The House. Magpie Tales#29

When she first saw the house her heart sank, it looked so small and the old-fashioned front door with its dark cracked paint made it look worse.

The Estate agent opened the door and she went in and was pleasantly surprised as the hall was a nice size. But then the smell of the dog pee stained carpet reached her nostrils. ‘It was awful the whole house, no this small house was awful.’ She thought, 'how could she make this her home?'

There were three doors leading off the hall and she pushed open the first. The door had been made to look like a  mock oak door with a iron ring as its handle, she supposed to make it look olde-worlde and then her intake of breath could be heard by the agent as she stepped into it. ‘The room was a shock,’ he said, ‘to most prospective buyers,’ as it had been decorated to look like the inside of cottage, with mock oak beams. Now there were cobwebs hung like curtains from them. The whole effect was that of a dusty smelly room and the others were no better. The kitchen was small dingy galley shaped one, and the cupboards, that had been painted grey didn’t enhance it. The old cooker dripped black grease and she gasped at the sight of it.
This was what she could afford, the divorce had been acrimonious, and the outcome was that she was the one that came out of it the poorer.

She pushed aside the torn grey net curtain on window set in the kitchen door, and looked out at the garden. The rain was heavy adding to her mood of despair, but the garden was huge. The Agent turned the key in the lock and they both stepped out onto the narrow patio. The neglected garden had grass that was as ‘high as an elephants eye’ and she smiled as the words came into her mind... yes spring could bust out in this she thought. Three old and dead apple trees, a shed and a concrete garage meet her gaze. Beyond the back fence, there were fields and trees, giving the appearance of the house being set in the country although it was only a mile from the town centre. This would do, she could make this garden into the cottage garden she had always wanted. With the new trees, a new shed, the old garage pulled down it would be an even bigger garden and being south west facing it would be perfect.

She turned to the estate agent, whose face was serious, she was the umpteenth person to look round this house and he was used to the negative comments. Of all the houses on their books to sell, it was probably the worse and the hardest to sell.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said smiling and turned back to look again through her own imagination at a garden full of flowers, bees buzzing and a shed painted pale blue in the shape of a beach hut, oh yes this would do very nicely, very nicely indeed.

PS. This has an element of truth in it. It wasn’t the first house I bought after my divorce but the second one that I bought 17 years after it, when I decided to take early retirement. The garden took me only six months to get into shape with the help of friends. The house took four years and for two, I lived in rooms with bare plastered walls and broken marley tiled floors. But as I had had a new heating system put in straight away, at least I was warm and my friends flocked to see me and life was very good.
Now it is a beautiful modern house with the huge new built country kitchen I had always wanted and a new brick garage at the side of the house. I had the garage built well so that if I wanted it could be turned into a craft room and now moving back to that house after renting it out for four years, that is my intention, my own craft room!