Just like Beatrix Potter

We leave the house and turn together to walk up Crown Road. The forecast warns of rain and another drop in temperature this afternoon, but for now the sun is bright with just enough warmth to melt the frost and warm our backs.

'Up and along?' one of us says, knowing the other will understand, and we do, crossing the High Street to take the Millenium footpath up to the woods. Halfway up we clamber over a stile that seems to grow in height each time we cross it, as the earth around it gradually wears away. 

 'Or how about along then up? We'll be able to stay in the sunshine a little bit longer.'

It's a less-used route, at least by humans, but tractor tyres have flattened a pathway and either side the telltale signs of recently dug holes and small round droppings tell us there were rabbits here not long ago.

'They'll be in their burrows now, sitting by the fire with a nice cup of tea and a slice of bramble pie, wondering what those thundering footsteps are doing overhead' I suggest.

I've never quite moved on from believing that the world under our feet is just as Beatrix Potter might have painted it.

'Along then up' turns out to be a much steeper route, so we pause frequently, each time turning to look back at the valley behind us, never failing to absorb its simple beauty. At the top of the hill we turn into the woods. Dry fallen leaves cover the path. Thick under foot, their crunch is a delightful reminder of all our childhoods.This is what we've come for. We scuff and trample, shattering leaves into clouds of dust that will filter down into the soil and feed the trees that dropped them.

I'm the first to spot the chestnuts shining between the leaves. We're never usually in time to see any more than the prickly open cases, their soft white insides turning slowly brown, but today it seems we've got to them before the squirrels. Perhaps the wind last night has shaken down a new crop, or maybe, just like the rabbits, the squirrels are sitting cosy by their firesides, their cupboards already stocked for winter. Either way the chestnuts are there for the picking. We shuffle through the leaves, spotting more and more until our pockets are full, our legs misshapen and lumpy.

As we turn for home, I start humming a Christmas song, imagining chestnuts roasting on the open fire we'll light a little later. Philip is already musing about collecting sprouts from the allotment to cook with them. 

Halfway down the hill I stop and look again at our street, nestled in the valley below. I know I'll never tire of the sight. And as we get nearer to our own burrow, I can't help thinking that down there too is just as Beatrix Potter might have painted it.

Backstage

It's the final performance of Robin Hood, and I'm backstage in the village hall. At any other time, this would be the play group's storage area, but this week the plastic boxes of toys and the child-size tables and chairs have been stacked to one side. With the introduction of a clothes rail, it's suddenly a dressing room for the Shoreham Village Players.

Around me, other members of the cast are waiting for their next scene. There are never enough chairs for us all, but it's no big deal; when someone gets up to go on-stage, someone else sits down. When someone needs to reach their costume on the rail we all bunch up a bit, when someone gets cold and wants a seat by the only radiator, we all shift round.

There's a speaker on the wall, for us to hear the action on the stage, but it only seems to be picking up the music from the piano, so every now and then one of us checks where we are in the script, making sure that the youngest players don't miss their entrances. Kenny brings round my stick for the auld crones scene and we go through our lines once again, too caught up in the comfort of the ritual now to dare going on stage without another practice. Next to us, Emily and Hatty quietly sing their shared song, reassuring each other that they really do know the words. Kate, our director wanders through; she knows it's too late for her to say anything now, but we all sense her unspoken determination for us all to do the very best we can.

Patsy and Janet check costumes, helping to fasten the out-of-reach buttons, pinning up an over-long skirt. Michelle is in charge of make-up; transforming Luke into a talking frog, Josh into a bat. Beth flutters her glitter-lined cats eyes, while the Shoreham Witches show off their sparkling painted nails and the Scottish Widows adjust their tartan skirts. Our Dame bemoans the discomfort of a false bust, and I'm dressed as a man, but nobody seems to find anything strange.

Every few minutes someone passes round a bag of sweets.  While we're still discussing the relative merits of jelly babies and wine gums, a tin of Quality Street appears, quickly followed by a tube of Pringles, then a pack of chocolate biscuits. At the interval, just when it's most needed, a tray of tea and coffee arrives as if by magic.

We've a wide range of ages between us, but that doesn't seem to matter. People pose together for group selfies, they share games on their i-pads and mobiles. We all sit and listen as Ellie tells us about the time they staged Oliver, when it was so cold backstage that everyone sat in sleeping bags to keep warm. People share memories of other favourite shows, talk about the characters they'd most like to play, put forward suggestions for the next production. While we chat, we keep an ear open for what's going on on-stage. When we get to the point where the audience is supposed to join in with a song, everyone backstage sings loudly as well, realising for once that we don't need to keep our voices down.

Before we know it, we're all on stage for the curtain call, smiling out at the audience, standing in line to take a single bow. All that's left is one last chorus of the final song and as the applause fades away, I realise how just how aptly the words describe what it's been like to sit backstage with the Shoreham Village Players.

'If there's a moral to this tale,
It's do not shut the door.
In Shoreham Forest, there is room,
For all types rich and poor'

Sometimes

When I was young, and there was something I really really wanted, I'd find a million reasons why I wouldn't get it, why I didn't deserve it, why it wasn't worth the wanting. And just the same last year, when I thought we might be able to come back to Shoreham, I tried to convince myself, and anyone who'd listen, that it didn't really matter.

I made myself think about the darkness in winter, the frequency of power cuts, the scarcity of parking, as though all those things might somehow be a charm against disappointment.

I tried not to think about the kindness of neighbours who offer you a home, and make you feel like it's yours. I stopped walking through the village in my mind.

I almost forgot the views from the house in Crown Road; looking out the front bedroom window, past the Chapel and across to the allotments; standing on the doorstep to see the street tipping down towards the river; feeling how the hills hold the village in on either side. 

I somehow let slip the sounds of sparrows in the tree across the road, the roar of the oil-fired boiler as it starts up in the morning, the click of wood on wood as the front door closes shut. 

I steeled myself against revisiting too often the other memories; of putting up the Christmas lights; of Philip chopping wood, lighting fires, clearing snow; of the day he proposed and the day we got married. 

Then I found out that sometimes, the things you really really want, are the things you might deserve, and the things you end up getting. 

On 6th January 2015, we moved back to our house in Shoreham. 

Today, I remembered the poem we shared on our wedding day.

