6.6 Extensions

This an instalment of an autobiographical series. For more information and a list of instalments with links, see right.

As with everything, Frog and I were polar opposites. Frog wanted a cave and I wanted an eyrie. We engaged Miles, a friend who worked as both a designer and builder, to come up with a plan.
 
We didn’t want to move as we loved everything about our house – which Frog had so cleverly found when following one of his whims.
    It was part of the village of Silverton where Frog had lived with his girlfriend for three years before we’d met, so when we moved in everybody already knew all about us. We weren’t locals – you had to have lived in Devon for several generations to be a local – but we were next on the ladder. And everybody certainly made us feel welcome, not least our lovely neighbour, Claire, and her family.
    But we weren’t in the village, we were a mile and half outside it, a thirty-minute walk across the fields, and that suited us both.
    Frog’s main criterion for a dwelling was somewhere he could play music outside and not disturb anyone, and he could certainly do that here.
    Mine was to be somewhere away from people, as people messed with my head. We had two near neighbours – the farm where Claire and her family lived and a newly converted barn where another family now lived – but both were far enough away for my brainwaves not to be disturbed by their brainwaves. Both houses were slightly below us and hidden by trees so we had 360-degree views of nothing but countryside, and the peace and space made me feel as if I was flying.
    On the other hand we were only ten miles from Exeter so Frog could indulge his love of shopping and get to work and I could check in with the main publisher I worked for.
    Where else would we find somewhere like that?
 
Miles produced a daring scheme to connect the current house with the extension by means of a conservatory, to build into the eaves for my study and dig down under part of the garden to create a semi-underground music (and general detritus) room for Frog.
    We engaged Miles as project manager and builder, and work started.
 
Meanwhile, Frog and I started to ponder the subject of children. We’d reached our early forties so time was running out. Would we regret it if we remained childless?
    Frog’s motives for not wanting children were simple. He was the middle child of three with a brother, Simon, who was five years younger than him. Not only did he have to share a bedroom with Simon for a while, but he had to look out for him much of the time. This was, I’m sure, difficult, as Simon had a mad and wilful streak which led him to do dangerous or stupid things just for the hell of it.
    ‘Never again,’ Frog would say.
    Mine were complicated.
    For some reason, even though I’d imagined myself married, I’d never imagined myself with children. This was just one of the many ways I didn’t feel like a normal woman, another being my height, and the reason it was such an enormous relief to meet Frog and find someone who related to the real me deep deep down.
    Being the eldest of five children, all born within six and a half years, I found myself, or took it upon myself, or had it thrust upon me, to be cast in the role of their minder and I took my role very seriously. I could remember often longing to be able to take part in the games as an equal instead of having to keep the peace all the time and make sure no one was getting into trouble.
    One cousin later told me a shocking story. He remembered us all being on holiday at a Norwegian seaside village and we children were playing on the beach with a load of cousins. The adults left the beach and, when one of them queried whether the children would be all right on their own, someone said, ‘Oh, they’ll be fine. Belinda will look after them.’
    It made me feel sick even to think about that and, as I said to the cousin at the time, it was obviously the reason why I’d been avoiding responsibility ever since.
    I’d struggled desperately when Brindle was a puppy, feeling that I had no nurturing left to give to any other young creature.
    On another level, Frog and I had known from the very start that our relationship wouldn’t be easy. Because it went so deep, we knew that it would pull every last kink and shadow out of us. We knew that we would need every ounce of our energy simply to deal with each other. We wouldn’t have anything spare for children.
    And on yet another level, I’d been concerned about the environment since my early teens and now thirty years later, that pain had only increased. Did the world really need more human beings?
 
In spite of all that however, we decided to embark on that perilous quest: trying for a child.

To be continued . . .