Hello and welcome to a small extract from The House That Sat Down.
This excerpt is taken from ‘Restoration -more tales from the house that sat down’, the second novel in The House That Sat Down Trilogy.
It comes at a time when the family are awaiting the initial arrival of their building team. Having lived in a tortuous form of suspended animation in their garden for six months, they are about to face the prospect of clearing away everything that is left of their beautiful cob cottage before they can move forward with a rebuild.
Such a stage in any project can be heart-wrenching but, as in many instances in life, saying goodbye to the things which anchor us to the past can clear a way forward to establish a fresh new future.
‘We had been assured that the building team would arrive at 9am on January 2nd, almost six months from the day that the walls had fallen. I remember that I couldn’t quite believe this stage would ever happen.
At that time, the front and side walls of the main damaged section - of what was the oldest part of the cottage - were encased in thick sheets of black plastic and were propped up with a random selection of scaffolding poles, wedges and strong-boys, some inside and some outside. These props were attempting to prevent any further slippage, but I was pretty certain that incremental movement was still merrily underway. Amazingly, the beautiful thatched roof appeared totally unaffected by the almost complete lack of support from two of the walls beneath it.
As I had sat there, waiting for my promised builders, I had found myself wondering exactly what sort of state the house would be in, under all that plastic, having been abandoned for so long through the cold wet months of the autumn and early winter. The smell emanating from beneath the protective covering was a disturbing one of overpowering damp and rot.
The black sheeting effectively hid the extent of the damage to the casual observer, but beneath all the plastic were two huge cracks, one in each of two main supporting walls, that ran the full height of the building from the ground to the roof. One of the cracks, when I had last set eyes on it before the plastic encased it, was large enough for a fully-grown person to walk straight into the house (followed closely by a friendly dog of unknown origin). Windows hung at odd angles or had fallen out completely, old lathe and plaster internal walls were destroyed, and ceilings had come down. Hidden in the all-encompassing darkness created by the plastic sheeting, over in the far right-hand corner of the ground floor were the remaining treads of that magically morphing staircase I mentioned.
We took huge risks in continuing to use the potentially unstable single storey extension - with its little bathroom right at the back of the house - during the months that followed. In effect, a very real game of Russian roulette was played on a daily basis. The whole ‘home collapse’ scenario had successfully redefined what constituted sensible behaviour for all of us and we quickly became fairly blasé about spending time in what was effectively part of an old ruin, one that might come tumbling down around our ears at any moment. We grew to be quite comfortable living with one eye constantly on the nearest exit, ready to escape in seconds if needed. A habit which, I can assure you, never really leaves you once it is learned!’
I do hope you enjoyed this
Love Alice
Website: www.alicemay.weebly.com
The House That Sat Down Trilogy by Alice May is available from Amazon amzn.to/2ZcZrKF
Including:
Accidental Damage – tales from The House That Sat Down
Restoration – more tales from The House That Sat Down
Redemption – moving on from The House That Sat Down