Sometimes - Sheenagh Pugh
Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go

amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Strawberry Fields Forever is a play about the small things and the important things, about taking your chances, not missing the moment.

As the title suggests, the play, written by Bobby Stevenson, has a strong link to the Beatles. The story is based around a chance encounter with John Lennon in the 1960s and his death in New York some twenty years later. As you might expect, it's a story about living and dying, but more importantly, it's about people in a small village who grow and learn to see the value in keeping promises and making others happy. Built on the idea that 'everything matters' there is something inherently right about the very first performance taking place in Shoreham, not just because Bobby lives in the village, but because Shoreham itself is a place where things matter.

As I watched my fellow cast members getting into costume, looking at their lines for a final time, and pacing up and down waiting for their cues, I thought about how important  the Shoreham Village Players have become to me, since the very first time Philip and I encountered them at a Cabaret night in March 2007. As we sat backstage last night, chatting about old performances and players, catching up on family stories, sharing memories and hopes for the future, I remembered once again how the village takes people into its heart, and holds them there. And that was never more obvious than last night.

On a first night, no matter how hard you've rehearsed, there's always a worry that it won't go well and a recognition that some things won't go entirely to plan. The nerves back-stage were palpable, but out front, the hall was filling with family, friends and village residents, all willing to come out on a cold Thursday night in November, all willing the play to be a success. And while there may have been a line or two that went missing, and a few props that didn't quite make it onto stage, none of that mattered as I listened to the audience laughing and falling silent in all the right places and heard them cheering at the curtain call.

Last night I remembered once again that the people of Shoreham know all about the small things and the important things, and my thanks go to Bobby Stevenson, Sheila Webb, and all the cast and crew of Strawberry Fields Forever, for giving me another chance to experience that.

Saying goodbye

Being English, we don’t talk about death. We moan about getting old, about aching and forgetting things, about going to work and wishing for retirement, but we never discuss the alternative. We just pretend that it will all go on for ever. And we always think there’ll be more time. Time to spend with friends and family, time to laugh and cry, time to find out a little bit more about that man you never knew well, but who always made you smile.

Except that sometimes there isn't more time, and it’s only when it’s too late that you find out that a man you admired, is really called Keith and not Dobbin; that he liked steam trains and fishing; loved holidays in Scotland, and that he once dressed up as a woman to play in goal for a ladies’ football team.

And then you learn something more. You begin to see that sometimes it’s possible to do so much more than work and sleep and pass a life away. That it is possible to live a life that builds meaning around family and home; that counts laughter and friendship as more important than money; that brings out a whole village.

Shoreham is a special place; it draws the best of people into its heart and cherishes them. And when it’s time to let someone go, it does so with dignity and pride; with laughter, tears, and more than a little drunkenness. Shoreham was exactly the right place for Dobbin to live, and, on Friday, as I stood on the bridge over the river and watched 52 blue and white balloons soaring into the sky and floating away down the valley, it was also exactly the right place from which to say goodbye.

Nicholas Nickleby - a preview

I wasn't there for the conversation, many months ago, when the committee of the Shoreham Village Players sat down to discuss forthcoming productions, but I like to imagine it went something like this.

"So.. any ideas for our next play?"

"Well, I was thinking, perhaps Nicholas Nickleby"

"Mmm.. sounds interesting. Can't go wrong with a bit of Dickens. Anyone staged it before?"

"Oh yes, in 1980, The Royal Shakespeare Company's production became a theatrical legend, and nearly thirty years later the Chichester Festival version took the west end by storm."

"So nothing much to live up to then, tell us more."

"Well, it's got a cast of over 70 characters; all ages from malnourished children through to doddering theatricals; heartbroken Nicklebys, heartbreaking Smike, the evil Squeers and the frighteningly bad Crummles Theatre Company."

"oh...."

"And 36 scenes that range from London to Yorkshire and on to Portsmouth; including a roadside inn, a run-down school, a gentleman's parlour, a milliner's showroom, the open countryside, and a travelling theatre stage."

"I see..."

"And you were thinking we could put this on in the village hall?"

"Oh yes, we can have it ready for March."

And now, suddenly, it is March. And tonight Nicholas Nickleby Part One will open in the village hall.

Scheduling the rehearsals, to bring a huge cast to the hall for the right scenes on the right day, would have baffled even the logistics specialists at Eddie Stobart.  Creating the costumes that could take us from Dickensian London to Shakespearean Verona, would have had even the wardrobe ladies of Strictly Come Dancing quaking in their sparkling boots. Sourcing the props and assembling the sets, a design challenge that no Sixty-Minute-Makeover could ever have achieved. Above all that, casting 40 people and steering them through from faltering incoherence to confident eloquence, with only encouragement and support to keep them on track, was something that only the bravest director would have attempted, or achieved.

Never can it be said that the Shoreham Village Players lack heart. For those of you lucky enough to be there tonight, you will see what happens when a brave woman decides to take that heart and send it beating through the village.  If you don't yet have tickets, get down to the village shop and snap up the last few, not only will you get to experience a fine night at the theatre, you'll get to see what makes Shoreham the very best village in the world. 

A Tale of Two Villages

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light..." 

So wrote Charles Dickens more than a hundred and fifty years ago in A Tale of Two Cities. His words have been echoing in my mind this weekend.

This time last year, as long-time readers of this blog will know, we lived in the best street in the best village in the world. And as the last Saturday in November dawned, we were up early, donning our warmest clothing for the best weekend of the year, the weekend when the residents of Crown Road put up the Christmas lights.

But six months ago, knowing that we couldn't go on renting for ever, and having given up hope of ever being able to afford to buy a house in Shoreham, we moved along the valley to Otford. This year, there was no slip of paper through the letter box confirming the date or time to assemble, there was no bustle and noise outside as the boxes of light-bulbs and wheels of cable were placed at strategic points along the street.

Instead, a few days ago, Philip received a text from Keith, our old landlord and ex-next door neighbour, inviting us to go along and join the annual ritual. Philip knew straight away that he wanted to go, I took a little longer to set aside my grudging sense of disappointment that our new village has not yet entwined itself into our hearts, and finally agree that it would be a good thing to go back and join in.

So yesterday, instead of just opening the front door and stepping outside, we jumped in the car and drove along the valley. And when we arrived, all was just as it should be. We slotted straight back into the roles we'd been assigned last year. Philip in charge of the Christmas tree at the end of the road, me the queen of the WD40, making sure all the bulb sockets were liberally squirted.

