A Country House
It's only a little house. Nothing big or fancy. The old stone walls were cut from rock by hand so the bricks are all different sizes. On the left side, ivy creeps up the mortar, bordering the grey stone with bright green leaves. At the bottom, they're a dark, deep green like a forest, where they've been growing for years. At the end of the vines, they're the same colour as Lily's eyes. Lily is my friend. No, no, I'm forgetting something. Lily was my friend. She doesn't come and visit.
In fact, Lily's never seen the house, but I know she'd love it. She always preferred the countryside over the cities, and this house is at the end of a winding road, just outside a little village like the ones we're so proud of in England. It's got a village green with benches all around the edge so you can sit and watch the boys play cricket. On the pavement, near the ancient church with Mary and Jesus in the stained glass windows, is a red telephone booth.
There's a little shop next to the post office, and on the road behind is the only butchers for miles around. The little old lady in the post office moves very slowly and she can seem a little severe, but if you take the time to ask her about her day, she'll smile and talk for a bit, and maybe even give you an extra stamp every once in a while. The man in the butchers is a portly, smiling chap with a quick joke for all his customers, and he knows everyone in the village by name. He has special offers on pheasants when the season's right.
But the house itself—the house is like one you might find on a postcard sent to you by an old friend. The garden isn't very big, but it goes around all four sides of the house. The lawn is all nice and smooth—my husband goes out every Sunday afternoon to trim the grass—but by the edges, near the wooden fence, it's got a few wild flowers and nettles growing. Buttercups and dandelions. He said he'd buy a strimmer to cut them down but I told him I liked them. They make the place look lived in, I think, and add a bit of colour that's not green.
I have a little flower garden in a corner behind the house. It's got a criss-crossing trellis for sweet peas at the back, and marigolds dance with tulips and tall grasses in front of it. I have some daffodils to welcome in the spring and snowdrops to light up the winter, too.
Old trees grow in the garden. A tall, grand oak with a rope swing for my boy to play on when he gets older. An apple blossom that drops delicious pink petals all over everything in the spring. My husband gets mad at the blossom. He says it makes a mess every year. I don't think it's messy. I think it's beautiful.
Inside the house, hardly any of the furniture matches. In the living room, there's a sofa with wooden feet carved into beautiful curves, folding in and in on themselves until they disappear in the middle. The seats are a pale, dim green, made of velvet, but they're getting a bit threadbare on the ends. No one ever likes sitting in the middle unless there's no room anywhere else. The cushions are red, mainly, but flowers dance and dally all over them. There are three of them, and they have frilly edges. Those are the velvet ones.
On the two chairs we have different cushions. One of the chairs is a deep red with padded arms that sits like a box on the rug but with padding so deep you just sink into it. The other is a shade of cream with stems and thorns shaved into the velvet threads so that they look to be a darker shade. The cushions on these are a shiny satin, in a shade of green much more vibrant than that sofa.
The seats are all arranged around a log fire that looks rather like an oven, but it's not got nobs to turn to change the temperature. It's a heavy cast iron with a thick glass window in the door. When I get cold, I open it and put some logs in around some paper—usually yesterday's news—and set the paper on fire. I shut the door and the logs soon catch. The warmth spreads through the whole house and it's comfortable.
In the kitchen, the worktops are white and the cupboards are all beech wood. There's a table with a display case for cakes in the middle—that's where I put all the sweet treats I bake. We have a little dining room, too. Dining rooms are supposed to be all mahogany tables and display cabinets for the fine china, but ours isn't. The walls are pale and the floor isn't carpeted. The table is a light oak and it matches the shelves where we keep our simple white plates. We couldn't find a matching set of drawers for cutlery so that's a darker colour.
Upstairs, the bathroom has a claw-foot white tub, but we haven't bought a new toilet yet so that's still an off-putting shade of green, like Flobberworm mucus. But it flushes well, at least. There's an oval mirror over the basin and the light switch is a string that you pull. It hangs from the ceiling and has a clay seahorse at the end.
There are two bedrooms. One is for me and my husband, and it's a little bit cluttered. We don't really bother keeping things looking pretty in there because no one sees it but us. There's a permanent ring from coffee cups on my husband's bedside table, and there's always an easy read by my head, beside the lamp. My son loves to be outdoors, so his room is all greens and browns. We painted a big tree on his wall, and he's hung pictures of magical plants all over it. He has a little train set with a red steam engine that goes round and round on its tracks. He's only little, so he can't play with it much, but he loves to watch it.
Actually, my husband and I haven't been to the house in a while. Days even. No, weeks. No… I can't remember. A long time. We talk about it every day, though. When we sit on the metal-framed chairs by the window. We get so excited.
Oh, a young man came to visit us today. He was a very nice young man. He had a lot of patience. He's visited us before, and there's something about him that's very familiar. I think that when my son grows up, he might end up a lot like this young man. I liked him, anyway, so I wanted to give him a present. All I had was a chewing gum wrapper.
I hope he liked it.
A/N: And I hope you liked the story! Do let me know :)
Written for the Eurovision Song Contest for Greece. Prompt: Utopia—An imagined place where everything is perfect.
Also written for:
If You Dare Challenge: 864. Beautiful Madness
Ultimate Chocolate Frog Cards Challenge: Leticia Somnolens—Use the tale of Sleeping Beauty as inspiration for your story. Your story should reflect the tale.
Fairy Tale Challenge: Sleeping Beauty—Write about a dream world. Optional Prompts: Signs by Bloc Party and Losing Your Memory by Ryan Star
200 Characters in 200 Days: Alice Longbottom
Valentine-Making Station: Gummi Bears—Write about a couple that makes you feel particularly cuddly.
May Event: Go Pick Flowers!: Peony, Garden Rose and Ranunculus Bouquet—Write about the little girl in a grown up woman.
May Events Checklist: Mental Health Awareness Month—Write about a character suffering with a mental health issue. National Family Week—Write about a family. Mother's Day—Write about a mother.
Challenge Your Versatility: Genre—Family
Potions Challenge: Valerian Root—Write about a much-deserved rest.
Words: 1,184