How will you cope??????? No tango! No coffee houses! 

We are in rural Normandy. 

About as rural as it gets. A handful of houses. A church. A tiny little Mairie. If someone passes the house it’s an event. 

In the city, everything distracts. But in the country? Listen. Nothing. Only your heart *

It’s bliss. This house sheltered us during Covid. We spent eighteen months here then. For me, it will forever be associated with safety and retreat, and I’ve been wanting to get back to it ever since. Being here is more than enough. 

We arrived on Friday night, and as we were eating supper and watching TV, Jim turned to me and said ‘This is the life, you and me in a warm house, watching the BBC’. I wondered why we ever travel, but the coming and going breeds appreciation and gratitude. 

It’s as if we’d never been away. 

We opened the front door and it was as if we’d never been away. The ceramic pot with a collection of walking sticks, the stand with coffee-table books tucked underneath, the Indonesian gong under the stairs. (I never see it without thinking of the opening sequence of J. Arthur Rank films but of course it’s much smaller). 

It’s all about the small stuff. 

The door on the left leads to the kitchen – my domain. The cleaner had covered the table with a red chequered cloth bearing little cream coloured hearts, and left a green pottery jug containing spring flowers – daffodils from the garden, and sprigs of rosemary. A small thing, but also a big one. This table is where I spent much of my eighteen months here. Drawing, learning French and calligraphy, journaling but not blogging. I loved what I was doing, but it didn’t make for interesting reading. 

Listening and Looking. 

Now, I am here again, doing many of the same things. I look up often, to the multi-coloured couch, to the striped Mondrian curtains, and out to the garden beyond: a wisteria, now bare bones and branches, an ornamental stone bird-bath, daffodils and primroses peeking from the long grass. It’s wintry still, leaden skies, varying shades of grey, but it’s beautiful. I know that eventually the garden will yield apples and pears, damsons and quinces, rhubarb and raspberries, gooseberries and currants. But for now, I watch a smattering of green on the quince, not yet leaves, just pinpricks of lacy ethereal colour. I see fuzzy buds peep through the spindly wisteria branches, and I bird spot, glimpsing tits and chaffinches feeding on the fat balls and seeds. They too come and go, and they too seem completely at ease here. 

Recharging. 

Once again, this house offers me peace. A chance to get back to myself. Travelling is wonderful, but it’s wonderful hard work. I didn’t realise how tired I was until I got here and the silence surrounded me. I’m getting older. I’ve been nomadic for fifteen years now. Time for a re-think? I will let that thought filter through. For now, I’m just going to be. I missed winter and my time to re-set. I missed the with-drawing, the quiet, the reflection and processing. Right now, the fire, the kitchen, and the garden beyond are all I need. 

There’s a big world out there, but sometimes, for a while, a little slice of it is all I need. 

* quote from ‘Lucy by the Sea’ by Elizabeth Strout page 148.