Nobody was surprised that we were there, though many asserted their pleasure that we were. Some things had changed - different window frames on one house, a new car outside another, but so many things were still the same. We chatted and worked, exclaimed with gratitude at the coffee and flapjacks as they appeared and praised the choc-chip biscuits made by Imogen, who wasn't even born the first year we were there to put up the lights.

There were some new neighbours, joining in for the very first time, and about to find out the wonder of those bright lights in the darkest month of the year. There were others who, like us, have moved away and were spoken of and remembered fondly.

At the end of the morning, as always, we made our way to The Crown, the pub at the top of the road, the pub that had been our very first visiting place in the village and the venue for our wedding reception. There we all squashed into the small front bar, recently decorated by the new landlords who are slowly and quietly working their way into the affections of the village.

And it was only then, as we all raised a cheer to Crown Road and its lights, that it really hit me. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We've moved along the valley, but my heart is still living at no 13.

Falling leaves

Since we came to this house, the first thing I've done each day is look out of the bedroom window.  From where I sit in bed, I can't see down into the garden, and there are no houses looking back at me; all I can see through the square window, is a patch of sky, framed by tall sycamore and elm trees. Whenever I've woken on a sunny morning, I've watched the branches waving and the leaves dancing in the sunlight like a happy, hippy crowd at a music festival.

It's getting darker in the mornings now, but the early gloom is brightened by pale yellow leaves that have started floating down past the window. The path is strewn with them; it's as though the party is ending and the crowds are leaving the festival to make their way home, dropping their litter as they go.

It's been four months since we moved in; we arrived in time for summer, and now we're welcoming autumn for the first time. As the weeks have passed I've seen the colours come and go - from the flowers and shrubs that were here before us and the new ones we've planted since. I've cut the grass and trimmed the hedges and watched them grow again. We've eaten lunches and dinners at at the picnic bench that came with us from Shoreham, and we've sat chatting over breakfast at the new table and chairs we bought in an end of season sale, just a couple of weeks ago.

Already there are dry leaves caught in the stems of the lavender bushes and floating across the surface of the pond; soon the grass will be covered in a russet and golden coat that I'll delight in crunching through as I walk down the garden.

Time is passing, but it doesn't feel as though the days are slipping away, more that we're building new traditions, taking old memories out of the box and examining them in a new light.

Memories and mementoes

I unlock the small square door and reach up to pull down the aluminium ladder. Above me, in the dark, dusty, cob-webbed space is the task I've been dreading most since we started packing up the house to move.

I'm not scared of spiders and I don't mind a bit of dirt, but nevertheless, the task of clearing the loft fills me with trepidation. Though there's no picture of Dorian Gray hiding up there, I know that, stacked up in a corner and hidden behind the suitcases and bags of old clothes, are the boxes that represent another life. They've sat there unopened since we moved to this house. Treasured keepsakes, each with a meaning of its own, each telling a story about a different me, as daughter, wife or mother; these are the possessions that sum up my life before Philip; the stories of my family.

It should be a simple task to lift these boxes down and pile them up with all the other boxes for the removal men to transfer to our new house in just over a week's time. And it would be, if I could resist the temptation to open them and sift through the contents.

The first box holds medals and trophies from when the boys played football for the cub-scouts and school teams. The trophies are wrapped snuggly in the shiny fabrics of a dozen replica football shirts. I remember the freezing hours I spent, standing on the touchline, shouting and willing my lads to run and score and win, until they were too old and too embarrassed to want me watching them any more.

Next is a container of all the kitchen things I bought for Megan when she first went away to university. The saucepans and colander for all the beans and pasta I thought she'd be eating; the tea caddy for her unquenchable thirst for a nice cup of tea. She only stayed in Leeds for one term, hating every minute of her time there. I remember driving up to collect her and bringing her home; the box has been in the loft ever since.

There's another one from Charlie's slightly longer, but no more successful, time at Manchester University. It holds his study materials; a collection of pens and papers, a calculator and his student ID card; all evidence of the good intent to study that he took with him, but which evaporated as quickly as his student loan. I'm suddenly hit by the recognition of how lost he must have felt, away from home for the first time, his money all gone and a slowly growing panic as he fell behind in his studies.  At the bottom of the box I'm surprised to find a fountain pen. It's mine, and I'd assumed it was long-since lost. I've no idea how it came to be in the box; I'd like to think he chose to take it up to Manchester with him.

Next comes the photo box. I lost hundreds of pictures after a move 4 houses ago when I stupidly left the albums to go mouldy in an outside shed. The pictures in this box are the only ones I managed to save. Rare and precious representations of my children as babies and toddlers, birthdays, weddings and school photos. I'm surprised to see a younger, slimmer me, secretly pleased at how I used to look.

There's a huge box of paper souvenirs; school report letters; theatre programmes and tickets; newspaper cuttings; handmade birthday cards. Among them a letter from Charlie, telling me he's sorry for fighting with his brother, that he didn't mean to upset me, that he loves me lots. Beside that, a small envelope holding 4 notes from Claire, written to Charlie and me just after he was born.

The last box I look through is the one I know will make me cry. It holds everything I still have of my Dad, bank statements and insurance papers; his final will and testament; details of the arrangements I made for his funeral and the condolence cards we received. I know what's in this box, but I haven't looked through it for four years, so the contents come back to me with a shock. I smile when I find the tickets issued over fifty years ago for a trip to Spain for him and my Mum; I swallow hard when I find the picture of him as a young man in the army, confident and smiling, knowing there is still a whole lifetime ahead. I'm struck by the resemblance between him and Charlie.

 

And then I find the small envelope. Inside it is a typewritten sheet, a story written many years ago by my Dad, for Charlie on his birthday. As I read the story I begin to hear his voice. And then I realise that even though I'll be moving to a new house soon; a house he'll never visit or know; my Dad will be coming along on the journey anyway.

----------------

The Day We Won the Cup - written for 'His Majesty Emperor King Charlie':

Once upon a time, on a sunny summer aftermorning, all the people on earth were very happy. They were dressed in their best clothes, with pink ribbons hanging from their toenails and green ice-cream cornets dropping from their noses. They started the day with a special breakfast, starting with scrambled crocodile's eggs,which were followed by Marmitemud on toast.


