Living With Gladys Full Time

Yesterday saw Alistair and me packing up another dozen boxes, loading our little C1 to the brim and driving up to Oxfordshire, where we found Gladys, cheerily awaiting our arrival and obligingly opening her doors to our cherished and prized possessions.

I think I had made a couple of errors in estimating our final box tally!

The 24 archive boxes I was expecting is more likely to be 30 and I think that I have not quite been without Ruth as far as my clothes are concerned, Alistair on the other hand has been totally without her, (Ruthless if you were a bit slow on the uptake there).

That said however, Gladys just invited our belongings in without fuss and gently enveloped her warmth around us as we unpacked, or rather as I unpacked and Alistair, well Alistair sort of soaked up the Gladmoshere and dealt with very important man type stuff, you know, asking questions about water filters, macerators, making sure the payload was even, oh and blowing off in the lavvy!

It’s lovely inside Gladys, and even though the heavens absolutely opened and the grey clouds engulfed Bicester, I promise you that in Gladys and in our hearts the sun shone and shone and shone. Being in Gladys feels so at home, her energy is amazing and the pair of us could have stayed with her all day, albeit she is at the moment in a parking lot at the dealers on a trading estate with barely a tree in sight.

By the end of the weekend I hope Gladys will be proudly wearing my most treasured possession, my beautiful hand painted mirror that Alistair made for me when we first met. The mirror being hung in its place of honour symbolises ‘home sweet home’ for us and all who stay with us (my guess is that Pippin will be the first to sleep over, Kirt too maybe, but definitely Pipps and if we complete on the 15th she’ll be sleeping over on the 15th)!

Alistair, brilliant Pop to Jake is thinking ahead now: how to safeguard the steps so Jakey Pakey lemon Squakey won’t tumble down them as he zooms up and down the living room like a ball down the bowling alley! He would have had difficulty with zooming in this house, too many spails in the old floorboards!

I realise there are a few symbolic artefacts still required from our Angel wrapped cottage house: the buddha that sits outside the front door, the fairy plaque that hangs in the garden, the wind chimes that ease our minds as we drift to sleep, the Turkish Eye that see’s and protects and our dish of grounding stones and crystals.

Our hearts though are already there.