Chapter Seventy Four

As life settled back to normal, Mira embarked on a portrait project in her spare, she had decided to immortalise her whole family in paint and was planning a trip to China at some point to ensure she had the chance to paint the triplets too. 

Pete meanwhile had gone back to work at the hospital after his honeymoon leave.  His work wasn't just done in the hospital though as they were keen to hold clinics around the island.  

One of his first clinics on his return to work was a vaccination clinic which bizarrely enough had been arranged to be held in the local graveyard!  The only explanation Pete had been able to come up with for this was that the hospital management and public health officials hoped it would concentrate people's minds on the potential effects of not being vaccinated.

Whatever his thoughts about the venue for the clinic, Pete got on with his job quickly and efficiently and worked hard to reassure his patients about the safety of the vaccinations and the importance of having them given the recent rise in illnesses such as simfluenza and accidentitis. 

While Pete was at work, Dory continued to spend her time studying the local wildlife and collecting samples of the smaller creatures for the local zoologists to study.

She had become very skilled at coaxing small animals and birds to trust her in order that she could take them home and tag them or hand them over to the zoologists.

She was thrilled one night to see a deer grazing in the small park where she had been coaxing a bird onto her arm.  She was even more thrilled when, after watching quietly for some time, she was able to coax the deer close enough to stroke her nose.

It was during this quiet peaceful time that Taliesen grew up from a foal into a fully fledged stallion.The mishmash of colours in his mane, tail and around his feet had stabilised as he grew up and now shone a pleasant grey with white moonlit streaks, while his coat was an almost painful reminder to the family of his mother.

Despite Pete's long hours at the hospital, he and Dory managed to spend lots of time together, and he was always careful to make sure she knew just how much she meant to him.   

Of course, all the compliments did have the rather nice side effect of getting him lots of kisses... 

And one night, when they were out on the front porch watching the stars over the ocean, Dory leaned across and make some very interesting suggestions quietly in his ear. 

The two of them headed upstairs and, in a fit of whimsy, decided that the wardrobe was a much more interesting place for what they had in mind that the (nice, comfortable) bed... 

Mira was keen not to lose touch with the members of her family who had moved out and made regular arrangements to meet up.  The sculpture garden on the island was a favourite spot of Nia's and the two of them had arranged to meet there as Nia had told Mira that she had some important news.

When Mira arrived there, she found that Nia wasn't alone, she had brought along her fiance, Kane Sperie-Sabo, and as soon as the greetings were over she explained to Mira that the two of them had had a private wedding and were now Mr & Mrs Clemetis-Sabo.  Mira was slightly shocked at first and a little hurt that they hadn't invited her to the wedding.   Nia was quick to apologise and to explain her motivations.

"I'm sorry Aunt Mira, I would have loved to have had you there for my wedding, but we were worried about my mother.  You know what she's like and the fight she had with my half-sister at Dory's hen night was fairly normal for her.  I was worried that if I had a wedding and invited her she'd find some way of spoiling it or upstaging me, and if I didn't invite her then she'd find some way to turn up and spoil it!  Oh sugar, here she comes - I swear she's stalking me!"

As Nia wandered off to look at statues and attempt to ignore her mother, Mira decided it was time to get to know her niece's husband and spent some time talking to him.

Kane was very interested in Mira's job, and spent some time asking her about police procedures and the differences between the reality and the shows on tv.

It was inevitable that conversation at a sculpture garden would turn to art and after a while Menolly got bored of listening and left them to it. 

Before she left, Mira quizzed Nia on whether she'd noticed anything strange happening, she made plenty of notes but Nia wasn't really able to tell her much; nothing odd had been happening around her or Kane.  This lack of information did however help Mira in a way - if strange things weren't happening around Nia then perhaps it was something to do with the household rather than the family.

Dory had decided that now Taliesen was an adult horse it was time to get him used to being ridden.  She rode him down to the small museum her grandfather had started with the intention of improving the place somewhat.

While she was there she started to feel quite ill, unfortunately they hadn't actually set up any toilets at the place so she found herself throwing up on the ground outside and then had to clean up afterwards. 

When she had recovered herself and cleaned up, Taliesen decided to try and make her feel better and blessed her.

When they got home, Dory spent some time grooming Taliesen and looking after him in thanks for his aid that day.

But it wasn't long before she began to feel sick again, despite the unicorn blessing and all the vaccinations Pete insisted on giving her...

Later that night, Pete's pager went off alerting him to an emergency at the hospital.  He did his best to get out of bed and dressed quietly and not wake Dory up but failed dismally. 

After kissing Pete goodbye and sending him off to an extra shift, Dory felt a sudden slight kick in her stomach and suddenly realised why she'd been feeling so sick all day, she was pregnant!

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Pet Spam

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Town News

• Marianne Sperie-Sabo aged to a toddler
• Minna Harris-Crist aged to a child
• Andreas Harris-Crist, Ralph Marlin-Crist and Sindre McKinley-Sabo aged to young adults with Ralph & Sindre both getting jobs as firefighters
• Nathaniel Harris-McKinley, Irish Marlin, Isadora Marlin and Quetzal Sperie aged to elders
• Danya Crist, Boy Mitchell-Crist and Harper Dennis died of old age
• Shadow Sperie-Fields & Sterling Harris-McKinley broke up
• Adamaris Dennis and Lukas Sperie got engaged as did Bernard McKinley and Christy Sabo