The reason for all this happiness was that this was the day of the long-awaited final of the Inter-World Cup between the men from the planet Klobbadog and a special team from the planet Earth. The men from Klobbadog were known as excellent footballers, who had won every game that they had played. This may, of course, have been because they each had three legs worked by batteries, and large square heads mounted on rubber stalks, which made it easy to head lots of goals.


The team from Earth that had been chosen to play against Klobbadog were known as the Longshortworth Rovers who, although consisting on only six players, were famous for the special skills each of them possessed, Up front was the Daddyman, whose special skill was running down the pitch tripping everybody up with a golf-club. Joining him up front was the Mummywoman, whose special skill lay in feeding players on the other side with homemade cakes which poisoned them within minutes. In midfield were the Clairegirl, who wasn't really very good at football, but used to wave her feet at anybody that came near her so that they collapsed on the spot. Alongside her was the Gerardboy, who had a special ability to turn himself into a bear-cub, and at the back was the cuddly Meggygirl who used to talk and talk and talk until she sent everybody to sleep.


But the star player of the Earth team was the goalkeeper, Charlieboy Longworth, who had never given away a single goal, because of his ability to make his arms and legs stretch to ginormous lengths by saying the magic words:

"Abracadabra Hazel and Mush, my teacher looks like a scrubbing brush." 

The Earth team were soon two goals ahead, First the Mummy girl ran up the pitch, turning sideways so that she was so thin nobody saw her. Then the Gerardboy ran forward giving a loud bear-cub growl and frightening all the Klobbadog players and banging the ball in the net.


The game was nearly over when disaster struck! One of the Klobbadog players tripped over the Daddyman's golf clubs and was awarded a penalty. He shot the ball hard with two legs, straight at the goal, but the Charlieboy caught the ball with one of his magical long arms, ran straight up the pitch and scored another goal. The Earth people had won! Charlieboy was the hero of the hour! He was given special toys made of ice-cream and toffee that he could eat when he was fed up of playing with them, and they all lived happily ever after!!!!!

Just along the valley

We hadn’t been together all that long when Philip first introduced me to the small green guide book; 28 circular walks in the Kent countryside, ranging from a gentle stroll round a field to a sharp breath-stealing march up a hill. With his usual boundless enthusiasm he overcame my reluctance to accept walking boots as a fashion item, and over the next few years we tested them out - the boots and the walks - working our way across fields and footpaths, stomping through villages and valleys. As we walked, or stopped to admire the view, we scribbled comments in the book's margins; 'bluebells in April,' 'a cheese sandwich under the trees,' 'Badger!' After a while the book became shabby and dog-eared; a cracked spine and turned-down corners the battle scars of our favourite walks.

There was one page in the book that became more worn and tattered than the rest, one walk we returned to again and again, until we really didn't need the book any more. The footpath started out in a small quiet village, then wound its way up and through a wood, across a valley and a hill, past farms and a golf course; before winding back down again, past a viaduct, along a river and back. 

Before long I was calling the village 'the nice place' and weekend walks were supplemented by visits on a Friday evening. We found a small pub, where the barman always greeted us with a smile, addressing Philip as 'young man'. It was no time at all until he knew our names and started pouring out our drinks before we'd even finished asking for them. Occasional drinks turned to dinner every Friday; the perfect way to mark the beginning of the weekend. We gradually felt more and more at home sitting at 'our' table in the bar, chatting to the other regulars, marvelling at how lucky they were to live in such a lovely place. Our conversation became peppered with phrases like "wouldn't it be nice if..." and "maybe one day..."

So, when one Friday evening we pulled into the pub car park and spotted a 'To Let' board outside a house a few doors down, we knew it was meant to be. Dinner waited while we walked up and down the road, peering through the front windows as we passed, trying to make it look like we weren't being nosy, hoping there wasn't anyone inside looking out. When we finally sat down in the pub to eat, there was no other conversation possible. The very next morning we contacted the letting agent and a few days later everything was in place for us to move.

We both knew it would be temporary; long-term renting really wasn't the wisest move, but we hoped that before long we'd be able to buy a house - if not in the same street, then at least in the same village. In the meantime we just settled in and enjoyed every minute spent living in a street with the friendliest, most community spirited neighbours I've ever known; and next door to the best landlords anyone could hope for.

For months, Philip went round with a big smile on his face, telling anyone who'd listen that it was just like being on a permanent holiday.  We started to put down roots - in the street, at the allotment.  We helped to put up the christmas lights, took part in the duck race, manned a stall at the village fete. Philip chopped wood for our open fires, I trod the boards for our local productions. The village opened its arms and welcomed us, it was only natural that we loved it in return.

After a while, we began to realise our aspirations to buy had been too optimistic. We watched as the For Sale signs came and went; we waited while prices got higher and higher. However hard we saved, even the tiniest most run-down cottage in the village was beyond our purse strings. We talked about it long and hard; renting was fine for now, but we both knew that if we left it too much longer we'd never be able to own our own home.

It's been four years since we moved to the nicest street in the nicest place in the world. This week, we exchanged contracts on a house in another village. 

Our new house is small, but lovely, with a warm friendly feel about it and a wonderfully long garden. It’s only a couple of miles along the valley, so we’ll still be able to carry on doing all the things we've grown to love; and seeing the people we've come to know and admire. I know we are very lucky to have found a place we can afford to buy; I know that it will suit us just fine.

We’re moving in two weeks’ time, so the next few days will fly past in a blur of sorting, packing and cleaning. Before we leave, I will take one last slow walk around the house, smiling to myself as I remember the day when we sat together in the bedroom and Philip asked me to marry him. I’ll think of our wedding day and the wonderful party we had in the Crown pub at the top of the road, made perfect through the hard work and good will of Phil the barman. I’ll stand in the kitchen and think of all the vegetables we’ve proudly carried home from the allotment, the fabulous dinners Philip has cooked here, the gorgeous cakes that Megan has baked. I’ll look at the room, still pictured at the top of my blog, and re-live how I felt when I sat down to write my first ever blog post, marvelling at all the words I’ve written and read at that table ever since.

And then before I know it, and certainly before I’m ready for it, we’ll be closing the door for the last time and handing back the key. The move is, without doubt, a good thing. The tears I know we shouldn’t cry are just a confirmation of the wonderful time we’ve had and the happy memories we’ll be taking with us.

