A room of one's own

Continuing with the narcissistic theme (and because I still can’t find my blinking aura file), I thought I’d show you a couple of pictures of the house.

    When Frog went self-employed eighteen years ago, his tools and equipment already filled a garage, a shed, the driveway, a bedroom and half the sitting-room. Now we had the contents of his workshop at the university to accommodate as well. I meanwhile was also self-employed and used one of the bedrooms in our two-and-a-half-bedroomed bungalow as my study. The dog’s bed took up most of our tiny galley kitchen. Things were becoming a tad cramped.

    We didn’t want to move as we had good neighbours and were well dug into the village so instead we turned to our friend Miles, a designer and builder (www.housedesigndevon.co.uk ).

    ‘I’d like a tower to work in and a big kitchen,’ I said.

    ‘I’d like a cave,’ said Frog, ‘to use as a music studio.’

    Well, thanks to Miles and his wild (sometimes too wild) imagination, that’s just about what we got.

    Our bungalow now has four levels.

    Frog has a semi-underground room with sound-proofing in the ceiling and non-right-angled corners (better for sound-recording). He keeps the blinds closed and the window shut. Here it is.

    And I have a room carved out of the loft:

Here is my sewing corner in the room, and the glass walls looking into the conservatory that connects the old and the new parts of the house:

and here are my lovely Velux windows:

Because I'm not very clever with photographs, I've managed to make the room look dark, but that's just what it isn't.
    (And, as you can see, I'm not so minimalist after all, in a space that's all mine. . .)

   

A week in the life

Wednesday

I am exhausted. Nikki the dogminder has gone to a Brandon Flowers concert at the Eden Project so I don’t get my day off. I nearly step on a fat brown grass snake on the path through the field. What does this mean? I should have connections with snakes - I am born in a Chinese year of the snake and my name may mean snake – but I haven’t found them yet. As I write this, I think ‘a snake in the grass’. ‘A lurking danger’ says the dictionary.

Thursday

Migraine. I wake in the night with delirious thoughts pumping through my brain like blood. I don’t have any control over them and they don’t feel like mine. The words ‘the Devil’s heart’ arrive and then ‘the Dragon’s heart’. I roll over and write them down on the scrap-paper I keep on my bedside table.

Friday

Feel less yukky but still weak. Nikki picks up Ellie. I plant out the last of my parsnips and cover them with chicken wire to protect them from the rabbits. Felicity the cat used to keep their numbers down, leaving a headless baby rabbit on my bedside rug most days through the summer. What will happen now she’s gone?

Saturday

I yield to temptation and stop off at Long Tall Sally on my way to the library in Exeter. I find a black and white African-print top that I think I can adapt to fit. It’s in the sale (and an extra 30 per cent off the sale price) so worth a try. Frog and I spend all evening unpicking it.

Sunday

Ellie disappears while we’re out walking. I hear distant barking so guess where she’s gone. As expected, she’s licking noses through a neighbours’ gate with their five-month-old Rhodesian ridgeback. I feel mean dragging her away but they did have a long play together on Wednesday while I drank tea with Claire.

Monday

I feel crushed as usual at the start of the week by the reality of life. But is it really reality or just someone else’s idea of what reality really is? Does it matter that I don’t have a job, don’t earn money, don’t know what to say when people ask me what I ‘do’?

Tuesday

I want to write a blog post about auras but I’ve been looking for my file of aura portraits for several months. Where has it gone?  I decide to write this one instead as it’s been brewing since the weekend. I censored it because I thought, are people really interested in the minutiae of my life? Wouldn’t it be better to write something serious and informative? I want to include my first attempt at a photographic self-portrait as well. But is that narcissistic?

Where are my feet? Where is the dog? I need more practice.
(The black bag in my hand contains dog-treats, not what you're thinking it does.)

I like Eggheads

Here is a silly poem I wrote a few years ago after Frog and I had been disagreeing about what to watch on television. (In case you don't watch television, 'Eggheads' and 'The Simpsons' are television programmes, one a quiz and the other a cartoon.)

I like Eggheads

And you like The Simpsons

I like chilli

And you like custard

I like Tolkien

And you like Pratchett

I like silence

And you like noise

I like giving things away

And you like collecting them

I like lists

And you like chasing a whim

I like taking my time

And you like pressure

I like mornings

And you like night

I like walks

And you like shopping

I like polo necks

And you like scarves

I like Handel

And you like Hendrix

I like water

And you like tea

And that is why, you see,

That I like you

And you like me.

Ellie and mayweed

A proper gardener

 

I had a migraine yesterday so was lying outside under a sun umbrella. When I turned over I saw this corner of the house.

    ‘That looks like something created by a proper gardener,’ I thought.

    At the back are tomato and cucumber plants donated by gardening friends. (Thank you, Alan. Thank you, Pat.)
    The ‘trellis’ is what Frog calls racking. He rescued it from the university (where he works) when they were refurbishing a lab and chucking it out.
    In the front are my new parsley plants and an olive tree bought by Frog.
    Also my brand new watering can which I actually bought myself - with a voucher that came in a free local paper. It sprinkles, unlike my old one which has had its spout nibbled by Dog. (The old one was given to me by my sister Emma many years ago. I still use it – just not for sprinkling.)

    This south-westerly wall is baking hot after a day of sunshine, with the bricks acting like a giant storage heater and keeping the plants warm all night. It works better than the southerly wall round the corner (where I have some chilli plants, also donated).

Thomas

I wrote this eight years ago about something that happened fifteen years ago. For the full story, see ‘Mother’s Day’ (April).

You weren’t very pretty

when you came out –

all wrinkled and red.

They dressed you in a bonnet and shawl

and  put you in a crib

then showed you to us both

even though you were dead.

Frog cried buckets

so I stayed brave.

Frog’s brave now

but I can’t cry any more.

I’m the one who’s dead,

while you sail on

and spring comes to Devon.