I haven’t written much unobligated stuff for a while. Not since we moved. And this is because of the house. I allowed myself to love the house. Seriously. The whole idea was that once we’d relocated and most of the stress had gone from our lives, then we’d both get on with what we like best, being creative. I don’t mean that we’d get that great novel done; heading into a futile dream of riches and fame – haha. No. I mean we would write for the sake of it. And I would garden and he would cook and blog. And I would blog again and, who knows, even use my blimmin twitter alter-ego .
But the house sort of took over. First, it was the business of getting settled: I will write when the desk is clear of paperwork. However, my perfect space in the alcove of our near perfect bedroom, at the top of the house, was cold in the winter. Downstairs, in the warm bustle of the kitchen, the table was strewn with homework and crumbs, always. So, I put the laptop away. Besides, there was tons to be done in the nesting dept; clothes needed unpacking and drawers filling and boxes sorting and cupboards organising. The chimney needed sweeping, our bed needed building, the children’s rooms had to be made functional. And they were so big and airy and we just couldn’t get over how much space we had in our lives now.
I put flowers on the mantelpiece because I could and the room begged for it. I put flowers in our bedroom. I went out and bought new linen to fit our new sleeping arrangements. Christmas came, and presents included lampstands and cushions. Birthdays meant footstools and lanterns for the patio.
Teaching swimming is an especially exhausting slog in wintertime. When everyone else is going home for tea, I am out in the dark to get wet and holler over pool acoustics. By the time I get back, I am numb, too numb to have a conversation, and way too numb to write. I continued to nest though, making and sifting until everything had a place. Then I took to hiding in our near perfect bedroom and watching telly until my dinner was called. This was heaven, up here.
The house beguiled us. The view across the garden was such a distraction. We took to leaving a pair of binoculars on the sill like a pair of pensioners so that we could watch the birds. We mapped out our spring plans – spuds in bags, a trampoline. The latter seemed so decadent yet isn’t it what everyone else had? For thirteen years, our back yard was no bigger, literally, than the diameter of the trampoline we finally bought and struggled to erect on Easter Sunday. The neighbour said diplomatically: “It looks lots of fun..” I felt a bit guilty, like we’d lowered the tone somehow. Still, as I slotted together and screwed in the pieces of the garden arch I’d also bought, soon it will be hidden from view by climbing roses. I bought one of these too. Pink and scented, of course.
And honeysuckle for the otherside. And raspberry canes to go in front. I worked really, really hard with a swollen ankle (please see the story of how the trampoline was bought), dragging York stones and bricks salvaged from the garage to make a path to the compost bin that some twerp had marooned inaccessibly under a tree before filling it half up with rotting apples. I also built two more compost heaps, for grass cuttings and for weeds. And we bought a lawn-mower to create grass cuttings. Oh happy days.
So, I kept putting off the creative things because I was doing all that in and outside of the house. The zenith of our contentment came with the delivery and completion of the greenhouse. How had I managed to get to my mid-forties without one of these? I filled it with organic growbags stuffed with tomatoes and peppers and courgettes and chillies. We had been in this beautiful place six months and we were very nearly set up to get on with our lives. No excuses. Look forward. Look after our shop. Plan for the children like sensible parents. Be creative. Standing in the trapped heat of that greenhouse, dusk hosting swallows, clutching a brand new watering can, I felt finally that we had done something terribly, terribly right.
Then we got the phonecall to say that it was all a mistake. Well, those weren’t his words as he chortled nervously at my imploring: “But we’ve just put up a greenhouse!” but a mistake it was nonetheless. They had changed their minds and now want to sell. Yes, they knew what they’d said we could do but there was no way round it and they were sorry. The mistake, meanwhile, was ours. We allowed our heads to be turned. We actually, stupidly believed the dream. Not the novel being published one, not the one about the film being made or the painting being sold. But the one about having a normal life, like others. Without big debts, with kids in okay education, with a greenhouse that produced beautiful food forever.
Funnily enough, once I’d gotten over the shock, I stopped being in love with the house. It was as if I had been jilted, or both of us had. Thwarted, we no longer revere the freedom the address has given us. We can’t. It is a millstone that we need to be shot of quickly, or we can’t move on. Meanwhile, the space and light has become incidental, even unhelpful because all it does is remind us of what we won’t have again, and the garden is now a drag. I watch the climbing rose take root and shake off its sleepiness to make its ascent up the arch with growing irritation. How dare it be so happy? And when we go, like a cat, it will just latch on to its new owners and our history will be irrelevant. Plants are so bloody disloyal, huh! Now I water the tomatoes with reluctance and grimace at the herbs I’ve placed prettily on each step of the stone stairs that lead down from the kitchen. What am I going to do with it all? And the tools lined up by the back door, behind the lace curtains I put up?
Yet, without the house, I can write again. Because now nesting does not matter.
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