Living in a big house…

I don’t live in a big house, it’s just a normal sized modern property; technically it has four bedrooms but one is so small I can’t imagine there is room for more than a bed and a small cupboard… this is my writing room so it just has room for a table and bookcases! We have the tiniest bathroom you could imagine, and we took out the minuscule bath and just have a shower now. Downstairs the people who lived here before us knocked through into the garage so we have a decent sized galley kitchen, a separate dining room and sitting room and a small utility area… so not massive although we are lucky, very lucky to have what we do.

I hate housework I really do and I struggle because I am naturally untidy and have married a man who wonderful though he is, has a strong untidy gene in his make-up, so even though I aspire to be tidy, he lacks the concept of what tidy is! I hasten to add that I have a very strong cleaning instinct so everywhere is clean, just messy with things not put away!

I dreamt we were living in a big house; it was an old house with large grounds, green lawns and lovely, attractive stone walls around and beyond the walls on three sides woodland, and on the fourth side a beautiful river, winding its leisurely way past. In my dream I was only in the sitting room, which was large yet comfortable, with a lot of elegant windows looking out towards the river, and wide French windows open onto a paved area. The ceilings were not particularly high, so it was a comfortable room, a nice room. I went into the kitchen and began to get lunch ready (I was making something with prawns and boiling some eggs) It was a square kitchen, big and yet not vast, with all modern appliances, and another big wide window so the light flooded in. There was an open hallway, quit square with a broad wooden staircase leading upstairs.

Such a vid dream, such a lovely house and grounds… but I would have to have someone to help me look after it… if our small house is untidy, just think what a big house would be like?! I would spend all day hoovering, cleaning windows, polishing the wooden staircase… but at least in a big house we would have plenty of space to put things away and our cupboards and draws wouldn’t be bulging as they are now!

Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets, maybe my books will become international best-sellers and made into films… Maybe I should just go downstairs and hoover the sitting room and dining room, clean the windows, put some washing in the machine, tidy the garden…