Lilian Kendrick - Always Something There To Remind Me

It’s never too late to live your dreams…

Divorcee Lydia is clearing out her attic when she finds an old, dust-strewn notebook, containing a list of her teenage hopes and dreams:

- Overcome fear of flying

- Learn to ice skate like Jayne Torvill

- Sing in front of an audience

- Get a date with a rockstar!

Still petrified of planes and with no celebrity notch on her bedpost in sight, there’s no denying that her younger self would be disappointed. So Lydia elects to tackle her teenage bucket list: one dream at a time!

From falling flat on her bum on an ice rink to a hilarious encounter with a hypnotist, Lydia’s journey throws up more chaos than she ever imagined. Thank goodness her gorgeous friend Des is there to literally hold her hand every step of the way!

But Lydia soon realises that there’s something missing from her list: love. And it could just be that the man who’s helping her achieve the dreams of the past will do much, much more…and unlock the key to her future!

Always Something There to Remind Me

Lilian Kendrick

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Lilian Kendrick 2014

Lilian Kendrick asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781474009102

Version date: 2018-07-23

LILIAN KENDRICK

A semi-retired teacher, Lilian started writing as soon as she realised that the pointed end of the pencil made marks appear on the paper.

She writes poetry and short stories of all kinds, but is most at home with comic verse and flash fiction.

An avid reader of horror and crime stories, Lilian was surprised to find that her preferred genre for novel writing is women’s fiction for readers of ‘a certain age’, with the emphasis on romance.

Her first novel “Sister, Daughter, Mother Wife” was published in 2009. She has also published a collection of flash fiction, “A Flash in the Pan” and a poetry collection “Poems, Prayers and Parodies”.

Some of her poetry was included in an international collaborative anthology, “Poeticising Chat – Rambling Poets at Café Cyber” in 2011.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Epilogue

Endpages

About the Publisher

I would like to express my gratitude to those who read and reviewed the early drafts of my work, especially my dear friend Trudi Morrissey and my niece, Ronnie Deery.

I should particularly like to mention authors Diane Dickson, Kirk Haggerty and Tonia Marlowe whose critiques helped me to improve the story.

To my beta readers who never fail me.

Chapter 1: Action Plan

We called them rough books or jotters, those thick, grey-covered exercise books we were given for taking notes in at school. The ones we used for ‘real work’ were coloured according to the subject: blue for Maths, yellow for English, green for Geography and so on. Anyway, none of that really matters. What was important was that I’d found a rough book after all those years … well, to be precise I’d found my rough book from year 10. I’d been fifteen and full of it! The battered grey cover was smothered in graffiti: ‘I luv J.G.’, ‘Luvsik Kitten Rules!’ and other similar sentiments declaring my undying love for the band of the moment. Almost thirty years on, I smiled at the memories brought back by my teenage scribblings.

Clearing out the attic had been Trudi’s idea. She thought it was high time I got over the whole divorce thing and put Bob out of my mind for ever. Not that I was thinking about him much by then. The hurt was healing at last. Hearts don’t really break, do they? They just get squeezed out of shape by life, and I was better off without him anyway – everyone said so. Anyway, it was a wet Friday evening in October and, having nothing better to do, I’d decided to tackle the boxes that I’d dragged around unopened for most of my adult life. It was kind of fun – until I opened the rough book and flicked through it. That was when I discovered the list. If I hadn’t found the bloody thing I’d have been fine. ‘My Plans for Life’ – written when I was fifteen – my hopes and dreams summed up in a few bullet points, and here I was, well past my sell-by date, and I’d achieved hardly any of them. Where did I go wrong? How did those dreams escape so easily? Unable to come up with the answers, I did what any woman would do in the circumstances: I sat on the floor and cried my heart out.

* * * * *

The next day, Des called round for breakfast. I hadn’t seen him for a few days and he was just what I needed. He always knew the right thing to say. Over bacon sandwiches, I revealed the cause of my distress.

‘Why don’t you just go for it?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The list – why not do all the things on your list? How hard can it be?’

I loved his optimism. I’d known Des for eight months. We’d met at a Creative Writing group I joined just after my divorce and had been great mates ever since. He was a dreamer too, but he had this really positive outlook and once he made up his mind to do something it usually got done. If anyone could make dreams come true it was Des. He asked me to give him the list.

‘I’ll help you. We can do this.’ Then he looked at it and laughed out loud. ‘Lydia, honey, you are one crazy lady.’

‘It’s impossible, right? I’m just one big, fat failure destined to live a life of disappointment!’ I was close to tears again, but Des put his arm around my shoulders and stroked my hair.

‘Not at all; you’re just unhappy and lacking in confidence.’ He hugged me. ‘But, you’re also a bit of a drama queen.’ He released me and sat at my desk. ‘Now let’s look at your list again and get this show on the road.’

So Des drew up an action plan. Seriously, he tackled my list as if it were a business proposition.

‘We need targets,’ he said, ‘SMART targets.’

‘As opposed to dumb ones?’

‘It’s an acronym … S.M.A.R.T. Your targets should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-scaled. That’s how it’s done in the business world.’