Thank you Shoreham.

Cherish is the word I use to describe

It's not often that I spend an evening by myself. It's such a rarity that, when I imagine it, I build the idea up as a special treat, a chance to do what I like, an opportunity to pretend that I'm a grown-up independent woman, in charge of my own destiny and decisions.

I hadn't expected to be on my own tonight. It wasn't until Megan called, just as I was leaving work, that I knew both she and Philip had alternative plans.  My day at work had been stupidly busy, so the previously unforeseen promise of a peaceful, solitary evening dangled alluringly in front of me all the way home. A bit like an air freshener on a rear view mirror.

The trouble with car deodorisers though is that the fresh new atmosphere they promise usually turns out to be a false unnatural scent, masking the reality. Even with my appalling sense of smell, I know that's not the right ambience for me.

It's a rare occasion that I come home to a dark and silent house. I'm usually the last one back, the one coming in to shoes parked by the front door, bags dropped somewhere between there and the kitchen, opened mail scattered across the dining table and the radio playing loudly in the background. Minor annoyances, that are easily cancelled out by a cheerful welcome, the offer of a nice cup of tea, and the sight of debris in the kitchen, promising me a lovely dinner already half cooked.

Tonight the only greeting was an insistent one from the cat, wondering why he'd had to wait so long to be fed. After I'd answered his demands and made myself a cuppa, I mooched around the kitchen, hoping for some inspiration on the food front. I've never seen the point of cooking just for me. I'd hoped to finish off last night's rhubarb crumble, but it seems someone had that for breakfast. Luckily there was some cold meat in the fridge, so a lamb sandwich dinner it was.

Half an hour home and I was already feeling a bit sorry for myself. I turned on the TV - not just for the sound of the voices; this was my night in charge, I could watch what I liked. Well, I could within reason. A quick flick through the channels showed me that the value of controlling the remote is in direct proportion to the quality of the programmes on offer.

I was just about to turn off in contempt, when a news-clip from years ago caught my attention. The footage panned across a scene at Heathrow airport where hundreds, perhaps thousands of screaming teenage girls waited to welcome the arrival from the United States of their heart throb David Cassidy. In an instant I was transported back to the early 1970s, to the first time I ever went to a concert, the first time I ever felt completely part of a whole experience, watching, listening, feeling, the beat of the music coming up through the floor, my screams joining the others echoing around Wembley Stadium.

Sitting here tonight, in our house in Shoreham, I could see myself back in my bedroom in Croxted Road; playing the Cherish album again and again; singing along to every word and holding onto the album cover as tightly as if it had been him. I loved David Cassidy then, really loved him, and like so many millions of girls the world over, I convinced myself that I only had to meet him to persuade him that he'd love me too. I started saving up. I wasn't yet old enough for a Saturday job, but my pocket money pennies and birthday gifts that year all went into a special box; it had a slit in the top and a label on the front - my 'going to America to marry David Cassidy' fund.

I can remember all that so well, but strangely I can't remember when I stopped poring over the pictures in Jackie magazine, when I discovered other albums to listen to, found another use for my pennies. I don't even know what happened to the going-to-America box. I suspect it happened gradually, as I slowly understood it wasn't a reality and there were other, better, things to spend my time thinking about, wishing and wanting.

Then it came to me, forty years later, sitting here in our house in Shoreham, that's exactly what will happen to my dreams of spending time alone - one day I'll just know that there are other, better, things to spend my time thinking about, wishing and wanting.

Friday on my mind

It's Friday morning, eight o'clock and I'm still in bed, propped up by a pile of plumped up pillows. Most mornings I'm up and out before Philip's even conscious, but on a Friday I work from home, so I'm the one who gets to stay tucked up in the duvet, with the cup of tea he made before he left.

I don't always live easily in the present. My mind's default setting is to think about the future, to mull over things, worry about and plan for what will, or might, or ought, to happen. Today though, there's something about the light outside that leads me to just sit.

The sky's a pale blue, cut in quarters by the white trailing clouds from two passing planes, like a washed out Scottish flag. From where I sit I can see the tops of the trees; they're still skeletal at this time of year. Though I know their leaf buds are forming, I can't see them from here. One old tree must have been there for hundreds of years. It stands in the back garden of a small cottage along the valley and it's been pruned a number of times to stop it blocking the light from the buckled leaded windows. It seems to have been hacked at without much thought for its shape so it now has a permanent one-sided lean, as though it's straining to get away from the cottage. For the last couple of years it's been the last tree to get leaves, like a recalcitrant old man who finds fewer reasons to get up and dressed every morning.

Where the tree's been cut back, I can see the upstairs of the house. The windows peep out from an old, uneven red-tiled roof, blinking in the light like eyes from under a fringe. I wonder if there's someone sitting in their bed thinking about the trees and the sky, looking out at me.

It's very quiet now that Philip's left for work. It's not just that he likes to leave the radio on in every room, more that there's a sound to his presence. When he's here, I sense his breathing. I can tell by the pace and depth of it, what mood he's in, how hard he's concentrating, whether he's tense or relaxed. When I first knew him, we worked in an office together. One day he spent a whole day coughing, trying to clear his chest. By the end of the day I felt the need to clear my own throat in sympathy every time he gasped for breath.  Sometimes now, without even realising it, I find my breath slowing down or speeding up to keep pace with his.

Before he left, I listened to him moving around, heard him downstairs talking to the cat; waited for his step on the stairs, on the creaking floor-board in the bedroom. I noticed the click that his tin of hair-pomade made when he set it down on the wooden box by the bed, I heard his keys jangle as he picked them up and dropped them into his trouser pocket.

I sit for a while, but thoughts of the work I need to do today start pushing into the empty quietness. I know it's time to get up. When I do, the news is all of a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I switch on the TV and see film after film of buildings shaking, people screaming, rolling tidal waves of water washing over fields and through car parks.

It doesn't seem possible, that while I sat looking out at the peace of the valley, halfway across the world, people's lives were literally being turned upside down. I know there is no rhyme or reason. It simply isn't fair that some people will never again hear the turn of the key in the lock as their loved ones return at the end of the day. I am enormously grateful that I will.

Gut Girls - show week part 2

Yesterday was, at least theoretically a 'rest day', the only day this week when I won't be treading the boards. Tonight is dress rehearsal and then we have four performances, from Wednesday through to Saturday.

