Chapter 33

The following morning Ron and Jess were up and ready to depart, Jess in mother mode gave Jennie a list of do's and don'ts which of course Jen totally ignored. "You two just go and do what honeymooners do; we'll be OK here so don't you worry."

With the newly weds out of the way, Jen grabbed my arm and told me we had unfinished business to attend to.

"I thought you had plans to 'screw my brains out' last night, what did I find? A sleeping beauty."

"This sleeping beauty is now awake, so let's get our things together mister."

We spent an enjoyable morning in bed and after a late lunch we decided to go for a drive in the Marquette. It was lovely weather so the top was folded down and we drove aimlessly around the countryside, it was a very pleasant day all round. Back home we had the house to ourselves and Jen the Adventurer decide we needed to christen every room in the house, we did.

The next day being a Monday it was back to work, I dropped Jen off at school and then went to the store, the self serve market was still attracting a lot of customers so I kept out of the way. During the mid morning tea break I spied Joe Costello walking into the store so I called him over. "Hi Joe, what can I do for you mate?"

"Hi Jimmy, now that the old store is closed can we discuss my leasing it?"

"Most definitely Joe, what do we need to get it ready for the Pizza parlour?"

"As I said before I will need to seek finance to get started, if that goes through then I will need to start looking for equipment."

"OK Joe, I've discussed this with Ron and we would like to offer you a proposition, we will pay for the set up of the parlour and provide the store rent free for twelve months, in return we will own forty percent of the business as silent partners. If at a later date you wish to buy us out we will come to an amicable agreement, how does that sound to you?"

Joe was flustered and excited, so I suggested he go home and talk it over with his wife, if they were happy with our offer we would need to wait until Ron returned to draw up the agreement and register the business, in the mean time I told him to look Peio up and see if he would be willing to take charge of the fit out.

"Jimmy, I know my wife will be very happy about your offer but I will talk to her and then let you know. Thank you my friend this is more than I could have wished for."

After Joe went to talk to his wife I got to mulling things over in my mind, there was no doubt that the influx of immigrants to this country would affect the population of our little corner of the world. There would be a need for affordable housing, something that was at a bit of a premium at the moment; casting my mind back to something Jen had suggested, building a housing estate. With Peio's precast concrete panels a great portion of the cost would be reduced, we owned several suitable sites for housing and if our Credit Union was running, housing loans could make the project quite feasible. When Ron is back on the boards I take the matter up with him, maybe Peio would be interested in forming a partnership with us, definitely food for thought.