Saturday 31 December 2011

Happy old year

A final picture for you, of my childhood home.  If you know 0ult0n Br0ad, it's right opposite the park, although nowadays the yacht club building is fenced off, so you cannot stand opposite the house any more.  The house has been divided into two and several houses have been built in the grounds, all with long thin gardens to preserve the building line.

The photo was taken in winter, normally there was virginia creeper all over the house.  My bedroom, which I shared with Wink as a child, was the one on the top right and was above our parents' room and the drawing room was below that.  The study was in the middle and the dining room on the left.  The conservatory led off that.  I remember it always being warm and steamy, with a plumbago and a nectarine against the back wall.  The building to the left was the garage, a huge two-storeyed one (there was a work bench upstairs, darlings, it wasn't a multi-storey car park).  I'm not sure whether that was converted to a house or pulled down and rebuilt.

The people who lived in the right-hand part invited us over about ten years ago.  Very strange to go back again after so many years.  They wanted to meet my mother, but I didn't feel able to tell her about it.  She so loved that house and would never return to the road after she sold it.

Alex was born here, not in a room you can see from here but at the back of the house, in my father's childhood night nursery.  Only a week or two later, the Sage suggested I go with him to look at a house that his firm was auctioning the next day.  It was, like this, a large Edwardian family home, and also a former Rectory.  I walked in the door, turned left into the drawing room and, momentarily, staggered and gasped.  "Can we buy it?"

And so we did.  We hadn't been planning to sell our own home, a nice four-bedroomed detached house half a mile away, but plans can change in a moment.

Dears, thank you for your friendship over the past year.  I hope you have fun tonight, whether partying or curling up in bed early or anything in between.  We're having a family get-together and I'm just going out to buy ingredients and will spend most of the day cooking.

See you next year.

love from Z xx

15 comments:

LẌ said...

Thank you for sharing the old photos and memories.

All the best in the New Year.

MOTB said...

Enjoy the cooking - and best wishes for the year to come.

Unknown said...

Happy New Year to you and your family! xx

lom said...

What a lovely house, you were a lucky girl.

Happy New Year

Liz said...

Happy New Year Z. xx

Marion said...

Your family photos are so interesting. Thanks for showing them to us. Happy New Year to you and your family.

Anonymous said...

That is a lovely house. Happy New Year to you and yours; I look forward to reading your posts in 2012.

Blue Witch said...

Happy New (reduced output?) Year!

allotmentqueen said...

Happy New Year to you all.

Lady Louise said...

A lovely house. I still dream about the house I (and my brothers) were born into - although to be pedantic I was actually brought home from the nursing home into a different house but moved a little later (how long it was I don't remember) but to all intents and purposes number 37 was my first home. I can remember every room in great detail although when I drove past it on a rare visit south a couple of years' ago I was amazed at how small the front garden looked!
Happy New Year.

mig said...

Places are important I think. What a lovely old house.
Thank you too Z for your friendly visits during the year.
I hope you had a lovely evening.
Happy New Year.

Ivy said...

Wishing you a Happy New Year

Z said...

Thank you all so much, and happy new year to everyone. I've been spending the morning so far washing up and cooking breakfasts. Just left them with yet another pot of coffee so I can put my face on because the naked version was frightening the children.

I lived there from the age of nearly 5 to 19, and my mother was there for several more years, until after she remarried.

Last night, we finally found a few pictures of the baby Z. We knew they were me and not my sister because of my chin. It always was pointy, it seems.

Macy said...

Happy new year Z!
For some reason my new years always start about midday on the first....

luckyzmom said...

Happy New Year Z and thank you for all that you've shared in your blog.