Lizzy was back again to look at her cottage. She thought of it as hers although it wasn’t yet. It was just so perfect. Exactly what she aspired to.
It had yellow unsymmetrical sandstone bricks that were bathed in the late afternoon sun. It was just like a drawing that a young child might have created with its central wooden azure front door – (blue was just her absolute favourite colour) and four windows – one each side of the door and two others on the first floor.
This was the third time she had been back and each time the cottage seemed to get lovelier – she noticed more fabulous things about it – like the doorbell. It was one of those traditional cast iron doorbells, adorned with a little bird, with a cord attached to the clanger. She’d also noticed that one of the two chimneys had a miniature weathervane and, you’ll never guess, with a Mary Poppins figure, complete with brolly and bag as the topper. Mary Poppins was just about her absolute favourite film.
And the garden. A beautiful lawn which looked like a carpet; lovely borders with all sorts of flowers and she was quite sure a plum tree. Plums were her absolute favourite fruit.
And the location was perfect; rolling hills on one side and a glimpse (albeit you had to crane your neck a bit) of the sea. Lizzie liked the country, but the sea was her absolute favourite.
Lizzy, who had grown up on a council housing estate couldn’t believe that there were such properties that people actually lived in. The house she lived in was just like all the others in the street, old, tired, and grey (a bit like the owners really); the street itself was dingy with an uneven payment – Lizzy had almost broken an ankle once on a rainy day when the hole was full of water, and she hadn’t noticed. The sun it seemed to Lizzy never shone down – it was as if it peeped out from behind a cloud and decided not to bother. The only grass to be seen was a tired effort valiantly trying to grow around thespindly saplings the council had planted in a vain attempt to introduce a ‘bit of country’. As for the sea – forget that.
Recently her mother’s great aunt had died and left Lizzy some money – much to everybody’s surprise. Old Aunt Rose was not famed for generosity and nobody in the family had realised she had any money to give. Lizzy knew exactly what she was going to do with her windfall, which was why she was back again looking at her cottage. It really would be hers now, thanks to Old Aunt Rose. She was definitely going to buy it.
She nodded at the young man who had been hovering apprehensively in the background; He smiled and removed the painting of the cottage from the wall of the shop and took it back to the counter.
Sixteen-year-old Lizzy handed him one hundred pounds in twenty pounds notes and waited whilst he wrapped it for her.
Lizzy had bought her cottage!!
© Grace Kanawaty February 2025
