The Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa – The Third Sunday of Advent

 The beautiful Downshire village of Clerembeax St Giles was situated to the west of Abbeyvale located between Grace Hill and Bushy Down and on the outskirts was the Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa and when Yvonne Labuschagne inherited it from her cousin, the last remaining Clerembeax, she undertook the task of modernizing the Palace and opening a Hotel and Spa offering, fitness classes, gym, rock sauna, infra-red sauna, aroma steam room, ice fountain, drench showers, Jacuzzi, a Romanesque pool, Reflexology, Raki, facials, scalp massage, hand massage, Manicure and Pedicure, while also providing accommodation, meeting and function rooms, a superior restaurant and whatever temptation might attract potential visitors.

She was by profession a masseuse and had worked for many years along with her late husband at the Dancingdean Spa Hotel in Childean.

Staffing the Hotel and Spa was crucial, and Yvonne used her contacts in the Spa world to find the right specialist people in her field of expertise’s and employed Hannah Morgan to fill the remainder of the roles, on the understanding that she employs from the village populous where possible, and that was how the Ward girls came to work at the Palace.

 

The Ward family had a small holding on the North side of the village, parents Jack and Olive, and daughters Donna, Felicity, Josephine, and Maxine.

It was a profitable concern and gave them all a modest living but when the Palace opened, it gave them a chance to supplement their incomes without having to travel to Abbeyvale.

They were all hard-working girls and didn’t care what work they did, so Hannah Morgan didn’t hesitate to offer them all housekeeping jobs.

Josephine was third in the pecking order at twenty-one and was 5 feet 4 inches tall in her stocking feet and was half a stone heavier than she should have been which was thanks to her comfort eating.

She wasn’t though disappointed with everything she saw in the mirror she liked her legs which she thought were quite shapely and her hair which she thought of as her crowning glory, which was long, straight and light brown, and she was the only one of the sisters who was in a long-standing relationship, and the recipient of her favours, and the reason for the comfort eating, was James Vesey, a Corporal in the Downshire Light Infantry, who was currently posted overseas.

 

The Ward Family had always been churchgoers and not out of a sense of duty, the whole family had very strong faiths, and they only missed in exceptional circumstances, and the same was true of Olive Ward’s family Sunday Lunch, which took on a different significance on the Third Sunday of Advent.

 

The family arrived at St Giles’ en masse and milled around at the back of the church chatting to some of the other congregants, until it was time to take their seats, but as they walked down the aisle, a murmur rumbled around those already seated and when Jo turned around to investigate, she saw a soldier walking towards her, and she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Jimmy?” she exclaimed

“Were you expecting some other gallant hero of the armed forces?” he asked, and she launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck.