Sweet Home Summer: A heartwarming romcom perfect for curling up with. Michelle Vernal

had tucked into a pair of jeans. The brown cowboy boots were not dissimilar to the pair Isla had just bought her dad. Annie caught her gaze as they followed him up to the till. ‘It’s his down home country boy look. He thinks it makes him look like one of the local lads. I tried to tell him he just looks conspicuously gay, but he wouldn’t have a bar of it,’ she whispered.

      Isla laughed.

      They exited the shop with their wine and water. Isla saw her mother’s hand was hovering over the horn and saving her the trouble, she opened the passenger door and leaned in.

      ‘Mum, you know Annie from the Kea, and this is her friend Carl. They’re going to come with us if that’s okay?’

      ‘Get in – the more, the merrier,’ Mary trilled.

      ‘Carl meet Mary Newton-John,’ Isla said twisting in her seat after she’d done her belt up.

      Mary looked back over her shoulder. ‘Ha ha, she’s very funny my daughter. Mary Brookes and it’s nice to meet you, Carl. Are you staying in Bibury long?’ she asked pulling out of the carpark before heading off down the main road.

      ‘I’ve run away actually. My partner David’s being a prat and I needed some time out, so I’ve landed on Annie and Kris for a few days to get my head straight.’ He laughed. ‘Well, you know what I mean.’

      The three women smiled in the darkened car interior and then Mary gave a sympathetic tut. ‘Bibury’s a good place to get your head straight … um, I mean in order. It’s got a peaceful aura.’

      They all ignored the boy-racer who chose that very minute to overtake them with his sound system thumping and muffler backfiring.

      ‘What is it you do with yourself work wise Carl?’ Mary carried on.

      ‘I am a fashion photographer.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Mum, eyes on the road!’

      ‘Well, that’s a coincidence. I’m in the industry too.’

      ‘I thought you looked familiar; I haven’t photographed you have I?’

      Mary’s laugh was high and girlish. ‘Oh no, I’m far too old for modelling but I am in the business, I’m a Revlon Consultant at Mitchells Pharmacy on the High Street.’

      ‘I love Revlon. It’s one of my favourite brands. I photographed Stella Rockhampton last year for them. She was a real sweetie, not like some of the girls out there. I blame the attitude on a lack of food. Who can be nice when you’re permanently peckish?’

      ‘I agree, better to have that cheeseburger and burn it off with a bit of NLNL.’

      ‘Amen to that, Mary.’

      Isla was trying not to laugh at the banter between them, and she didn’t have to look back to know that Annie was too.

      The hall sat in the middle of a field and Mary pulled into a parking space off to the side of the building. Dusk had settled in, but it was still light enough for Isla to see that the building was indeed looking tired. She hoped no one’s exuberant dance steps would cause them to go through the floorboards inside, which no doubt would be riddled with woodworm.

      ‘Okay, gang – let’s get our groove on!’ Mary cut a move and clapped her hands in a way that made Isla cringe and Annie and Carl laugh. At least she’d had the sense not to wear anything too inappropriate for a woman her age, and there was not a leg warmer in sight. Isla inspected her mum’s lycra pants and singlet top. She’d had to do the headband thing, she noticed, shaking her head as she followed her lead into the hall.

      A few women, none of whom Isla recognized at first glance, were standing on pews pegging sheets over the windows. A stereo system was perched on the raised wooden stage near the entrance, and an alcove to the right of the stage indicated the facilities. It hadn’t changed in the twenty years since Isla had last been inside it. She’d be willing to bet it hadn’t changed in the one hundred odd years since it had been built.

      ‘Evening Mary love, I see you’ve brought some newbies with you.’

      ‘Linda, you remember my daughter, Isla?’

      ‘Oh Isla of course, gosh look at you! You’re all grown up.’

      Isla nodded and smiled biting back that she had, in fact, been grown up for some time now. She vaguely recalled the big woman in the resplendent lightweight black and silver active wear ensemble from somewhere in her formative years.

      ‘And these are her new friends. Carl, he’s a fashion photographer by the way.’ There was a collective oohing and mass sucking in of tummies. ‘And Annie, you’ve probably seen her around town, she’s hard to miss with all that gorgeous red hair, is related to Noeline somehow or other. She’s working at the Kea.’

      ‘Welcome, welcome all, we’ll get started in a jiffy,’ Linda said.

      Carl emitted a low whistle as he looked around him. ‘They don’t build them like this anymore. All that timber is to die for.’

      Isla nodded, testing the floor with her foot. It felt solid, and there were no squiggly telltale signs of Bora eating away it. ‘It’s Kauri,’ she said referring to the native wood. ‘My grandmother’s the chairperson for the hall’s committee, and apparently, they want to give it a long overdue overhaul. It all looks pretty sound inside, but I’m guessing the toilet and kitchen facilities would struggle to pass a council inspection these days.’

      Annie was standing at the far end of the hall next to the stuffed stag’s head staring up at two varnished war memorial plaques. A Roll of Honour on each depicted in gold lettering the names of the young men who had lost their lives fighting for their country in both the Great War and the Second World War. Carl and Isla joined her.

      ‘Sad, isn’t it?’ Annie said.

      ‘Yeah, I don’t know what I’d have done at eighteen if I’d been made to go off and fight for my country. I’m a lover, not a fighter, but if those men hadn’t gone, then our country would be very different to the one we live in today,’ Carl ventured sagely.