More bad dreams. I haven’t slept well since we moved here. I have terrible nightmares; of huge echoing houses decaying all around me; of rooms I hadn’t realised were there; of unseen menaces lurking in the shadows, of a horrible black creature that follows me wherever I go. I won’t go up to bed before Aidan if I can help it. I know old houses creak and groan and mutter, but this one seems to do so more than most and, frankly, it’s unsettling. It’s fanciful perhaps, but I do believe that houses have atmospheres, that walls can absorb the emotions of those that dwell within them. And this house, I feel sure, has seen more than its fair share of sorrow.
Then again, I pull myself together and think it’s just that it’s old and the decoration is stuck in a bad time-warp. Nothing a brisk dose of some kind of heritage cream colour wouldn’t sort.

I walked down to the village yesterday. It only takes about twenty minutes, nothing too arduous when the sun is shining. There’s not much there – a post office-cum-shop, a pub, a church, a village-hall and a garage. A few allotments, a cricket ground, a brace of tennis courts that probably only see action in Wimbledon fortnight. A lone phone box that doesn’t have prostitutes’ cards smothered all over it.

The woman in the shop is called Grace. Possibly the most inept example of naming possible, as she is neither graceful nor gracious. Aidan thinks she’s wonderful, ‘a real country type’. Dream on, sunshine, the woman comes from Banstead. She sits, behind the counter, like Shelob, a vast bloated spider of a creature, layers of fat wobbling as she leans forward at the tinkle of the bell. She’s too lazy to pounce physically so she does it with speech, the second you walk through the door
‘How’s it going? You alright over there?’ Shaking her head, setting her chins swaying.
‘Fine thanks.’
‘Big house that but in terrible condition. He paid too much for it you know. You wouldn’t get me living there, no thank-you very much.’
Nobody’s asking you to live there, as it happens.
‘Your husband working from home then?’
Was it ANY of her business?
‘Not going up to London then? That’s good. Don’t want to be on your own there, not in that house.’
Lord, she was coming on like some medieval soothsayer.
I smiled, tightly, and grabbed a shopping basket. Grazed the shelves hoping for something edible for lunch that wasn’t smothered in E numbers or trans fats. No such luck.

I picked out a few things (making a mental note to find an organic box delivery and see if Waitrose or, god forbid, Tesco even, might deign to deliver to our benighted spot). I paid swiftly and lunged for the door – luckily a couple of cyclists had come in, wearing slightly indecent lycra, all bulging crotches and over-padded thighs, and she had fastened onto them like a lamb to a teat.

As I left I spotted the noticeboard. Bingo! A window cleaner. And a joiner who would turn his hand to anything (woodwormed panelling? Death-trap staircase?) but whose first love is hand-built kitchens. Fantastic. I’ve been trying to get Aidan to consider a Smallbone or Chalon for weeks now but he kept demurring. I don’t really give a toss about where it comes from (as long as it’s clean and functional) but he’s the label snob. Maybe he’d go for ‘local jobs for local people’ (he loves jumping on a bandwagon).

Finally, one more notice caught my eye. A postcard handwritted in green ink. Fortunately no smileys over the i’s.

Knitting Circle. Join us for coffee, chat and knitting (or other handcrafts). Village hall, Wednesdays, 10am. Newcomers welcome.

I like knitting. I’m not really the handicraft type and I’d run a mile from a dodgy craft fair, all that thick blobby pottery with squiggly patterns; those awful bits of driftwood, glued together with a few sequins and tinsel to make ‘angels’; out of focus photographs stuck onto craft shop cards; pots of bog-standard jam given rural chic with a little hat of gingham. Aaagh, shoot me if I get sucked into all that. But knitting is something else. It’s practical and it’s soothing – I become hypnotised by the click-click of the needles.

I might go. I’ll think about it. Bound to be all old biddies using 3-ply nylon to rustle up babies bootees (regardless of the fact that babies don’t wear bootees any more – they wear cool little slippers that look like dragons, or lambs or tigers). Still, it might be worth a go. I’ll keep you posted.


PS – thank you again for all your kind thoughts. It is very sweet of you to worry about me. OK, I will put driving on the list. But, to be honest, there are more pressing things I have to do at the moment and not sure there are even such modern things as driving instructors here!