A winter holiday, V

And so, after a week, they left with a new perspective. The girl knew that she wanted a different life and she felt energised by that knowledge. Her husband let out the worry he had been holding inside, the fear that as much as he needed a life in the countryside his wife needed life in the city and that their two needs would never be compatible, the conviction that her one days had always meant maybe which really meant no.

They started planning a new home, a home they would design and build themselves, a home made from materials that would have little or no negative impact on the countryside that they loved, that would be powered by the wind, the sun and some magical device they would bury in the ground that would give them hot water. They planned gardens of vegetables nourished by a compost heap and possibly a large tank of trout and the boy promised his wife that he would grow her beautiful flowers and a tree that she could read under as she had black fingers of death and the only method she knew for not killing plants was to completely ignore them and leave their care to someone else.

She delighted in the knowledge that this was what she wanted, for she knew that her one days really had meant I have no idea if I want the same thing as you my love, I don't know if I can do it and I'm not ready to make my mind up yet. It pleased her no end to realise that she and her husband wanted the same things after all. Of course it would all take some time. The house that they lived in was a building site and it would take work that they barely had time to do, money that they didn't have and energy that they were lacking to get it finished. And there was the small matter of a little financial crisis that was going on, a property market that had dipped so low the for sale signs in their street were actually giving up and keeling over. Who knew when a time would come when a person might be able to sell their house, building site or not?

Then there was the decision of where to move, for they might know that they wanted to build a home, they might know what materials they wanted to build it out of but as for a place, a plot of land? They were buggered if they knew where they would find one.


And of course there was that thing, that Big Thing that was looming on their horizon. That thing she was trying to think of as An Awfully Big Adventure, as opposed to The Awfully Daunting Ordeal That Might Just Break Her Heart, that thing that was all together too personal to write about on her blog yet all together too important to ignore while writing about The Future. That thing that she felt like a bit of a prat for alluding to but not really explaining and hopeful that her readers and friends would understand her reticence and not think her too much of a tit for leading them on then giving them nothing. They couldn't go anywhere while That and all its consequences was waiting for them in their near future.

But doors were opening, doors that had previously lurked at the end of long dark corridors were thrown wide open, light pouring in. The girl and her husband weren't quite ready to step through them but they savoured the view and delighted in laying plans for the path they would take when finally, they stepped over the threshold.

The End.

Or was it just the beginning?