Dear LPG readers,

I want to tell you about the tiny home I have lived in for more than 20 years. 

Like so many people, I now have the place to myself, but it was a different story when I first moved in.  Back then, there was a husband there with me and the anticipation of everything we would do to make it our unique space.  It has been the venue for some memorable parties and family gatherings over the years, even though we always saw it as a temporary move because we were both getting a bit older and planned to return to the West Indies after retiring. 

Some of our initial decorating plans for the place became a reality, but there were many things we never got around to doing.  We were both full-time workers, but my retreat was where I could do what I wanted. We spent time decorating and adding all those trinkets and gadgets that made it ours.  I remember the many times things got lost because I would put them in one logical place while my husband had a completely different idea of logic.  This wasn't very pleasant at times because we both worked jobs with very different duty rotas, and so many of those things that you need to complete the job in hand at the time would have to wait because I could not find the tool to finish the task. 

Before we knew it, routine set in, and shift work meant that home became the place where you slept, ate and got ready for work for quite a few years after that.  I remember feeling that there was less time for entertaining, but after living within the same space for a while, everything you look at presents a reminder.  Something funny or significant happened in every room.  I remember the day that I spilt a whole saucepan of food on the kitchen floor when I was trying a new recipe, and each time I get to it with the duster, I cannot help remembering the day that I received the hideous ornament that my mother-in-law brought back from a holiday in France. 

You think that things will never change, but my husband became ill, and then I became a carer. LPG got me to write about what life was like back then, and when I read what got written, the memories come flooding back (►►►).  I have to say that my home then became a sort of trap because even though I loved him dearly, there were eight years of being there nearly all the time, followed by facing widowhood.

I barely got over losing him before I had a series of strokes.  They do take a bit of time to get over, even if they are not too serious, which meant spending a lot more time at home than I was used to, but lockdown and being a full-time carer for so long had given me an idea of what I would be in for.  The first two were not too debilitating, and being stuck at home again for a relatively short time reminded me of what it is like not to be able to get out that much.  The third one, however, was a lot more significant.              

Three months in hospital gave me a lot of time to think about the fact that although I was thankful for their help, I had to rely on friends to go into the house for me, which felt like a sort of intrusion to my privacy.  

I am now a further 6 months down the recovery route, and with one side of my body still not working to capacity, I have only been able to leave my home on the few occasions that I can get two of my friends to help me, or in an ambulance for hospital appointments. I have a sister who has been a Godsend despite having a full-time job; a couple of friends and the carers are great, but I get increasingly frustrated as I see them doing the things that I would never have dreamed of letting anyone else do for me.  All the culinary and personal care I receive is one thing. Still, I have to say that watching someone else dusting such stuff as that annoying ornament I mentioned earlier reminds me of just how long it will take before I can get back to doing it or getting to the shop across the road by myself.   

The bottom line is that my beloved home, with all its memories, has been my haven, castle, workshop, place of complete freedom, and prison, even though the interior has changed relatively little in all the years I have lived there… 

BM, Forest Hill