Slowly - and very carefully - we’ve been catching up with our loved ones and as joyful as each of these reunions has been it’s incredibly painful to say goodbye again in these very uncertain times. Perhaps that’s what’s behind Bee’s request to ‘look at all your pictures, Nana?’ Perhaps Bee, like so many of us, is looking for patches of solid ground? Although seeing the change in me from the little girl I was to the great age I am now seems to have given her a bit of a wobble!
‘Who’s this then, Mum?’ asks my daughter, Rose, a few weeks later, looking through my box of loose photographs, and it’s then that I realise I should probably do something with them. I’m not someone who often needs a rear view mirror, I’m much happier where I am now or looking ahead to what’s next. Nevertheless I spend a couple of days sticking photos in an album and adding names and dates and feel some sense of accomplishment when I’ve finished.
In contrast, capturing a small moment in time is one aspect of my home interior writing I particularly enjoy. I especially like telling the story of the owners’ relationships with their homes and I’ve been lucky this summer to have been invited to write about some fascinating houses. You can see the latest one in the October issue of The English Home and there are a couple more on the horizon, but after that, with Covid restrictions and social distancing - who knows?
As autumn approaches, I hope that it won’t be too long before I can hold my family close again, but until then I’ve preserved the memories of summer, of babies and baking, beach walks and fairy doors and my Ma’s impish, naughty smile. May autumn be kind to us all.
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