I like the last minute preparations for a show, pottering around checking that I've got everything I need, making final adjustments to my costumes. I've sewn the missing button onto my gruesomely blood-stained apron and removed the pocket from a blazer to make it look slightly less grammar school, slightly more gutting shed. I've even tried softening the sleeve protectors we have to wear while hacking the meat, but they're made of harsh rough sack straight from a local farm and they remain far tougher than me. Although it might be in character, I won't be wiping my nose on my sleeve tonight.

We'll be doing our own make-up for the show. I don't usually wear much more than a lick of eyeliner and a brush or two of mascara, so assembling the jars, pots, tubes and brushes I'll need for tonight really feels like getting ready to play dressing-up. I'll probably need to practice a few times before I get it right and it's easier to do that here than in the confined space back-stage, so I'll do my make-up at home before I go down to the hall. Surely strolling through the village as a painted lady will only enhance my reputation with the locals?

I'm starting to feel just a touch nervous; not that gut-wrenching panic when your mind goes blank and you can't remember what scene you're in, let alone what you're supposed to say, but a tingle of anticipation; that sense you get when you've spent ages looking forward to a day out and you're half-excited, half-worried it will disappoint. Half of me thinks we're hideously under-rehearsed, the other half thinks that's ok as it means we'll be on our toes, still trying hard and keen to get it right - it's a difficult balance.

I think I might walk down to the village shop in a while. The shop doubles up as our box-office, tickets for each night stored in plastic boxes under the counter. A separate seating plan for each show is stuck onto a large piece of cardboard and each time a seat is sold, the corresponding box on the seating plan gets a large cross through it, so it's easy to see how well sales are going. Saturday night is likely to be a sell-out and, last time I checked opening night was going well too. The only downside to that is that the cheaper seat prices for our first performance usually attract the slightly more mature members of village society. I'm not entirely convinced they're yet quite ready for the coarse reality of a Deptford gutting shed at the end of the nineteenth century, but hopefully some of them might forget to turn on their hearing aids.

Gut Girls - show week part 1

Sunday 27 Feb - Technical rehearsal

We've been building up to this for months. Gradually absorbing and repeating the lines, carefully planning and practising the movements, slowly getting to know the other members of the cast as well as the characters we'll play.

The 'technical' is our penultimate rehearsal before opening night, the final check on lighting, props, staging and costumes; it has always had the potential to be both scary and demanding. Despite all the careful planning and the very best intentions of cast and crew, the last few weeks have been challenging for Lonnie our director and the four hours set aside in our rehearsal schedule, which had seemed so ludicrously generous all those months ago, suddenly appear to be nowhere near enough.

It's one thing to walk through the scenes when all you need to do is imagine the props, another one entirely to manoeuvre around the small space of the village hall's stage without totally blocking the audience's view, as a fellow cast member delivers their most poignant line. It should be easy to wield a meat cleaver with conviction, but the more you do it the less natural it feels. The Gut Girls are supposed to be coarse and common, but we're still being urged to be louder and more raucous; and you may think that it would present no challenge, but I haven't yet entirely got to grips with the art of swigging convincingly from an empty beer bottle.

Theatre is full of superstition. Many believe that mere mention of the name of 'The Scottish Play' is enough to bring on a plague of bad luck. Others attempt to evade calamity by banning whistling anywhere in the theatre, avoiding the use of mirrors on stage and insisting that the colour blue can only be worn when offset by silver. But probably the best known of all theatrical superstitions is the phrase that's meant to replace any ill-advised good luck wishes. This week Sheila, our prompt, took that a little too literally. Having spent weeks patiently and successfully overcoming the challenges of a cast who change their lines at every rehearsal, her downfall was the curled up edge of carpet in the doorway of the hall, which resulted in nasty tumble and a fractured femur.

It's strange how you think you know people just because you pass them in the street and say hello. I saw a different side to my fellow Shoreham Players that night. Sheila was very brave, despite her obvious fear and pain, but she was matched in stoic fortitude by Jill who crouched down motionless for a limb-numbing age to hold the injured leg still. Derek's kind, calming, softly spoken words are just what I'd want to hear if ever I was in trouble and even Megan, who in my heart will always be my little girl, showed me she's far from that in the confident clear way she called and spoke to the ambulance service.

Sheila has now had an operation and is recovering in hospital, but even so, I don't think anyone will be telling us to 'break a leg' on opening night.

Gut Girls - show week

Like the witches in Macbeth, the legs of a tripod, the sides of a triangle, or even just luck, things often arrive in threes. The fortuitous convergence of three events this week has given me an excuse to try something a little different on my blog for the next seven days.

1. Gut Girls, the show we've been rehearsing since November last year is finally coming to the stage of Shoreham Village Hall this week, with performances from Wednesday to Saturday.
2. Because there is no way that I could be on stage every evening and up for work at 6.00am the next day, I have taken the whole week off. This also means I have more time for writing.
3. Next Saturday, 5th March, is not only the final performance of Gut Girls, it is also my very first Bloggiversary; one year to the day since I started this whole blog-writing malarkey.

For these three reasons, and not just because I am a self-obsessed luvvy, I have decided that for the next seven days I will write a blog update every day - focusing on the happenings at the village hall, our final preparations and the performances. 

A daily blog is not something I've attempted before, but I really like the idea of keeping an almost-live record of the week. I know that this is completely self-indulgent, and I've no idea how it will turn out, so I can only beg your forbearance. If the whole idea seems just too hideous, then all I can suggest is that you stay away from the blog for the next week or so, after which normal service will be resumed. 

If, on the other hand, you fancy taking a journey through the stage-fright, the highs and lows, the glamour and greasepaint of a theatrical production in a small village in Kent, then please switch off your mobile phones and take your seats; the curtain is about to rise...

Setting out

Each morning I follow the same routine; as I leave the house, I pull the front door shut behind me, turn left and look down the street. The terraced cottages form a guard of honour as the road makes its way slightly downhill  towards the river. Beyond that, the view opens up across the fields to the other side of the valley. From this distance I can't see the llamas grazing, but as I look up I can see the lights glowing from the solitary house on the hill. I'm intrigued by the round  turret like wing at one end and always think it could be the setting for an Agatha Christie murder mystery, a deadly dinner party with Hercule Poirot as guest of honour; 'Villainy at the Vineyard' perhaps, or 'The Shocking Shoreham Shooting'?

