along and try to ruin a community and get away with it. At least not while the Gin Shack crew were around to stick up for themselves.