So, I needed a refuge, a place in which to take stock, recharge my batteries, and begin again. I yearned for a sort of cocoon to envelop me and keep me safe while I got used to being unexpectedly alone. I wanted to crawl inside a warm, dark nest and curl up while I recovered. I wanted to begin again, and I wanted normality, a healthy response to crisis which I clocked with relief in one part of my brain. But I needed the security and comfort of my own bricks and mortar around me to achieve this. I dreamed of a cottage in the country, detached, separate, surrounded by fields and sky. I wanted silence, peace. I needed space, and beauty, a garden, lots of light indoors, room to spread myself out. I wanted to be near enough to the coast for it not to be a big deal to drive there, reasonably handy for Waitrose, close to a railway station. Did I expect many of these boxes to be ticked? Of course I didn't. The search for my new home was long and disappointing and depressing, though in retrospect not as long as it seemed at the time. Anything I could afford was small and poky and completely unsuitable. My ideal home was too expensive. Despair often hovered menacingly at the edges of my awareness. When your life has ended suddenly and you find yourself cast out from everything familiar and loved, you crave the things you feel will substitute for the loss, and make you feel like yourself again. I knew I needed a home before I could begin to feel whole again, and I knew it had to be the right place. I couldn't afford to make a mistake, not at this point in my life.
I found it almost as soon as I started looking, but I rejected it at once. It was exactly what I wanted, but it felt too isolated, and I understood that, ache for silence and solitude as I did, I shouldn't cut
myself off from the world entirely. Had my friend Ruth and I turned right instead of left the day we went to suss it out I would have bought it sooner. But we drove away from the unseen village, and decided it was one of a pair of farm cottages in the middle of nowhere. How often have tradesmen and visitors, arriving at my gate over the past few months, uttered that very phrase in amused, almost patronising amazement.
As summer surrendered to autumn and then winter and I poured over sale particulars I returned online again and again to Medlar Cottage. It was absurdly beautiful! Spacious, full of huge windows and with fabulous views, every room was painted in a subtle but rich shade of Farrow and Ball. All I had to do was buy it and move in. I obsessively measured the distance from the house to Snape, my musical and emotional heartland, to Waitrose, to the coast, to the towns and villages I regularly visit. All were relatively easily accessible. On a whim I drove up there again, and discovered the cottage was just a couple of hundred yards from the church. And as the leaves had begun to fall and leave the trees bare I saw that across the lane was the big old farmhouse that had once built these two cottages for its labourers, entirely hidden behind tall specimens and high hedges filled with native Suffolk breeds. The village too was just there, beyond a field or two. I would not be cut off! And it was still for sale!!
I've lived here for nearly four months now, and I love Medlar Cottage and everything in and around it. It contains me, it enriches me, it fulfills me and supports me. I can't believe my luck. I've changed things in the house and made it better, more itself. Unwelcoming rooms have been lightened and opened up to become truly delightful. I've built a summerhouse where once there was a stable, and it gives 360 degree views of the house, the garden, the fields around it and the views. Such views! A few weeks ago when the family were staying we watched a large herd of deer a few fields away, grazing in the early spring sunshine. Hares skip and chase each other, sometimes as many as 13 together. Two fat partridges with tiny red heads find the as-yet unmade back garden a productive feeding site. It's a magical place.
Happiness is a completely subjective state, and it's not a word I expected to be able to apply to myself again. But I feel happiness many times a day as I live in this beautiful house and revel in the riches all around me.
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| Before, with Stable and Tackroom |
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| After, my new summerhouse in place |
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