My favourite room was the library. This contained a mix of comfy sofas and orthopaedic recliners in a range of vibrant fabrics, and a huge fireplace. As well as the books, there was a dresser full of board games and even a pool table. A café that opened onto a sunny terrace doubled up as the events bar, and beside this was the enormous kitchen where Wendy and her catering team prepared a range of non-stodgy meals without a single overcooked vegetable in sight.
As well as the main office, there was a modest staff room, although Dad explained that most of the team just took their breaks with the centre members. There was also an art room, again with giant windows and a wall of cupboards containing supplies for more art and crafts than I knew existed. They pointed across the terrace to an out-building that housed all the wedding equipment, including everything from tables to boxes of rose-petal confetti made during a weekday craft activity.
In every room, Dad showed me the discreetly located equipment such as hand rails, ramps and a hoist.
We then took a quick look upstairs, where there were separate rooms for the bride and groom if the wedding party wanted a space to get ready or simply spend time before heading to the church next door. These were more sumptuous than downstairs, with plenty of soft-furnishings and full-length ornamental mirrors as well as two spacious bathrooms. There was also a large office containing an orderly work station in one corner, the other three packed with vision boards, work tables bearing centrepieces and other decorations in various stages of completion and piles of wedding-related clutter such as chalk boards with cutesy phrases scrawled on them.
I smiled, already looking forward to meeting the creative director, who was presumably the person forcing Isaac to tolerate such chaos.
‘Now for my favourite place,’ Mum said, cheeks rosy with excitement. ‘Outside!’
On a different day, when I wasn’t on the brink of suffocation thanks to my stupid turtleneck, it would have been my favourite place, too. As well as numerous sets of wooden tables and chairs, the terrace also had garden sofas lining one side. Dotted around the lawn were more seating options, including picnic benches and quirky-looking egg chairs hanging from trees.
There was a vegetable garden, with raised beds and a greenhouse. The large pond had a water feature that I recognised from photos.
‘This must be a lovely place to sit and rest.’
Mum scoffed. ‘That’s if you aren’t getting constantly splashed in the face.’
I looked at Dad, confused.
‘Some of the members like to go wild swimming.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ve tried to stop them, put up a fence and warning signs. It’s a health and safety nightmare, but after some of them sneaked in at night for skinny dipping during averyexclusive wedding reception, we gave up and decided that at least if it was a scheduled activity—’
‘With swimming costumes mandatory,’ Mum added.
‘—then we could supervise them.’
‘This is not at all what I expected.’ I looked at the pond, concluding that I was probably the most boring person in this village.
There was a workshop for woodworking, and tucked out of sight around a corner, the bit I decided I loved best of all.
‘The secret garden,’ Mum whispered, as though someone might overhear, ruining the secret. We walked through a solid gate to a much smaller garden enclosed by a brick wall. There was another wooden table and reclining chairs, a hammock strung between two trees and what appeared to be a giant Wendy house, with two windows framed with shutters and a daffodil yellow front door.
‘Our honeymoon suite,’ Mum said proudly. ‘We call it the Chicken Coop, because once upon a time that’s what it was. There’s a bedroom at the front, and a dinky shower room and kitchenette behind.’
If I could have afforded Robin Hood’s Barn Wedding prices, I’d have asked to move in myself.
‘Right. We’d better do the boring admin before the chaos begins.’ Dad linked his arm through mine and we ambled back to the main office.
I had enough time to read a couple of key policies and skim the current activities programme, but there was still a huge folder of PDF files to be waded through when Mum opened the front doors at ten.
Dad suggested that I kept at it until twelve-thirty. While there were drinks and snacks available until the centre closed at four, the one compulsory activity was a shared lunch, the perfect time to introduce me to who he called the ‘Outlaws’.
‘It’s what our service users call themselves,’ Mum added. ‘We tried to stop them, explained it’s offensive to those who are well-intentioned, law-abiding citizens, and the rest of them don’t need any encouragement to get into trouble. We even held a competition to come up with another name.’
‘Everyone entered the same name. They said we had no right to tell them what to call themselves. John Featherby gave a speech about ageism, and patronising them about their chosen identity.’
‘To be honest, we failed to come up with anything that suited them better,’ Mum said. ‘Anyway, you can meet them yourself at lunch.’
I couldn’t wait.
* * *
After nearly falling into a stupor wading through what seemed like infinite risk assessments, I finally shut down my laptop with a sigh of relief (even having a work laptop made me feel like some important professional who existed in a different universe to the real me). I appreciated that all this reading was essential, but most of it was nothing new. My parents had started out working in domiciliary care, visiting local residents who were elderly, disabled or otherwise in need of extra support with basic tasks. They loved the work so much that they started their own company. However, they wanted to provide more than a rushed hour or two of practical help. Mum and Dad started to imagine a place where some of these isolated people could come together. Where there was time to really listen and get to know each other, to laugh together even as they shared the struggles of getting older. A place to nurture genuine friendships in beautiful surroundings. So, the day centre dream was born.
In the meantime, Isaac and I spent our school holidays after we turned sixteen working as home carers, so the basics had been ingrained in me for a long time. Over the years, a few jobs in other domiciliary companies had kept up my knowledge, and I’d spent the past couple of weeks redoing online training where needed, so I was more than ready to move on to the fun part of the job, i.e. helping the Outlaws to enjoy themselves. First of all though, I was hoping for a good lunch.
If I’d forgotten where the café was, the noise would have led me to the right place. I’d only ever worked with one or two elderly people at a time. The ruckus drifting down the corridor reminded me more of time spent serving behind a bar.
