Imaginary living

 

Martin, a character in Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn, has an imaginary home and family. 

"It was also nearly always Sunday morning for some reason (probably to do with spending weekends in a boarding school). A leg of lamb (no animal was harmed in the making of this fantasy) was sizzling in the old cream Aga..."

I could identify. For decades I have had a French farmhouse in the country, but not so far that I couldn't hop on my bike and stop at the village boulangerie just in time to buy a baguette still warm from the oven.

The imaginary house had a small vegetable garden to one side including a strawberry patch where the berries that lasted several weeks would explode with flavor with each bite. They were big enough for at least three bites.

Going to vide greniers (flea markets) and walking by brocantes, antique shops, I "bought" real things  that I saw to put in my imaginary farm house. I would mention it to my friend RB2 or my husband who were often with me, and sometimes might point out something to "buy."

One example: I "furnished" a nursery with a wonderful rocking horse. The kitchen had a wooden oak table on which I "kneaded"  my grandmother's oatmeal or annadama bread recipes. 

The dishes were all china, always beautiful. They never broke.

In this imaginary farm house there was never, ever an electric problem and the internet loaded in seconds. The plumbing always worked and we never ran out of hot water no matter how long the shower.

As for the vegetable garden I picked huge, succulent tomatoes, green beans, peas, artichokes, peppers, onions and various salads at will. When the weather grew cool, somehow these veggies ended up preserved in mason jars without me doing a thing.

In the fall and winter these canned vegetables were delicious.  

During the cold weather, the book-filled library had a cushioned cubby hole under one of the windows to curl up with a book and drink endless cups of tea, which were already the right temperature. I could glance up and see big snow flakes floating by the window. The snow never landed on the walk.

The best part of the fantasy nothing cost a franc or later a euro.

In reality, I love my real 300-year old French home in a village said to have existed since Charlemagne. It's located in the center of my village.

I don't have my garden herbs hanging from the original beam but baskets found at vide greniers.

My kitchen table rescued from an old barn, must have had countless loaves of bread kneaded on it. A variety of families must have sat around it eating. How well they got along may have varied over the centuries.

 A desk carved by a man in a neighboring village.

 I don't have to bike to buy my bread. The boulanger, le boucher, the green grocer, all of whom are friends and are within a few minute walk of my front door. The green grocer has all the veggies. The olive dealer has buckets of different flavored olives. 

Unlike my imaginary farm house, the real home gets dirty, things spill, sometimes the electricity and the internet are wonky. I break dishes. This is not a complaint.

My reality is wonderful, but still I will pass furnishings, be they new or old, and "buy" them for my imaginary farm house.

Note: This blog was written to contrast with my utter horror at the debacle with Trump and Zelensky last night. I need a bit of beauty to maintain my sanity and my appreciation for what I have in comparison to my disgust at the U.S. president.