...now if you are sitting comfortably....

In 1981 I bought a cottage, with my share of the former matrimonial home. I arrived upon it by chance and loved it instantly. I think the neighbours thought of having the signature tune of 'My old man said follow the van...' as I tuned up with my belongings in a friend's rusty tranny van, clutching a petulant two year old, a spitting cat and a canary in a cage. Within an hour I had undressed the bedroom of the foulest purple cabbage wallpaper I had ever seen. I simply refused to sleep with gigantic purple cabbages peering at me and threw it all in the front garden. Other than that and horrible problems with the drainage I was 'home'. It was a terraced two up, two down with an extension that for 'an extension' had been done well and didnt leak. A former coal miners cottage, sometimes a whiff of damp coal would just linger ...even on a hot day. A small front room with a stone fireplace opened into a wonderful wonderful kitchen. It was huge! I have never before or since seen a window the size of the one in that kitchen.....it sort of rose up behind the sink and just kept going upwards .....bit of a b*gger to clean if I remember rightly. The light and space in that kitchen was wonderful...armchairs by the Parkray, a pine table in the middle ...the floor was beautifully tiled in terrazzo speckled tiles that scrubbed up a treat. There were actually real yellow roses and honeysuckle clambering around the little front door that cheekily wandered into the bedroom windows as if my accident.

I 'played' with that house ....I sanded wooden floors, took the understairs coal cupboard out and the door from the foot of the stairs and lightened the whole place up with white walls, my paintings and pine bookshelves. Friends were always in and out and I would happily cook for the evening . Warm evenings would see us on the top terrace of the back garden looking down onto the tops of the trees along the brook at the bottom. Two year old found friends for the first time, a sandpit and a new rabbit....he was in paradise as well. I learned to ride at the local stables and painted furiously at evening classes, and upholstery I seem to remember vaguely....

Part of my job at that time entailed working with bailiffs and that included attending auctions and sales. I was watching a collection of articles being sold in Bridgnorth one hot summer afternoon noting the prices down and was far more interested in the other stuff being sold than what I was there for. A tall man with longish red hair ...mmm nice I thought...was studying his sale catalogue and writing furiously. I wondered if he was doing the same sort of job as me because he was not bidding as far as I could tell. I left for the day ...out into the sunshine and off to my little home.....

The following week I was back in the sale room....sitting at the side with my notebook and pen ...trying to look invisible but probably had a sign above me saying ...'This nosey woman works for the Bailiff department' everybody seemed to know anyway. Aha ...spotted man with red hair again ...but before I could peep through my curtain of long hair ..he was there ...in front of me asking me what was I looking for this week.....yikes...how I ever answered in sensible English I shall never know. He found us polysterene cups of foul coffee and we watched the sale sitting together...both noting in our notebooks ....he travelled up from London for these sales ..searching for something in the hunting, fishing, shooting articles.....can't remember if he ever found it.

We exchanged telephone numbers! Wow! Just how decadent did that feel! Sometimes the phone would ring late in the evening and we would natter away for hours...not often though..just enough. We met at other sales, wandered around the lovely towns of South Shropshire in the long summer evenings, ate at riverside pubs and talked books, art, films, history, houses and everything else besides. He was artistic and painted ....I was to see these pictures much later ...wonderful paintings of colour and depth..of townscapes, skyscrapers...lurid skies and seas.
He would be best described as a 'Jack of all Trades' flitting from one line of work to another as the mood took him and the chance of making money appeared. From writing articles to wiring a house, demolition, renovation, camera work ...he would talk himself into work ..but then the Irish accent was upon him and he could charm the very birds out of the branches.....except my mum!

When he wasn't rushing around to make a fortune he was researching and writing and if N was away as he often was on alternate weekends, I would leave the key with a neighbour with instructions to feed the livestock and catch the Friday evening train down to London......it was a dream......wandering around Hampstead Heath on hot summer evenings listening to the traffic hum in the distance, funny little bistro places with wonderful food, a small cinema to see a newly released film and of course the theatres. Then it was to Devon and Dartmoor, Wales....I was on home territory there and took over...was taught to fly fish in the River Dovey...not something I have done since I might add. Then of course there was Ireland...............