I have a long commute to work, so it's still dark when I leave. There's no-one else around at this time, but as I look along the road I can picture the other Crown Road residents waking up and preparing for the day ahead. I know the house where the toddler will already be awake, chattering away to her Dad before he sets off for work in Tunbridge Wells. I can imagine the scene where our champion of the allotments will be slowly stretching, bringing the life back into his aching shoulders. I can almost see each of the dogs and cats bending down to their individual breakfast bowls.

Then I turn to walk up the road towards the car. Parking is never easy in this small narrow street, so it's usually a bit of a way from the house. I never mind that though; this is sometimes my only chance of the day to feel like I'm really part of the village. At the top of the street is the hill leading up to the woods on our side of the valley. This is the slope where so many people rushed to test out their tobogganing skills when the snow fell heavily in December, I can still almost hear the excited shrieks of delight and fear. Sometimes the field is empty, at other times there are sheep or cows grazing there. I remember the reaction of my son when he first saw them clinging to the steep incline "why don't they roll down?"

As I walk up the road I continue to imagine the scenes behind each front door. The young couple a few doors up are expecting their first baby. It was due earlier this week and I wonder if anything happened in the night. But there's no way of knowing; everything looks peaceful and it's far too early to knock and find out. As I reach the top of the road, the first car reverses past me on its way to the station. The driver smiles and waves through his rapidly de-misting windscreen.

Just a few minutes later I reach my car, but in that short time the darkness has lifted a little and the sky is a lighter grey. I know that each morning for the next few weeks this will happen slightly earlier until the day when I walk out for the first time this year to the bright morning light of Shoreham. On that day I'll walk even more slowly to my car.

Gut Girls - in rehearsal

I've noticed the seasons more since we moved to Shoreham; the way the colours and the light change with each passing month. Though I know it won't be long until the hedgerows take on a pinkish hue and the leafbuds swell, for now the landscape remains one of skeletal silhouettes and shadows, charcoal and ashen grey.

We don't have street lights here, so when it gets dark, it's properly dark; inky black and threatening. In January, once the christmas lights have come down it feels even gloomier. My natural reaction is to stay indoors, to turn into a solitary hermit until the promise of spring lures me blinking back into the light, like the Mole from Wind-in-the-Willows. If I lived anywhere else, that might be what happened, but not here, where there is a year-long schedule of events to force us to socialise. Just as I'm sliding into curmudegeonly confinement, the wise thespians of the Shoreham Village Players step up the rehearsals for their next production.

From 2 - 5 March this year, the village hall will become the blood-soaked sheds of a nineteenth century Deptford slaughterhouse, where The Gut Girls will ply their trade. They are a rowdy bunch, foul-mouthed and raucous, strong and independent. Though I'm firmly denying all suggestions of typecasting, I have been cast as one of them, a character called Maggie, and my Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings are now spent wielding an invisible meat cleaver, knocking back imaginary bottles of beer (at least until the props arrive), and swearing like a trooper.

Our director is keen for us all to be as loud and common as possible - a requirement I seem strangely willing and able to fulfill, even though I know it will do nothing for my reputation in the finer drawing rooms of the village. But there's still a certain amount of bravado called for when the script requires you to tousle the hair of a man you barely know, even though you've said hello in the high street a hundred times.

With only the residents of the village and its near neighbours to draw on, there is a certain amount of poetic licence in the casting and some of the 'girls' are a little past the first flush of youth. Take it from me, it's not easy being a fallen woman when it takes so long to get back up from the floor. I'm hopeful that by opening night, one fellow cast-member might stop collapsing in hysterical laughter each time she addresses me with the line 'Are all the women working here as young as you?'

Today was 'books down'; the date underlined in our rehearsal schedules, the day we've all been dreading, when we're supposed to start acting from memory, rather than reading our lines from the scripts. I very quickly worked out which of the cast had done their homework. Suffice to say, I didn't quite rise to the challenge of recalling words and actions and delivering them both in a co-ordinated manner. I think our very patient prompt will sleep soundly in her bed tonight from all her efforts, while our director may well start having nightmares soon.

The Black Crow

It was the rain that woke me up. The incessant drumbeat on the flat kitchen roof, the higher singing tone of water cascading over the blocked gutter. And now that I'm awake, it's the rain that keeps me up, watching its drops break against the window pane like a series of morse code dots and dashes.

There'll be sandbags across the doorways of the cottages by the river tonight. Bags to sop up the encroaching water, stop it coming across the doorstep; a lumpen wordless bodyguard for each house. I wonder how high the water is now. In the few years we've been here, I've seen it swell over into the fields across the river, reminding me of the Chinese rice fields we learnt about in school, but it's never been high enough to cross over to our side, or inch its way up our street. I imagine the water filling up all the cracks and holes left in the tarmac by the recent frosts and snow, forming puddles for wellie-clad children to jump in tomorrow.

We've been here long enough for me to know which of the roads gets tricky to pass after a heavy downpour, the big dip further along the valley, the road by the lake, where there's nowhere for the water to drain away. I'm never sure how to drive through standing water. I'm scared that if I drive slowly the water will seep into the engine, creep in around the door sills, suck me and the car into its clinging wetness. My urge is to accelerate, push through it as quickly as possible, no matter what great bow-wave I create. Then through the other side, where, if my car was a dog it would shake from side to side and nose to tail, creating a halo of raindrops. Instead I pull away fast, hoping the wheelspin will drive away the water.

When I was a child, my younger sister Caroline was scared of the rain, she always thought it would flood. And as kids so often do, we picked up on her terror. We could reduce her to tears, a flood of her own, by telling her that the house would float away each time it poured. I always liked the imagined idea of de-camping upstairs in a storm, piling up the furniture, eating picnics on our beds, but that probably didn't help for Caroline. Upstairs wasn't a place of refuge for her - not since the time our big sister Ros had so vividly imagined and described 'The Black Crow' that hovered at the top of the staircase waiting to pounce.

