Monday, October 24, 2011

First Day in the New House



On the first day of unpaid leave between my old job and the new one I have so far eaten breakfast in my new living room with the cat perched on a cushion by my shoulder and kissed TSK before he set off happily on his easy peasy new 30 minute commute.
After breakfast I scooped the cat poop and put it in the outside bin, much to the intrigue of the cat who has not yet been allowed outside into his new domain. He joined me in the almost-a-conservatory porch for the scooping. He stood on his back paws, front paws on the windowsill like a teenage boy looking over the wall into the girls school playground. He was definitely giving the scooping of his poop the attention he thought it deserved, haughtily ignoring me to serve me right for not letting him outside. Like many teenage boys before him, he then decided the playground was all a bit scary and set off back into the house to find a cushion to sit on.

Outside the dawn chorus was in full swing. The birdsong seems louder here than at the Grange. I could already feel the summer sun on my back and hear the drone of bees on the tree at the end of the garden but all that is to come, in a summer 9 months away from now.

The sun is rising behind the houses across the street. The downside of this house – no sunrise or set because of the steep hills to the back which will mask the sunset. I can still enjoy the yellow to orange flow as it bounces off the Yorkshire stone of the local charge and nearby school-turned-flats buildings which lie beyond the end of the back garden.

Down the street I can see down all of my neighbours’ gardens. Jumbles of grass, rose bushes, vegetables starting to rot after the frosts of October, a collaidescope of wood shades – fencing, sheds and tumbledown outhouses. Our own space is a blank canvas made of various grades of gravelly low=maintenance and paving slabs to one side of a concrete path. To the other side is an empty bed growing nothing more than a couple of budding chickweeds.

It’s warm except under my sock-feet so I retreat indoors and sit in my loft room writing and watching the sunlight develop in colour.

The cat snores in a sleeping-bag den he has built for himself.

I am home.

No comments: