Viewed from Afar

It's that time of year. The time of year when the evenings draw in faster and faster. The time of year when the mornings appear darker and darker with a nip to the air and a thin veil of mist floats on the hills in the distance. The rumblings of the harvester cut through the stillness, the children have returned to college and a deathly silence pervades through the house.

Where did the summer go ? and was I any part of it ? There's a Guest Book full of happy comments, childish scribblings in coloured pen, 'I love your house' it proclaims. Guests often ask if we move back into Le Chateau and I always answer 'No' when all the while I really mean 'Yes' and I haven't quite figured out why I don't just say so. I'm currently enjoying two sitting rooms, one for the morning sun, one for the afternoon rays, two kitchens, two bedrooms, three bathrooms. Someone once rather rudely stated 'You want it all don't you'? , to which I automatically replied 'No' when all the while thinking 'Yes'. Time for some honesty once in a while.

There's something very decadent about having this all to yourself. Idea's, thoughts, dreams, are made easier to digest somehow, they don't tend to jostle together fighting for space and everything is more orderly and can be placed neatly in piles. There's a book brewing, swirling in the air and taking shape most pleasingly. Sometimes I'll allow myself a little 'dollydaydream' just like I used to do years ago. If you stop dreaming you're no longer alive.

This is a picture of the house taken some five miles away whilst sitting on a peaceful hilltop one day. It was strange to be able to see it so clearly, to be so near and yet so far. The hills of the Montagne Noir lay peacefully in the background, a slight heat haze shimmering all around.

It's sometimes very useful to take a different perspective on things that stare you in the face everyday. I hadn't realised until I had viewed the house from that particular vantage point that so many other interesting things lay within my reach too.