Room with a View 2

 

Prologue I discovered that I have almost written an autobiography by looking through the windows of my life.

A room with a view 2 1462

1. I was born and lived through my childhood in a house which had very large windows. I suppose nowadays we would call them picture windows. The view from the front room truly was a view. We could see across the fields and up the other side of the valley to the church. As a child I didn't realise how lucky I was to see fields with cows and buttercups and daises. It just seemed natural. Although during the war the windows were covered with blackout material.

2. When I was 16, we moved to another house which also had large windows. It even had French windows with not only a view of the garden but also of the wood of mature trees beyond.

3.The first house my husband and I bought lacked a room with a view. That seems a little non-sensical. All rooms have a view unless they are windowless. I suppose it's a matter of taste. Some people (not me of course) would enjoy a view of the neighbours.

This house did have a slight compensation. It was possible to see very narrowly beyond the back garden to a field, again with buttercups and daisies but not a single cow. But wait for it, it did have a horse. Yes, a horse which enjoyed stealing the washing from the clothesline and trying to eat it, then stomping it into the ground. When the said horse had eaten my knickers (I never did find them) and ruining my neighbour's curtains, we did learn to peg the washing away from the fence.

4) Then we bought a bungalow in a cul-de-sac called Jodrell View. That was a slight exaggeration. Even though the bungalow had wall to wall windows I can't for the life of me remember which room had this unusual view. I even rang my son to ask him. I thought he would be sure to know as at the time he was keen on astrology and even had his own telescope. If I had a car, I would drive up there, it's very high so I can't face the steep hill. I am sure the telescope would have been visible and of course still will be.

5) Our next house was a Victorian semi. It had a view of the street and the houses opposite. This delighted my husband because he could make sure that no-one parked in his space in front our house.

6) Then came the divorce and I moved into an upstairs flat. The view from the front windows gave on to the Super Market aross the street. From one window at the back, I could see a solitary but mature tree. This tree for 20 years the seasons, from the buds and blossoms in Spring, through summer leaves, onto the falling of the coloured leaves in autumn and finally the stark black branches of Winter. It is still there today. I walked past it yesterday. There were two pairs of birds sitting in the completely bare branches

The kitchen window had an excellent view of a brick wall. This I studied daily, when washing up, cooking, having morning coffee or afternoon tea and of course my evening meal. I came to know this wall intimately, the shapes of the bricks, the coloured veins which ran through each brick and even every wrinkle in the cement. This happened to be during my painting phase.  I painted it and thoughly enjoyed the process. Then I thought, "It's a brick wall, it needs some graffiti. So, I painted a quote by Mary Wollstonecraft, " If women fail to become men's equal the progress of human knowledge and virtue will be halted". I had another thought, "Women have always lived in the cracks of life." So, I wrote the names of some women and their achievements in the cement between the bricks. I won't say famous because I doubt that many of you here will know their names. ???? Hypatia, Pope Joan, Hildegarde von Bingham, Christine de Pizan, Aphra Behn and Jocelyn Bell Burrell. ????

7) So, onto house number 7. This was an unremarkable semi. The most interesting view was of the rear wall which the cats used to walk along to stalk the birds who used the feeder which hung in next door's garden.

8) On my retirement I moved to Brittany. There I had a conservatory with windows through which I could observe the sunrise, ascend to its zenith at noon and slowly descend to set in the west. At this time, I became interested in photography and by taking endless photos of sunrises I observed something that one would not notice in a town. I noticed that the sunrise was in a different time and place each day. I don't mean that it pops up randomly wherever it wants to just to surprise us. No. This I suppose was a lesson in astronomy and I didn't live in Jodrell View anymore. I noticed the movement of the sun throughout the year or is it the earth that moves around the sun or the sun spins around on its axis. I have no idea. But what I did observe was that the sun rose to the right of the house at the end of the lane in midwinter and then passed behind the house and then each day it appeared slightly nearer to the church and finally in midsummer it rose to the left of the church.

However, the best and worst part of the view in my Brittany house were as follows.

The best first. Shortly after moving there, I read an article which said that if in old age one lived in an environment or a place the same or similar in which one grew up, one was likely to live longer. So, guess what? The view from my window was of fields of buttercups, daisies and cows and then across the river to the other side of the valley to the village It was similar to the view from the house in which I grew up. OK I thought I may live to 103 like my neighbour church. I could also see the dairy cows giving birth. The calves were delightful. The rest of the heard circled the birthing mother like attending midwives.

Now not so good. I suppose everyone knows how dairy farming works. I don't think I did before I had this room with a view. After a few weeks the calves are taken away in trucks leaving the mothers bereft. They cry for days and nights. I know because I listened to them crying every night. The childless mothers are then milked twice a day. From the internet.

 The farmer will often try to get the cow back in calf within 2 months of her giving birth, so that she produces one calf per year. However, many farmers do not achieve this, and cows often give birth every 400 days or more.  By the time I decided to leave my paradise I had become a vegan.

9) I am back in the UK now to the town where I was born. The views are not so exciting but as time goes on, I find more of interest. Behind the house I can see mature trees where magpies gather and nest. I can also see that my garden is looking healthy. My great grandson calls it a jungle. I am very proud of the fig tree I planted which I can see through the window as I write this. It must be eight feet tall. I hope it produces figs. To the front of the house the view is of mature trees too which obviously change with the seasons. At the moment they are truly radiant in there autumn glory.

Two or was it three winters ago? (How time flies) Anyway it was the winter it snowed. Children I find are always creative. They made a slide. Quite a long slide from the top of the wooded hill in front of my house, through the trees and it ended dangerously close to the road. I heard the shrieks of excitement as they slid down on a variety of makeshift equipment. Trays, polythene, cardboard and a couple even had real sledges. From my front door I had an excellent view. I even took a video.

So, rooms with views can be, not only interesting, educational and delightful but inspirational. I painted the view from a hotel room in Italy. I called it a view with a room.

When I stayed in my son's hotel in Chamonix my bedroom had a view of Mont Blanc which was truly heart stopping.