It's been a long, cold winter, which I think is a fresh observation, and one likely to provoke thought. The snow, for example, and the wind; they chilled the marrow, both. So a weekend in a cottage with some dear, dear friends was something to warm the horizon. And ah! Ah for the Landmark Trust, and their beautiful houses, beautiful, and their sensitivity in restoration, so sensitive, and ah! how accurately they recreate the atmosphere of the Siberian steppes. Ah! We've just had the most marvelous of weekends, but lawks a'mercy, I wish I'd brought an Inuit along, so that I might have mugged him for his sealskin bloomers.
The cottage was exquisite, really it was, all ancient panelling, sometimes of the most innovative sort, and this is what it looks like, from the inside: white, with faded wood and doorframes a'plenty on which to crack one's head, if one is clumsy, and inwardly flinch at the umpteenth thwomp if one takes care with one's own head, but feels so very much sympathy for the bonce of one's pals.
Ted and Clare and Jon and Nancy and Mike and Fiona and Tim and Amanda: the characters of some Edwardian romantic comedy or some children's novel a la Ransome, or some kind of contemporary film that has people in it, in a situation, where they go for walks and drink things and it snows sometimes and there's a cat outside the door that miaows all the time, and some people feed it with chicken and pork and other people talk about how annoying is the constant mewing, and there are walks to be had, through the snow, if it has snowed, and through the fields, if the situation is in some rural part, like Norfolk, that has fields, and through snowy fields if it's the two situations. Some contemporary film like that, with everyone wrapping up really warm, both outside, where the snow fell, and inside, where there isn't heating to speak of, but two enormous fires, and a local man who deliver bags of logs, but won't give the characters of the film, if were some kind of contemporary film about people buying wood from a man who keeps another bag just the same filled with pheasants and says you can't have that, it's not logs, it's pheasants, so that you think of Withnail and I, a dated film, that you don't even like, but that say eighty percent of the other characters do. So if it were that sort of contemporary film, about a group of friends buying wood and walking through fields and holding hands, the characters would probably look like this
Later, after walks, and eating, and whatever people do when they're on their own in a house that isn't theirs but is exquisite, and freezing, and there's a cat outside that miaows, and seems starving, so that if someone were to keep giving it meat from the kitchen, it turns from a cat that cowers, and snatches, and runs, and hides, to one that can be picked up and purrs, so after doing all that, when the dinner's over, and it's dark outside and two fires are burning, and one of them is in a snug little room, then, well, first of all, I think I've irrevocably lost control of my tense, and second of all, if eight people are in a snug little room with a great fire, then thoughts turn to parlour games, and crafts. Because we are modern young things, enlightened, and forward thinking, we sit together in a room by a fire, and women knit, and crotchet, and men stand at the fireplace and hog the heat.
This weekend had two days two it. The second day, we went to Eye, where its church was really very good. There was also this field, that I think happened the day before, but I don't know where to put it. Because although the second day happened with as much vigour as the first day, I have passed the point of sensibility, and will simply present these photographs with a word or two, and without an explanation, and the two words are: look, good.
ps I'm Irish
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