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Sunday, January 3, 2010

The Cottage





From outside, it isn't fine architecture. It is made of rough stones and looks very rustic. After all, it is a reconverted old barn. But it has everything to make life comfortable. To begin with, it's clean. Next, it has the nicest oven with a sexy grill on top. The kitchen is super well-equipped.The washing machine also dries clothes. There are 2 bathrooms (one even has a bidet) and if you know how to manage the water heater, you get strong jets of hot water. Unfortunately, the bathtub is missing from one bathroom. It has pipes and insulation foam that stick out artistically from the wall and a shining bidet right next to it... but no bathtub.

However, there are powerful heaters in every room and a little fireplace that fascinates Little Boy and The Husband. They've made a fire every night and Little Boy keeps bugging me to sit around the fire and talk. This is very funny because Little Boy and The Husband are both men of few words... and when we do gather around the fire, they don't really talk. All they do is stare appreciatively at the fire they made.





The lady who owns this cottage has 5 or 6 others of differing sizes. She lives in England and depends on local retirees to help maintain the properties. These people are gentle folks who are gracious and helpful but they live miles away... and so when the washing machine began to behave oddly, we were quite stressed... and when the hot water ran out, we also were somewhat anxious. Eventually though, we managed to sort out all these issues and settled in nicely.


You need to talk nicely to the house and its equipment you see. After all, it's an old stone house with character. And it seems to respond to love... And since we're a loving and affectionate family, the house seems to like us here.

BUT... I refuse to sit on the couch. It's this dark burgundy red couch that throws up a discreet cloud of dust when anyone's butt so much as goes near it... and when the children lounged on it, they both complained of itchiness afterwards. It must be crawling with dust mites. Everything else in the cottage is spanking new (oven, washer-and-dryer and woodstove) and very clean, but the couch is made of a luxurious red brocade that is a dust magnet and no matter how one vacuums it's hard to remove all the dust and dust mites so we just keep away from it.

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