Homecoming: Paradise Found

On Sunday, after spending the afternoon unpacking, The Boy tells me to pack enough for an overnight stay and something to sleep in.

"It's a surprise", he told me.
"Can I bathe there?" I said, suspicious. (This IS The Boy we’re talking about.)

I was blindfolded in the car and we drove for a while. I got poked in the eye because he was testing whether I was peeking through the blindfold. ("OW!" "Oops, sorry." "Were you doing something in front of my face?" "Er...yes. But I'm sure you can see through it." "I can't! And you don't have to poke me in the eye with your finger to prove it!" "It wasn't my finger. It was a fist. And it was only your forehead." "Was NOT!")

There was silence when the car finally stopped and he told me to wait in the car and to be very quiet. I could smell grass. "Oooohh, are there animals?" I squeaked, excited, not realizing that he'd left the car and that I was talking to a car seat. See, proof that I wasn’t peeking. "Is it horsies?" (My last farm practical has left me with a mild obsession with horses.)

I was led out of the car and up some steps, and the blindfold was taken off, and I found myself looking at a white front door. I looked around, stunned.

"Go ahead," he said, handing me a set of keys.

It was a house. The house, our house. In a quiet lane with a huge garden with tiki torches and a living room done in shades of green, a red-splashed kitchen, yellow bathroom, a million windows, billowing curtains and folded paper light globes which The Boy and Only Friend had spent the better part of the weekend installing before I came home. There's a futon in the bedroom next to shelves for my things. There are two cups, two plates and one frying pan in the kitchen. There are flowers in the garden and a moorhen that comes to visit in the front garden.

I nearly burst into tears, but one has a reputation to upkeep, yes? So I settled on 'stunned' as my default expression. It may have accidentally verged on 'impassive' at times because The Boy kept asking me if I liked it.

There is no hot water, no phone lines, or TV or internet. It's going to take a lot of work to make it a home I the short time that I have here. It ours only temporarily, and then it will be gone because the government will take it all away, and the house will be destroyed to become a road. I will be giving up my trip to India at the end of the year to spend more time here.

But these are details. It is the most amazing thing anyone's ever done for me. I can live without hot water, I can make the house a home, and I can plan another trip to India if I work a little harder and save a little more. There are differences from the dream. There will be one dog, not two, which will curl up near me at night. I will not be there fore most of the lease. But the house is beautiful, we have found the happy.

Photos to follow.