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!

Bath Time Magpie Tales#28

Bath time when I was little was a zinc bath tub in front of the coal fire in our living room, on a Saturday night. My grandmother’s old house didn’t have central heating so the upstairs bathroom was ice cold. My cousin the same age as myself lived with us, till she and her parents could afford their own house. We were bathed together.

There was a strict order of events. First we had to use the outside lav. I always left the door open, there were too many spiders lurking in the corners to shut it. I sat there swinging my legs and looked out at the stars and backs of the houses across the back lane. I sang the whole time and called out to my grandmother at intervals in case there was a bogie man hiding in the yard.

Then we were undressed together, her mother and my grand mother  helped us into the water. You had to be careful, as the side of the bath nearest the fire got extremely hot to touch and we wriggled around each other not to be the one to be that side. First we had our hair washed and rinsed and then we were scrubbed from head to toe with quite a hard brush. We were lfted out into warm towels and left to sit on the settee together while my gran and aunty carried the bath outside to empty it. When they had gone out of the living room my cousin and I always jumped down and in our birthday suits played ‘Hands knees and bumps a daisy.’

Screaming in fun when we bumped our bums. Once our hair had been dried and plaited so that it would have a bit of a kink in it for Sunday chapel, we had a spoonful of Syrup of Figs, which I hated, before we were tucked up in a bed warmed by hot water bottles.

Yes, we were only bathed once a week! Unlike today, when we all shower every morning and on the hottest of days more than once a day to cool down. A different generation, although it seems to me not that many years ago.

Old Pipe Magpie# 27

The view was breath taking and everything in her stopped to take it in. The last few weeks had drained her deep down to her very soul and now with the beauty of the Italian lake in front of her, she knew she had been right to come here, to heal her mind. She took a look around the room, it was perfect and the pastel shades that made up the furnishings were soothing too. She opened the old oak wardrobe and started to hang up her clothes, too big now after all the weight she had lost, but in her hurried escape from London there was no time for shopping and as she thought, 'Italy was the country of haut couture, there was bound to be a small fashionable boutique in the local town. Money was no longer a problem what was the point of saving it?'

The small garden around the cottage had a table and chairs set out on a raised paved area overlooking the lake. Sitting there with the scent of the garden and the lake shimmering in the sunlight all her worries and cares seemed to be far away. 'Breathe in that air,' she thought, 'it could heal it was so clear and pure.'

The cottage was an old boathouse and part of a larger estate, perhaps there was a boat she could use, although would she be strong enough to row? she wondered.

She could see the steps down to the landing stage that protruded under the boathouse and making her way down them under the boathouse, she saw the cobwebs of years draped like curtains from  white beams, washed by the water of the lake. And there in the corner an old corroded water pipe, dirty and rusty. It was disgusting in contrast and spoiling the beautiful surrounds, just like the growth inside her; spoiling her, repulsive and old. She shivered and tears trickled down her face.

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The watering can.Magpietales #26

My grandfather had a galvanised watering can at his allotments; somewhere he took me through the long summer holidays. He wheeled me there in his wheelbarrow down the main road and then down a grass filled lane. It was a big five barred gate into the allotment and you could see his shed with number 27 painted on it in green paint from the gate. As soon as we got there he took off my clean dress and put a hessian sack on me instead, my dress was hung up inside the shed on a nail.
The days there were long and sunny and I played by the water butt. I was too small to lean over it and fill his watering can so he did that for me and then I walked slowly between the rows of vegetables and soft fruit trees, dragging the heavy can and spilling out the water as I went.

‘Thats right Cariad,’ he used to say. When it was midday we ate a jam sandwiches and drank the cold sweet tea from his little can. I think it was the one he had when he was down the mines. They were such happy days and we arrived home in time for our evening meal, laden with veg and black currants. My dress was inspected by my grand mother, and Granddad and I were relieved that it passed the clean test, except my knicks were filthy where I used to sit in the dirt to play. My days at my granddad's allotment stopped when I was eight when he died. How I was to know then that they would stay in my memory forever and ever, as being some of the happiest days in my life.