For mum and dad xxx
The house sits a little over a quarter of the way up the hill, on a short plateaux where the gently rising slope of the road catches its breath before rising steeply, invigorated, up and further up. Past The Swan and the post-box burrowed into its mossy stone nook, until it reaches the edge of the village and wanders off across the moor.
It’s witnessed a flurry of activity over the past months; comers and goers, sellers and buyers and deal-doers, sign-fixers, box carriers, auctioneers. And familiar faces amongst the strangers, as family and friends came to say their farewells and offer help and best wishes.
And now it sits alone, waiting, and not waiting, for whatever comes.
It waited before, empty and silent for months the last time, before being filled with noise and bustle once more as experts arrived to poke around – making notes and taking measurements and drawing up plans. New faces appear – a family watching anxiously (and delightedly) as walls are pulled down, stairs ripped out and, slowly, repairs started. Two and then three small children scramble, teetering and over-excited, up makeshift ladder-stairs to run giggling between rooms stripped back to their guts and to peer through each window and door at their new-lives-to-be, all under a wary parental gaze. The months turn into two years before the experts, hampered by rot – and rotten lawyers – moved on and the family move in, and the house becomes a home again.
To an onlooker, the house might appear proud. Twelve windows, wide and square bar one central ‘porthole’, stare out from its broad
walls. Stylish brickwork and a handsome porch underline the house’s formality. Inside, the house becomes a cosy cluttered family home, nestled as if by accident in beautiful architectural details which morph into a house-shaped adventure playground as the children grow larger and bolder. A narrow shelf, held between long oak beams stretching from the ground to the skylight above, becomes a daredevil walkway; legs dangle heart-thrillingly through open treads on the helter-skelter-stairs. Trampoline beds, hopscotch-inspiring carpets and attics (and the tiny dark-dusty corridors between them) are found – and children are lost for whole afternoons.
Week in, week out the house embraces the same rituals; Sunday roasts and pancakes for tea, shaped into the letters of the children’s names, leftovers on Mondays in front of the TV. In the kitchen the walls become covered with childish creations, and chords and discords filter through from music lessons in the dining room. Lazy rainy mornings are spent on the porthole window seat, reading and gazing out. Bath-nights and chasing round the couch to Russian folk music* in the evenings, snuggling with pets and parents, bedtime stories and lullabies.
Visitors come to stay, for a few hours or for weeks at a time. Friends to play and neighbours to chat, family for Christmas and from abroad, and gypsies selling clothes-pegs. A beloved uncle lives as part of the family, on and off for years. Friends fill the house at birthdays and a vixen and her cubs visit the back garden at dawn every morning for a week to tumble and play-fight on the lawn, before disappearing never to be seen again.
In summer the house opens its doors to spill the family out into the garden and for walks in the woods, cycle rides along farm tracks and football on the Orry. The garden is long and even when the sun is low the shadow of the house only reaches the nearest lawn. The garden is a place for hide-and-seek and digging for clay to mould into fat little finger-pots, for swinging and running and climbing trees, for picnics and barbeques and rescuing abandoned birds and bats and builders’ huts. For ‘ordeals by midge’ and occasional camp-outs, listening to blackbirds and thrushes, and stalking Tommy Tortoiseshell as he stalks them. As the summers cool firewood is chopped and coal is stored in an open bunker tucked under the kitchen’s back window. In winter the house flings its doors open too, to welcome pink-faces back in from sledging and snowball fights and building snowmen, with mugs of warm cocoa and a blazing fire. Frozen-stiff gloves rest on top of radiators and the ice melts into warm drips.
As each Christmas approaches the household gravitates to the fire. Letters to Santa are written (and re-written) and sent – sucked up into the chimney and spat spiralling out with the smoke into a dark sky. The tree is bought and the family gather round to garnish it from boxes and bagsful of favoured baubles which grow in number each year. Every morning presents are counted and examined, recipient’s names read aloud and hopeful guesses guessed. Surfaces are gradually hidden under a tide of cards as they wash daily through the letter box. On Christmas Eve the stockings – scratchy woollen hill-walking socks – are selected thoughtfully from a musty drawer and laid with awe at the feet of the children’s beds. Whispered vows of unfaltering alertness are the last sound heard before the house falls silent – until footsteps creep in to fulfil dreams.
On Christmas morning the stockings are disembowelled. Each new find examined and presented for approval, rag-dolls or cars, origami paper, chocolate coins and clementines, buys a few extra minutes of rest before parents are cajoled from their bed and the family gathers round the tree armed with boxes, lists and excitement. Later, stuffed with turkey and trimmings and cream-smothered-puddings the family settles once more between the hearth and the tree to snore and squabble over board games and watch films on the telly. The uncle tells jokes and dispenses requests for just one wee whisky evenly around the family, who conspire to let him have just enough for a warm happy glow.
And months pass then years, and nothing changes and everything changes, slowly. The ebb and flow of people gradually shifts. The 
house watches and changes too as the children first grow then leave to live their own lives, to study and work, to travel and to settle. Friends and family gather at the house to celebrate as one daughter returns – only to leave again ceremoniously, stepping from the porch into her wedding car and returning only briefly as a bride before leaving again for a new life hundreds of miles away; the groom suffering slightly, perhaps, from the whisky and craic of the night before. More years pass and the uncle dies and family and friends gather again to mourn and to celebrate his life, and when they leave the house is still and changed again.
The house is quieter now, for spells at least, between bursts of visitors. Grandchildren visit, playing old games and inventing new ones, exploring the garden and thundering out noise from the piano. New pictures adorn the kitchen walls.
It is not perfect, the house on the hill. It’s draughty and creaky and the doors and windows rattle in the wind. But it’s been a home full of warmth, and memories. And now, the last of the family have found a new home and left, taking their memories with them. And while they open their new door to old visitors, unpack boxes and fill windowsills and surfaces with flowers and cards, the house sits a little over a quarter of the way up the hill, as it has done for centuries, waiting for the next family to come and fill it again with new memories.
*Why? I have no idea. It was fun.
BlueprintWriting 