Rooms that mean something

When choosing a new house my wonderful father gave me some advice.
If you walk into a house and you look around and it feels happy then it's a good house....avoid all other houses.
I've always done that and it's served me well.
Lately I've been thinking about rooms, well actually.....spaces.
There are some very special places to me.
One of my first places was under a round tea table which sat on the landing presiding over the stairs. It was a very small space, draped with a crocheted table cloth. Katy and I squashed into it and hid when the coalmen came.....I don't know why but I was petrefied of the coalmen. Luckily they only came twice a year, unless it was an unusually cold winter or that my mother had less money than she would have liked and could only purchase small ammounts of coal. We only had best Welsh anthracite.
My dad made me a treehouse in the old cooking apple tree. It didn't have any walls or a roof. It was more of a look out platform, reached by the steps from our old boat, Sundowner. I played there for many summers...mummys and daddies, pirates and secret 7's. It was the enchanted tree, a way into many other worlds. Looking back, it was probably my area of safety where I could avoid everything else.
I had a den on a building site across the road, where I stashed all my secret possessions , and also my home made rose petal perfume (which stank horribly) and my lemon cordial....which left for a fortnight turned into fizzy lemonade. Jimmy Brown and Paul Allen were my buddies (mostly I suspect because of the lemonade) and Lynda Webley, a sworn enemy. My father found us one day hidden in a nest at the top of a shed and was very cross. The nest turned out to be asbestos. He made us promise we wouldn't go there again.......sucker!
The local cinema was my next favoured space. It had not been renovated for years and told a story of bygone times. I loved the colors and the rich swags, the smell of oranges and toffee popcorn, the thirtees staircase. Very art deco!
When I was a little older, the summers were glorious and I was often in love with one dirt bag or another.....as you are when your a teenager!
Theres a special field.....probably got houses on now, above the 100 fairy steps at Porthkerry where we sunbathed naked and the earth first moved for me......still can smell the grass and hear the bees buzzing from one wild flower to another, the scanty white clouds crossing an endlessly blue backdrop and the seagulls calling to each other.

I'm older now , much older and oh so responsible, so boringly responsible.

The next very special place was my flat. It represented my freedom, independance,
standing alone, just me......trouble was I'm human and although I'm not that keen on people...well I'm not that good at being on my own either. Most of all I loved my fouton but he didn't.


I'm a little out of time and probably more than a little out of order but I went on holiday to Brittany. Actually I was supposed to be working there. I was astounded by it's beauty, it's friendliness. The smells, coffee, cheese and tarte aux fraise, good cider , crepes and simple food.
So much had been happening in my life, mostly very unfavourable things. I'd been stupid and confused and made my situation at home so much more complicated, as you do.
Brittany represented a haven, a safe place, a quietude where I could recenter and the people around me I think understood that need and aided and encouraged that, consciously or not.

I fell deeply in love and still am with one of them .

The house we live in now had a bedroom that had once been used as an art studio. It had lots of light from the many draughty windows and an en suite bathroom, pine clad. In the winter it was so very cold there. We had 3 duvets with a combined tog of abot 33 and still clung to each other all night to keep warm.......well Couldn't tell him I loved him , too much! The bathroom was wonderful if not a bit disconserting. In the wind and believe me we get wind up here on the mountain the pitched pine ceiling would move up and down and rattle ominously. It was wild and scary and comforting and I loved it.

Strange posting I know but something today triggered it.
The upstairs bathroom door is frequently closed and the tap tap of phone keys can be heared and the toilet unused.........think I'm going to need the quietude of Brittany once more after all.