I miss the Funny Little Bungalow. It’s only up the garden, and, as we know, The Shed is absolutely fine. For now. But there is something about that old place that bewitches me. In a good way.
You wouldn’t think that standing in a derelict kitchen with no roof rafters, debris all around and a soundtrack of tarpaulin a flappin’ could be a therapeutic experience. But for me – it is.
The bungalow is different – certainly. The furniture isn’t in there (well, let’s not talk about the Living Room Crap Storage Facility, my LRCSF), and some of the walls have either moved or disappeared altogether. But it still retains the feel of the place we found in May of 2104, and I hope it always will. Plus, it is where The Quiet is.
Sometimes, when I find myself up there on some sort of recovery mission (“Mum! I can’t find my bikini bottoms!”, yells Mini Seymour as she struts around in just the top), and before I venture into the LRCSF, I mooch about my old house. Or is it my new house? Therein lies the magic! For it is both..
It still feels like The Funny Little Bungalow, and there are a lot of recognisable features. There’s the fireplace – still standing and largely undamaged, hoorah! We have a fabulous selection of old radiators that must be salvaged, and even the walls have recognisable gouges, stains and of course, the graffiti.
In the shell of Little Seymour Number One’s old room is her name, stuck under the defunct light switch in sparkly pink foam letters. Next to the space Boy Seymour’s bed used to occupy is a trace of his Star Wars frieze. Where Little Seymour Number Two slept, the eight times table is etched in the fading anaglypta, beneath the site where her pet spider’s nest was. And the Wall Horses are all still there, galloping on through the demolition, and adding some colour to the place.
It baffles me just how “at home” I feel in The Funny Little Bungalow. It did indeed have that effect on me the day we first saw it. And, despite the ever-decreasing state of it since that day, I have always felt comfortable there. Which isn’t like me at all. I usually like to “put roots down”.
All of this makes me wonder if forces were not afoot over forty years ago, conspiring to bring us here…
In the Summer of 1976, which was very hot like it is now, my mum, Grandma E, used to visit a house up the road from The Funny Little Bungalow. She had friends in the village (which is very small), and they let her swim in their pool to cool off, as she was pregnant at the time – with me! Did the local vapours enter my system at that point, drawing me back here?
Then, fifteen years ago, Big Seymour and I were tempted to buy another house along this road, but missed out on it. It transpires that it was the one next door to us now!
Whatever the reasons for feeling centered here, I am enormously relieved that The Funny Little Bungalow isn’t losing that attraction during its facelift. The Four Little Seymours feel it too, and Big Seymour often says how much he loves it here, despite the pains it is putting him through at present.
One day soon (or not), hopefully we will be back in there, making a mess, debating who owns which fidget spinner* and whose turn it is to sit in Pole Position on the sofa.
And then, rest assured, I shall be coming to The Shed a lot. For this is where The Quiet will be.
* Replace with craze item of that time in the future, which at this rate might just be a Holograophic Wifi-Controlled Synthetic Animated Mind Reading spinner. In 2034.
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