Perhaps it was just water that Caroline hated, you'd have certainly thought so if you ever heard her having her hair washed. When we were kids, there was no shower at home and it wasn't til I was a teenager that we got one of those rubber shower hoses that you can fit over the bath-taps. So for years, our mother washed our hair while we stood at the sink, using saucepans full of water. Pour, shampoo, rinse, then repeat. When it was Caroline's turn the sound of each saucepan-full was accompanied by the sound of screaming as she wriggled to escape, trying to duck the water, failing to keep the shampoo out of her eyes. Pour, scream, rinse, shriek, shampoo, sob, rinse, screech, then repeat... scream, scream, scream.

I can almost hear it now.

As I sit and listen in my head to those sounds from long ago, I realise that it's quieter here now. The deluge from the drain has stopped; the ticking of the mantelpiece clock has replaced the rain-beats on the roof. Time to go back up to bed.

I wonder where The Black Crow sleeps tonight.

Home and away

I've been on a training course this week - cloistered in a hotel near Colchester. Seventy-two hours away from family and friends, seventy-five miles from Shoreham.

While the minutes ticked by in north Essex, the world changed around me. Snow fell constantly; it accumulated in piles and drifts; it bent the tree branches with its weight; it slowly transformed the cars outside into indistinguishable white mounds. The flakes swirled and floated past the windows of the conference room.

I watched the news and weather reports on TV in between seminars and 'case-plays'. I listened to the stories of stranded train travellers, of lorries abandoned at the sides of motorways, of schools and offices closed, and of farmers transporting midwives by tractor to the bedsides of women in labour. The whole country seemed to be sliding to a halt.

As time passed, I began to feel less and less connected to reality. I wasn't sure if it was just the wintry blizzard outside that made me feel so cut off.  Perhaps it was the faded '70s decor of the hotel, or the Christmas menu complete with crackers and paper hats, that greeted us in the restaurant.

I don't know if it was the experience of spending so much time with people I barely know, or the strange jargon-filled language that peppered our earnest discussions, but gradually I felt as though I'd lost my centre of gravity.

I've never experienced homesickness before, I haven't known that gut-wrenching pull. In the years since we came to Shoreham, I haven't realised just how much the rolling green hills of the valley and the messy cosiness of our house, have taken me up and enfolded me.

More than that, I haven't noticed how the comforting arms of my big kindly northerner, and the non-stop singing chatter of my dancing daughter have given me a sense of belonging.

Without them I am lost.

Every picture tells a story

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I recently changed the look of my blog. Some of you may even have spotted that I've put a new picture at the top. I'd like to think that one or two of you might even have paused to wonder what the picture was, or where and when it was taken.

Well, hey I can answer all of those questions.

It was taken at precisely 9.55 am on 29th August this year. I know that because I took it, and for those of you who haven't already worked it out, it's a picture of the front room in our house in Shoreham. I took it on the day we decided to move the furniture around and swap our dining room for our living room. I wanted a reminder of how the room had looked before we changed it.

I liked how it looked - a bit old-fashioned, a bit friendly and a bit sunny and bright, so I added it to the blog.  Then I took another, closer, look and I realised why it was so right to have this as my blog picture. There are one or two things pictured here that might seem a little bit familiar, and so with your kind indulgence, I'd like to take you on a walk around our front room.

The table is where we do all our writing. It's where Philip and I sit, laptop to laptop when we're blogging and tweeting and reading and commenting. If you look closely, you'll see a shiny bulldog clip - I manage to leave one lying around every time I work from home. It drives Philip mad. For once we've tidied away the laptops, but the piled up notebooks are a clue to what goes on and the scattered place-mats are my indispensable writing aids - there's very little I can do without regular cups of tea. I have absolutely no idea why there is a wooden clothes peg on the table.

The chairs don't match. We don't have any that do, just a penchant for collecting odd bentwood chairs from other people's houses. Philip's rucksack sits on the nearest one. It's been on a few journeys with us, most recently to Paris. Behind the other chair you can see a grey lever-arched file, stuffed full of papers. That's my mum's letters - I've mentioned them here before.

Just above the file of letters, there's a hook on the wall. It's supposed to hold tie-backs for the curtains. What it's actually holding is a string of red onions from our allotment. It's not easy, in a very small house, to find places to hang your onions...
If you could see out of the window, there's a beautiful white weather-boarded house just across the road, and behind that are the allotments, just a stone's throw away, close enough to nip home and collect a couple of mugs of tea to take back, reward for a hard hour's digging and weeding.

In the corner of the room is a white cupboard. It's where the electricity meter and the fuse box live, the place we go to, groping through the dark, when a light bulb blows and trips the safety switch. It's the 'safe place' where we pile up all our important papers, and it doubles up as the games cupboard - where the scrabble set is piled up with the old jigsaws and my dad's electronic chess game.

There are a number of pictures on top of the cupboard - one of me and Philip sitting on a bench on our wedding day, another of me with my daughters. Hanging on the wall above is a picture of a washing line. It's a photo Philip took in the garden of our last house - It was a strange place to live, an old gatekeepers lodge, which was awkwardly shaped and always freezing cold, but it was the house where Philip and I first lived together, so this photo is a fondly kept reminder. In the corner of the cupboard on the right-hand side is a small picture, taken over 20 years ago when Megan was a baby. It's too small for anyone to make anything out in it - but that's ok - I know how  adorable Megan was and how very long my hair was then...

If you squint a bit you might be able to make out a shiny silver cup - that's the trophy we won last year from the Shoreham Allotments Association for 'most improved plot'. It's the only time in my life that my name has been engraved on a trophy. Behind that there's a small kettle. You might well ask why there's a kettle sitting among the wedding photo's and next to the allotment trophy. Well it's almost a trophy too. We found it while walking through the woods up on the hill. It was more than a bit black and dirty then, but we brought it home like treasure trove and it cleaned up a treat.

To the left of the white cupboard is the fireplace. On top of it you might just be able to make out some small white stones. Whenever we go to a beach I like to bring back a pebble or two - these were from our trip to Cyprus last year.  I love that we can have real fires. The central heating is great when you get up for work in the morning, but the red glowing warmth, and the crackle and hiss of a log fire take some beating. Philip prides himself on the quality of his fire-making, a skill he learned from his Grandda, and I've been grateful for that skill many times.

There's probably not much else to tell you about the picture. We didn't choose the curtains, or the mirror above the fire - they came with the house, which we rent, but they are also very much part of the room and the house that we've grown to love.  And of course, at the top of my blog you can only see half of the room.  Until we swapped the rooms around, the opposite wall was the place for Philip's record cupboard - but that's another story all of its own.