There once was a little cottage on a little island in Puget Sound. It sounds more posh than it is, this little house was a fixer-upper. Some poor fool at some distant remove painted it battleship grey, the better to fade into the morning fog that sometimes rolled across the island and hid the houses and trees from view.
One day a writer and artist (in short, a fool) and his lovely bride moved in and said "What a sad little house tucked away in a forgotten corner of a foggy island. I shall make this house cheerful, surround it with gardens and fill it with books and create a happy home."
And so it was. And so it continues, this work of making a fool's paradise among the fog-shrouded trees. The house is a curmudgeonly old thing and it has resisted. It once dropped a ceiling on the fool's head, but he shrugged and turned the room into a library, and as everyone knows, this simple act imbues a house with a soul.
Over the years, the house and the fool have mellowed. Gardens have sprouted and books have
found shelves. New windows have given the home a bright-eyed look and insulation has made her warm as the old grey shingles have turned a cheerful yellow.
So if you wonder where I go when I'm not here, don't worry. I might be stuck under a pile of cats and unable to reach the computer. Or I might be writing or puttering in the garden. But I'm probably just taking a weekend to cheer up my house, my fool's paradise...
There once was a little cottage on a little island in Puget Sound. It sounds more posh than it is, this little house was a fixer-upper. Some poor fool at some distant remove painted it battleship grey, the better to fade into the morning fog that sometimes rolled across the island and hid the houses and trees from view.
One day a writer and artist (in short, a fool) and his lovely bride moved in and said "What a sad little house tucked away in a forgotten corner of a foggy island. I shall make this house cheerful, surround it with gardens and fill it with books and create a happy home."
And so it was. And so it continues, this work of making a fool's paradise among the fog-shrouded trees. The house is a curmudgeonly old thing and it has resisted. It once dropped a ceiling on the fool's head, but he shrugged and turned the room into a library, and as everyone knows, this simple act imbues a house with a soul.
Over the years, the house and the fool have mellowed. Gardens have sprouted and books have
found shelves. New windows have given the home a bright-eyed look and insulation has made her warm as the old grey shingles have turned a cheerful yellow.
So if you wonder where I go when I'm not here, don't worry. I might be stuck under a pile of cats and unable to reach the computer. Or I might be writing or puttering in the garden. But I'm probably just taking a weekend to cheer up my house, my fool's paradise...
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Pages to Type is a blog about books, writing and literary culture (with the occasional digression into coffee and the care and feeding of giant robots).