I love London, I really do. I love the way our neighbourhood feels like a village and I run into people I know whenever I walk the dogs or go to the shops. And how I can get on the tube and be in the middle of town in ten minutes, where there are restaurants and theatres and people to tell me the latest gossip about the book business.
But sometimes there’s nothing more perfect than being by the sea.
It’s raining, grey and cold here, but the horses in the field next to the house look shaggy-coated and happy and when I walked on the beach this afternoon the oyster catchers were peeping and swooping and I saw a seal on the sandbar.
Tonight, the house is warm thanks to a fire that’s been roaring all day, and the dogs are dog-tired from running flat out, like wild things, for hours. They’re particularly happy here because we’re all in one room reading instead of spread out around the house. Nothing beats having the pack all in one place.
Tomorrow morning there’ll be no postman banging on the door with a package of books, no racing to get ready for school. No ringing phone.
Just quiet.
My daughter says she hates it here, there’s no Topshop and her friend went home today and it’s SO boring. But she’s been buried in a book all afternoon (miracle of miracles), and offered to make dinner (I accepted with shameful alacrity), after which we played cards and laughed like hyenas because I couldn’t get my head round the rules. And then she admitted that she does kind of like it here after all. And maybe we should come up more often.
I said OK. Casually, so as not to appear too grateful.
Lovely. That’s all that comes to mind. Lovely. Tranquil. Serene.
Sounds beautiful, Meg. I just had moments living it vicariously through you. It’s hideous and hot in Australia today and I long for that cool quiet you describe. Enjoy it with all your heart xx
That sounds so cozy and relaxing! You describe things so simply, and yet I can see it all in my head – the beach, the happy horses, the dogs, the fire. It makes me wish I was there. Enjoy
Have lived by the sea all my life, get claustrophobic without it – even switched universities with 2 weeks to go because I couldn’t bear the idea of being land locked for three years….lovely
Oh, so you get to have the oystercatcher do you? I have them here, too. Unless it’s too cold. Not sure. My sea is frozen and the sun shines. No dog. We do the dog-tired ourselves, between Daughter’s EPQ and my glut of interviews…
we watched a film together, both drawing in my studio. Big sea and surf here yesterday. Hannah has to cope with Topshop online and yes, there are no shops here and it is boring. But I love the sea and the smell of it, the birds, the way the light changes moment by moment.
Sounds wonderful, idyllic. I love the coast in the winter; sadly don’t get there often enough.
Thank you–what a lovely scene.
There you go, the lure of the non tiger mom is working faster than you’d think. nicola x
As in … Iris Murdoch?
If she’s really bored I can offer new born piggies to goo goo at
Oh Please! Will you just stop showing off for a minute already!
So sorry. If it makes you feel better, Fleur, the rest of the family has now abandoned me and returned to London. Child’s cozy moment turned out to be fleeting.
I wish/hope you would/will collect all these perfectly portrayed scenes and publish them all together so that I can read them in my favored form: a book. With pages. To turn and to earmark. And hold.