Chapter 17: Preparation for the return

I left what I was doing and went up to join Hild in the bedroom. I lay down beside her on the top of the bedding and she just curled up against me without opening her eyes. One had a grand view from the bed. I could look out of the windows and see quite a bit of the countryside.

I saw a car enter the grounds and I heard it pull up to the front.

Then I heard The Voices that upper crust accent of two of Marjorie's friends arriving. It was 'Daaaaarlinggggg this' and 'Daaaaarlinggggg that', I was glad that I was out of it and hoped that Marjorie wouldn't introduce them to us.

Fortunately, she didn't but I lay awake and could occasionally hear them depending where they were located. Soon the car left and I let out a sigh of relief. A month after arriving here Marjorie and the local archaeology group with her professor friend spent five days at the site where we planted the statues and spearheads. They only dug down four feet and found the items we had planted there, so after almost three and a half thousand years the only thing that had changed was the erosion of about two feet of topsoil. In fact there were still traces of the hide I had wrapped round them, but not much, but enough to get all the diggers excited. Funny no-one asked how Marjorie knew exactly the area to dig in. This routine went on for weeks, we seldom saw Marjorie, except in the evenings. When asked where she went all the time, the only answer we got was that she was organizing things. She was true to her words though. She got the auctioneers to send her the lot contents of upcoming auctions. I sat for hours studying them, attending them in disguise, and placing bids by telephone. Marjorie gave me her bank card, to use as I wish.

I bought for example an auction lot of 50 wooden bows, strings and boxes of arrows some practise, some hunting, from a liquidation sale. An old horse-drawn plough, and a set of harrows, A solid fuel range cooker with built in water tank, a box of Blocks and Tackles and coils of rope from an ex-government sale to mention but a few.

The stables where we were storing all this were slowly getting filled. The next question was how I was going to transport all this lot. When I brought it up with Marjorie she said that we would just get a truck rental. God, I thought when she mentioned this; the company that rents us the truck will be in for a surprise. This is one truck they won't see again.

When I saw the load I realized that one truck wasn't going to carry the gathered items.

New items, which had been on my list and the things I had been buying from auctions, were arriving almost daily. When the servants asked, we told them we were preparing for an expedition into the deserts of Australia. That was as far away and remote that I could think of.

The winter had really set in and was bitter cold, I persuaded Marjorie when buying clothing for us to remember the winter clothing, and really get arctic clothing rather than British winter clothing. I needn't have worried she had that all organized. In fact I left the food, clothing and household effects for her to organize.

Christmas came and we, staff included sat down to a family type traditional Christmas dinner. It was nice and cosy, but Hild had no idea what all the fuss was about. She was starting to show her pregnancy now, she waddled when she walked. I suggested she go see a doctor (after explaining what a doctor was) she just refused.

Even though I had left my Calendar Stick behind I still kept a record. I was surprised that I now carved cut number 262. Only fourteen days to go. Apprehension began to set in; the weather was bad and the forecast wasn't much better.

When we met for our weekly meeting (it had got to that stage now) I told Marjorie. "We have to get all the items packed on to trucks soon, as it is going to take us a while to pack them."