Granite Bridge

                                                                                     EXTRACT FOUR
         (The tiny caravan had no plumbing - water came from the river in buckets.)
      Having no facilities for a bath presented a hygiene problem, particularly with hot weather and a surfeit of sweaty dusty work! The only solution available involved heating water on a gas ring, sufficient to half fill a plastic bucket. Telling the children to undress and wrap themselves in big towels, Jan, wearing her black one-piece bathing costume, picked up the bucket.
     "Are you ready?" she asked, glancing at them to check before opening the door. Carrying the hot water she led the way. The little group followed in line, bare feet dodging thistles and gorse.
     "Like ducklings follow mother duck," thought Gordon, trailing in the rear with two extra towels.
     Jan stepped into the river, hesitating a second, the clear fast-flowing water still relatively cold even in early summer. Having planted both feet firmly on the sandy gravelly bed that shifted under her toes, she beckoned. Stephen, discarding his towel on the bank, stepped naked into the stream. With a sponge full of hot soapy water, she bent over the small figure to washed him down thoroughly. Gordon sat high on the bank ready to shout a warning in the unlikely event that anyone should approach down the track.
     When satisfied, Jan pointed to the deepest part of the river, indicating he should lie down, letting the current wash the suds off. Stephen submerged without comment, no sound passing his lips, unusual for a three-year old, then scrambled up the bank, re-wrapped the towel round his dripping body and marched off towards the caravan.
     Sharon dropped her towel and entered the water, to stop with a frantic gasp.
     "It's cold!" Further screams and shouts of protest accompanied her soap-removing dunking.
     Finally, Christopher, last of the three, clambered up the bank, re-wrapped his towel and trotted off to join the others dressing in the caravan.
     Jan, confident that even young Stephen could cope, let them go unattended while she stripped off her own costume to bathe. Gordon awaiting his turn remained on the bank, glancing along the track occasionally, but mainly looking down in her direction.
     She had looked real good in her black costume, long legs, bulges in all the right places, but when she took it off! His eyes would scarcely return to the road. That pale smooth skin, the water and soap glistening on her bust, the movement of her body as she reached round to wash her back with one hand, the other stretched above her head steadying herself on the arch of the bridge, facing towards him but leaning slightly backward...
     "Concentrate!" he told himself. "Watch the road!"
     The whole operation was over too soon. He couldn't look away as she lay down in the cool current, rolling right over to remove the suds, and rose again with a little shiver, shaking as if to remove the water with a quick twist of her wet body. Climbing the bank to collect the towel he held, she looked up, seeing his eyes.
     "Don't you dare!" she reached for the towel.
     He noticed little ribbons of water still running over her completely naked slightly goose pimpled skin, dripping off her breasts, running down below the waist, over the satiny smooth abdomen, descending in trickles down long legs, the skin beneath changing from creamy white to sun-tanned on its descent.
     She snatched the towel and draped it quickly over her body where it clung limply, concealing the wet flesh but not the shape beneath.
     Stripping off shirt and trousers, he stepped into the flow, plunging straight in. Washing could come later, right now he needed something to cool his blood, and that cold water was very effective!
     Word soon got around, no doubt the children talked at school. Some of the villagers thought it unbelievable that anyone would strip and bathe in the river, a few threatened to make sure by hiking out to visit on bath-night.                            -Extract ends

West Cornwall is a narrow peninsula, only six miles wide in places, so the rivers are small. The stream that runs alongside the caravan is no exception. At some points the crystal clear water runs two feet or more deep and you could almost jump it . At others it is much more shallow and maybe ten feet wide.
	This bridge - the only access to our home