Last weekend I took a trip down memory lane. I visited the Norfolk village where, back in the 1980s, my husband and I bought a holiday cottage. We’d travel up there from London most weekends with our two young sons. That all ended with our divorce in 1992. Soon afterwards the cottage was sold, and I hadn’t been to the area since. Curious now to see whether the village had changed, I headed for the A11.
During the journey I reflected on those distant days. The cottage hadn’t been my idea. My husband was keen to have a rural bolt hole, but I’m a city person through and through, and always felt my real life was ‘on hold’ during those Norfolk weekends. I found the long drives there and back a real chore, and invariably we’d forget what we had left in Norfolk, what we needed to take, there was always something that wasn’t where it should be … yes, I know: First World problem.
The bigger problem was that we weren’t exactly welcome there. As second homeowners from London, we were blamed for pricing locals out of the market, and I felt guilty about that. But at least we gave work to some of the villagers! A cheerful woman called Queenie kept the cottage clean and tidy for us, and we hired the avuncular, retired Tom to take care of the garden. He regaled us with tales of his youth. One day he’d been a simple farmer, he told us, driving a tractor across a Norfolk field, then the war came and before long he was driving a tank in France. His sweet wife, Alice, served us tea in old-fashioned china cups and home-made cake.
