Green with Envy (for splendid_roman)

[first_in_time]

It was one of the weekends John stayed with a friend, and his parents had the house to themselves for doing more or less whatever they liked without having to stop to answer questions or ask John to take his bath and get ready for bed. Of course they loved John and missed him terribly when he went away for the weekend, but it was nice to just have

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[splendid_roman]

Ian stirred when she came upstairs, but was quite happy to take advantage of John's absence to sleep. No matter how nice a day it was.

[splendid_roman]

He wasn't entirely balanced either and her weight meant he fell backwards. He automatically put his arms around her waist, but all that meant was that she fell on him. He laughed as they kissed.

[first_in_time]

Her arms were pulled out from under him as she giggled and kissed her husband.

"I'm going to get changed into something more suitable for leaving the house," Barbara told him as they untangled, and she stood from the ground.

[splendid_roman]

"All right." He stood up too and headed for the house. "I'll make some sandwiches. Their cafe's bound to be expensive."

[first_in_time]

"If you'd like," she smiled and left him to it.

Barbara's book was put beside her bed before she selected comfortable trousers and a button up shirt. Nothing terribly fancy, but certainly comfortable for wandering around the gardens in. Once she'd finished, she went back down stairs, selected a bag to carry their lunch in, then sat by the kitchen counter to watch Ian finish tampering with the food.

[splendid_roman]

The trouble with leaving Ian to make lunch was that he experimented. He'd learnt his lesson when it came to original sandwich fillings at least, so he stuck to ordinary cheese and ordinary ham and tomato. But he did cut them so that each piece had half of one type and half the other. It wasn't obvious what he'd done as he packed them up.

He smiled and looked round at Barbara. "Enjoying watching me work?"

[first_in_time]

"I always enjoy watching you," she smiled back and rested her chin in her hand. "And I suppose that visiting Kew Gardens is a way of preventing me beating you in another game of scrabble?"

[splendid_roman]

"No, because you wouldn't have beat me." Having finished he turned round to look at her and more seriously said, "We haven't had a day out just the two of us for..." He trailed off, trying to remember how long it had been. In the end he gave up and finished the sentence with, "ages."

[first_in_time]

She got up from the chair so that she could walk over and give him a hug. "I know. I wasn't being entirely serious, and I'm quite looking forward to today. We just have to make sure that we're back here by 2 this afternoon for when Toby's mother brings him back."

[splendid_roman]

"She'll be late," he prophesied, hugging her back. It always took a while to tear Toby and John away from each other. "I wonder how many new songs they'll have written this weekend." On Friday John had said something about needing to write a new album and they were going to do something different this time, but he wouldn't say what.

[first_in_time]

"No doubt we'll find out tonight. We'll get a fantastic living room concert with all his hits as well as the new stuff," she grinned and laughed because it was exactly the kind of thing John would do...and they were yet to take him to a real concert.

[splendid_roman]

Ian smiled. John watched Top of the Pops religiously and he'd got his ideas of concerts from that. "I'm looking forward to it. At least when they're at Toby's house we won't have heard all the rehearsals too."

[first_in_time]

"We should thank Toby's mother somehow for living with the rehursals for a whole weekend." Barbara tightened her hug a little and leaned up to kiss him again.

[splendid_roman]

"We'll have Toby one weekend, then his parents can have a little peace and quiet for a couple of days." Ian let go of her. "We ought to get going, else we won't get to see much before we have to come back."

[first_in_time]

"Yes, you're right."

Barbara packed their lunches in the bag she found, added some bottles of water and found her wide-brimmed straw hat by the door.

"Are you ready? I'm just taking the things out to the car," she called out, "can you please lock up?"

[splendid_roman]

"I will," he called after her. He didn't take him long to look around to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything, and then lock up and join Barbara in the car.

He turned the key in the ignition, then looked over at Barbara. "I know it's tempting fate, but I hope that all we do is look around and we don't have to deal with any aliens this time."