A few days later, Simon and Claire paid a visit to the picturesque town of Pickering, in the Yorkshire Dales, in an attempt to purchase some odds and ends of furniture to personalise the cottage to Claire"s liking. As they wandered through the aisles of a large, dusty antique shop, Simon suddenly shouted,
“Claire, look here, it"s Bardley Magna.”
Sure enough, there on the wall of the shop hung a slightly murky oil painting, in need of cleaning, but most definitely picturing the village where they"d so recently spent the night. The signature of the artist was indistinct but the year 1951 could clearly be seen in the bottom right hand corner of the painting.
“Wow,” said Claire. “It doesn"t look any different today from all those years ago.”
“Excuse me,” said the shop"s proprietor from beh
