Thursday, October 20, 2005

You are shown to your room by a guide


When I knocked, albeit somewhat timidly, on the door to the Sybil's cave I was unsure whom or what would come to answer my summons. Imagine my surprise when the door opened and there was no-one there. Or at least, I thought there was no-one there until I heard a faint meow and looked down to find a beautiful calico cat with white feet and green eyes - my beloved Pebbles who died last year. When she first came to us, from the animal refuge, she had no voice and when she opened her mouth to meow it was only a silent meow that escaped and she was as light as thistledown. Eight years later she had developed a meow that could be heard from the bottom of the house to the top and was a healthy animal with fur as soft as a rabbit's. Nourished with TLC she came to be my boon companion and would come and sit on me whenever and wherever I sat down, purring her head off and looking adoringly into my face. I was desolate when I had to have her put down as she had developed a tumour. Now she had come to rescue me.

She turned away from me and headed straight for the nearest clump of peonies – Bowl of Beauty, my favourites. I followed her through, along a woodland path. Teasels and foxgloves stood sentinel on either side. At length we reached a thatched cottage set in a woodland glade. The garden was a mass of typical English country garden flowers and roses climbed the trellis over door. Your room is on the ground floor I understood her to say, for she had not said anything aloud. Make yourself at home and I will come and visit you in a while for I have much to tell you.

I went through the low front door – the wooden duck affixed over the front door was meant to indicate that you should do just that – duck – or hit your head. I hit my head. Nursing a bruised forehead I entered the cottage and looked about me.
There was only the one room – obviously I was to have the entire cottage to myself. The windows on the front of the cottage flooded the room with light. Rushes had been strewn on the stone flagged floor. Against the back wall was a wide bed covered with a variety of lightweight quilts. There was a bedside table with a beautiful Tiffany lamp on it. Close to one of the windows was a table and chair and a vase of flowers in an alcove at one end of the cottage held a wild bouquet of salmon pink oriental poppies and bronze irises with the foliage of an acer palmatum to set them off – they were the plants I intended to plant on her grave when the rockery is finished. The other end of the room had been partitioned off and this turned out to be a shower room – there was no shower tray, you simply stood on the pebbles and the water drained away. A pink lotus had been planted in a large ceramic pot that stood in the bathroom.
I will be happy in this room.

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