Hello House

We are back at St. Leonard's, the house we left eight years ago - and guess what, it's tilting southwest. I'd never noticed that before.

Well, who am I to say? Watch me limping, bruised and lined and tilting too; friends call it character (what do the others call it? Hissing, cold with envy, 'lucky swine'.)

How many times lucky? I'm still counting.  It's warm enough to walk up Arthur's Seat without gloves.  The berries, I am told, are ripe.

There is a mirror in this house where I can still see myself, in a cotton dress, pale, surprisingly calm, the day before Kira was born.

Snap - sheets drying this morning, between the same two trees, the cherry and the other one. Inside the kitchen, a wooden floor that squeaks. All the fabulous paintings are gone but I swear I could dip a finger into pots of colour and paint them from memory, on the walls where they hung.

What else? How long have you got? Me, not much: opening boxes (the contents a huge surprise) on the low table in the living room; the same spot where, in the summer of 2008, I was shutting boxes (and forgetting instantly what they contained). We have traced a vast loop, I realise, like a stunt plane against a sky of equal blue. Unsure where is up, where is down.

A long breath now, we're back. The pulse slows, arms heavy by my side, fingers like twigs. Twig, tree, a thought: trees never leave their place.

But we're back. A friend from the same street sees me with my boxes, walks straight in.  Hello house.

The festival tenants left coffee in the cupboard.

P.S. And then there's this guy. He stops by to enquire if we also like prawns. Twice daily, at the kitchen door, and the question doesn't change.