A Visit To The Lovely House part two

14th December
I've been working outside a lot these last weeks, it's getting slightly obsessive - as the ground around the quince, cherry, plum or whatever tree is cleared there are new views of the landscape. Also I really like making bonfires.

Visitors coming inside the Lovely House tend to keep their coats on. Sometimes we need to step outside to warm up. Once in the front door there is a terracotta flagstone hallway with stairs directly in front, there are doors to either side. The door on the left leads to a large square room with a mosaic floor, this room is cold damp and empty (in summertime it can be used for computer use), there is a door at the far end of this room to a small, mouldy bedroom.

The door on the right in the hallway leads to another large square room with the same terracotta flags. This is our main room and is dominated by a huge fireplace - I also cook here. I keep a small fire going all day but it needs to really blaze to warm the room properly. A crémaillère is attached in the fireplace -  an iron contraption with hooks and an eye at different heights so cooking pots can be suspended above the fire.

All the furniture in the main room is wooden; the worm-ravaged settles by the fire are pine, but the dining table and the big cupboard are of a more vermifugal sort of wood. Against the wall by the entrance door is a wooden trough that was once used to scrape the bristles off dead pigs, a wide plank is covering this, I use it as a sideboard and stack the crockery on it.

On one side of the chimney one door leads to another  small, mouldy bedroom and another door, that won't close properly, opens onto to a vast bathroom tiled entirely in small dark blue tiles*. The suite is ointment pink, the effect is gothic. Next door to the bathroom is a scullery kitchen with a concrete sink and glass-brick window, mice eat the dishwasher cables so we can't use it. From the scullery is a door to a large rat-ridden 'back kitchen' - a damp, windowless room with thick cobwebs over all the old junk and the old bread oven, there is a door out to the wood shed from here.

Another door in the main room leads to a grand dining room. This has the best mosaic floor, intricately painted ceilings, wood-panelled walls and a built-in walnut sideboard. With it's tiny north-facing windows this is the coldest, darkest room and is impossible to be in, it stores camera kit. A door leads out to the big barn from here.

Upstairs the house has two large and two small bedrooms, all at the front of the house. the whole top back section is one big long attic full of ancient saddlery and farm machinery.

*That bathroom has recently been the cause of acute embarrassment. When on my own in the house I don't bother to wedge the door shut with a piece of heavy furniture anymore. The lavatory is several paces from the door.

The house front door has no knob or latch; entry is achieved by hefting a shoulder to the door until it gives way, getting the door open from the inside is more difficult. English visitors have developed a habit of bellowing out as they shove at the door and let themselves in. This happened last week as I had just got seated. Anxious to spare their eyes I hobbled too hastily across the bathroom to shut the door. Realising that I'd wet my knickers in the process, but safely behind a closed door, I slipped the knickers off, threw them behind the long mirror, pulled my jeans back on and sauntered out to meet my friends. Unfortunately they had brought their dog who wandered off while we were having coffee. Suddenly the mutt reappeared and with a big dribbly grin dropped my sodden underwear at his master's feet.