Twelve years ago

... today, I became the owner of half a former English inn ... it was 400 years old, behind which, were old Tannery buildings, some had been demolished but others were renovated as storage, garage or workshop. I employed my best friend to renovate which he did exquisitely!  That house was my pride and joy apart from the fact traffic vibrated the living accommodation on the second floor in the loft space!  The pavement in front of the house was not really wide enough for a wheelchair or pushchair. One could almost reach out and touch the buses! I have some regret leaving that beautiful home which was haunted and I only discovered that in the last week.  The stained glass window on the front door was my design, representing the town and common, painted beautifully by my friend's daughter. One of our cats, Little Feat, used to greet Neal Powell, an author, almost every time he walked through the back yard. He adored her when she rolled over his brown polished leather shoes.

I must find photos of interior and exterior. It is one of my jobs to trawl through a lifetime of photos, paper, framed and unframed, and those on CD and on iphoto........ help!

My house was by the river, not far from Elizabeth Jane Howard's island. I always thought she was a most beautiful woman but when I lived near her I was too busy to read her novels. I enjoyed the recent BBC radio 4 serialisation of The Cazalets, always thinking that I could hear “her” speaking, then to my surprise I discovered that much was based on her own experiences.  I could sympathise and empathise with her somewhat Bohemian lifestyle, failed marriages, affairs of the heart, passion, mooning over men, mistreatment yet she'd had a good life …such ambivalence is there in love and passion. I know bohemian but not all her traumas, thank goodness!

I had the enormous privilege of meeting her in her kitchen. I remember being served tea and cake,  being in awe of her very simple lifestyle which reminded me of my grandmother, being allowed to wander onto her very own island. What joy to be on that piece of land that I had coveted and marveled at just a few years before, when, not knowing the future, I had stood on The Common and decided that I wished to live "over there". Unwittingly, unknowingly, I completed my dream in 2002.  It was several years later that the memory of the incident returned. 

What a wonderful thing for her to have lived where she lived and to have written from her heart.

What a wonderful thing for me that I met her... just the once and I can write from my heart.  She was a great authoress.  In Memoriam.