Tuesday 5 June 2012

Return visit

Last night we went for a drink at our old house. We were both more than a bit wary of returning and seeing all our hard work in other peoples' hands.

She's a lovely house but now we know what a rare thing she is. How rare is the glorious view over your own fields, peace and quiet. How well done up she is.

We sat in the garden and insisted that it was fine, she was too big for us, we wished we had found somewhere else but hey. Of course it didn't matter that the garden was full of weeds, how could it not be when they weren't there most (or any) of the time. A lot of the gaps were because of the extreme cold in the winter. (And the french gardener who has pulled out every self seeding cosmos, cornflower, nasturtium, forget me not and left gaps he will be paid to keep clear.)

The thing that really got me was the spotless white downstairs loo - that worked perfectly with toilet paper,basin, soap, towel - I could have sat there for days.

4 comments:

  1. I hear you. We've just set up house in rental accommodations near Bordeaux. Could't find a house to buy, a blessing really as our former house is still on the market. This house is smaller, has no storage space and is basically Not Mine. But I know that a few years from now you and I will both shake our heads and say, "oh so THAT'S why it happened that way!". Bon courage!

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  2. I see you haven't lost your sharp eye...re the gardener ensuring continuing employment....!

    I've visited some of our old houses (ones we lived in and ones we had as holiday houses) but rarely with pleasure....

    The vulgarian who installed a downstairs loo complete with glass bricks in the marble tiled study...

    The only way is Essex who put up a block of brick garages in front of an eighteenth century stone house....

    The flat pack furniture magnate who tore out the sixteenth century stone flags to put in 'something more in keeping'....

    And as for the gardens...!

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  3. They say you shouldn't go back to where you were happy, Rosie and there's a lot in that, particularly if the garden was very special. Nothing suffers more quickly from a change of ownership and so often for the worse. But I see what you mean about the loo - you created something rather nice there.....

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