Another Funny Little Bungalow.

The poor Four Little Seymours.
I do feel for them.
Their mother is an emotional, sentimental idiot, and should probably be incarcerated.

Last week, strange things happened. The stars must have been moving in some kind of mischievous alignment because the culmination of the week was me, dragging my poor confused babies on a pilgrimage they didn’t really understand.

I found myself in Brighton at midnight on Monday. Brighton always evokes special memories for me. So does tennis. Random, I know. But having spent the evening watching a repeat of the legendary Roger Federer, further cementing his place in history, my emotional synapses were all askew.
As I got into my car, I decided not to drive straight home, but to make a short detour down Memory Lane, and do a drive-by past my grandmother’s former home, another funny little bungalow.
I was missing her, and it seemed like the right thing to do.

Before I reached the hallowed spot, I resolved to buy the place one day – a plan backed by neither logic nor reason. But one that I had regardless. It was only when I arrived at my destination that I saw what I was up against.

Being midnight, it was dark, obviously. But the sodium glow of the street lights enabled me to see all too clearly that my grandma’s home – the family seat, no less, was unceremoniously marked “for sale” by a wobbly wooden sign on a puny cheap old stick.

I couldn’t believe it. Not so much that the house was for sale, but the chosen timing of my visit. I sat outside in my car, desperately searching my mind for a solution to the problem of “how can one buy a house with no money?”.

That’s the trouble with me. I believe that all things are possible. Maybe not immediately – patience is a virtue, as I’ve said before. But my head cannot accept limits. “Never” is a word I don’t like to use.

Such an attitude can get you into trouble. Indeed, such an attitude can leave you upset and disappointed. But it certainly ensures that the Four Little Seymours and I are rarely bored.

So, after conducting a mini, unofficial opinion poll amongst a few friends, I decided that I needed to see the house, to go inside. To say goodbye.
So I rang the Dreaded Estate Agent.

The Dreaded Estate Agent made me nervous. I did not want to go on his database. I did not want help sorting out my mortgage. I just wanted to view the house. I explained that we like a project, and we especially like a bungalow. I also admitted that we weren’t in the ideal position to buy, as our current “project” was a few months away from being finished…
If only he knew!
I also said that sometimes, things just work out. Many a time, we have viewed a property and missed out on it, only for it to become available again later on. Property sales are often about fate. Star alignment. Destiny… He seemed to accept this. It was good for his viewing figures.

Viewing Day arrived, and I was unsure of how to proceed. What should I say to the Four Little Seymours? How was I going to get away without one of them blurting out that this was a house Mummy knew from top to bottom – one that my ancestors had built. The place my grandma was happy in. The house where my grandad died…
I planned to do what I always do, and wing it. Over breakfast, I briefly explained to them that we were going to look at a bungalow later. Luckily, they thought it was a marvellous idea. We can have two homes, they all cheered. We can use it to sleep in when we go to shows in Brighton, suggested Little Seymour Number One.
(Yes darling. And what yacht did you just step off?)
I lined Boy Seymour up with task of ghost spotting, and Little Seymour Number Two was to look for small white feathers – a sure sign that spirits are present.
Mini Seymour, being mini, just went with the flow. But one thing they were all adamant about was that they were not moving.
Oh, they needn’t have worried.There was never any danger of that.

That afternoon, we set off. Pulling up outside the house, I had forgotten that pilgrimages on a lesser scale had been made here before.
“Isn’t his where your grandma lived?” piped up somebody, before we got out of the car.
“Shhhhhhhhhhh” was all I could muster in reply. “We’re just looking. I’ll explain it all later.” My heart was beating in my chest and proper explanations were beyond me at that time. It was all I could do to stop my teeth chattering as we approached the spot where the front gate used to be.

I have not been up those garden steps for nearly twenty years. And despite the decor now being horribly bland, and the furniture being gone, the layout of the beloved bungalow was identical. The banister on the stairs was the same. The picture rails, the shelf round the fireplace, the hand rail outside the door. All still there.
And what made the visit most worthwhile was experiencing the familiar way the light came in through the windows. For a brief moment, I was fourteen again. It was magical.

The Four Little Seymours seemed to enjoy themselves, too. Boy Seymour hared around, despite my protestations, and wanted to look inside every cupboard door and behind each garden bush. As I watched him, I knew my grandma would be smiling. He has her eyes.
Little Seymour Number Two found a piece of junk as a memento, that I quietly urged her to stuff in her pocket. Number One knew the score, and was in charge of photography in and around the house. And Mini Seymour kept asking over and over if we could buy it.

And therein lies the problem. Financially, we are not strictly kosher.

But, ever the optimist, I didn’t feel like a fraud, viewing the house. On the contrary, I felt it was something I had to do. Because in truth, maybe I was going to buy it. Maybe I still will. I was pinning my hopes on two lottery tickets that sadly failed to deliver. But never fear! There are always the Premium Bonds. I can almost taste a win.

I’m not stupid. It’s pretty clear that one day soon, my grandma’s house will be beyond my grasp altogether. Hopefully, another family will buy it, and make new memories there. Maybe they will find pieces of Grandad’s model train track in the flower beds, and bits of Nanna’s crockery in the grate. I hope they uncover the delicious, rich red wallpaper that used to adorn the living room walls. Perhaps they’ll discover scraps of Grandad’s memoirs under the carpet in the longest room..? In The Long Room.

Taking the Four Little Seymours back to the place I so loved was a pilgrimage of sorts. My grandma, Nanna, also had four children. She’d have understood my motivation. They are her family. She’d have loved them.

And who knows? Maybe one of them will acquire that house one day.

If it’s written in the stars, there’s no getting around it.

Fate is a funny old thing.