Personal Blogs

I'd got a new job, one that came with a house attached. A cottage in a playground and a position in the life of other lives. Grown-up stuff in every sense.

We weren't married then; my wife and I. We were living together, had been for some time but this was clearly it, the big in it together forever. If we changed our minds about each other before we jumped we'd have a nasty mess, afterwords we had tragedy on our hands.

So we found ourselves wandering around the freezing bare-carcass of what had been someone elses' home on a windy Sunday afternoon. We were my mum and dad, tish, me and the dog fly.

The floorbaords were bare gnarled warped-wood, there was no electricity, no water, nothing of the twentieth century. A desert of a house, no appliances, nothing personal except for some kid-scrawlings on the bare plaster of the walls; there wasn't a single piece of wallpaper in the entire house.

If we came here/chose this road we had a blank upon which we could write what we wished. I was scared.

My mum was optimistic, as always. Dad I could see was sensing a project that involved vast quantities of wood, fly was employing her nose. Tish and I were in a bit of shock.

We were in what became our bedroom when fly made her choice, she squatted and poohed on the floor. Tish and I, while shouting, "NO!" realized that if we didn't belong here then we didn't belong anywhere.

Tish and I shared a look, we may have missed my mum and dad sharing their look.