Nostalgia
The glads have come up. I planted them when we arrived last year in Spring but they didn’t flower last summer. The colour is lovely. It harmonises the pink of the roses with the orange to the bignonias that should start blooming in a couple of weeks.
All these flowers, the colours, the smells, have made me nostalgic. Melancholic. Thinking of Villa l’Africaine and Spain. Someone told me the house is unused for most of the year. It sits closed. All that wonderful furniture locked away. I hope at least the caretakers enjoy the place when they’re there care taking. I wonder if they gave my instructions to the gardener? I left what could only be called a treatise on the proper use and care of the house and garden. The salmon rimmed Limoges china is to be used outside on the cream and green zellige table. The white and gold Wedgwood is for indoors. I even specified the hours in which the sun hits each of the outdoor eating areas. They must have thought I was entirely insane. I wonder if they sit there in fear I might knock on the door and scream at them for having moved a chair or eating at the wrong table at the wrong time.
Deep down I know it’s not actually Spain or the house that I miss. The malaise is about accepting change and the passing of time. When you’re in the same place, doing the same things for so very long, you have the impression you’ve stopped time. That everything will always be the same. Immortality by delusion. That means even though nearly 14 years had passed at Villa l’Africaine and 16 all together in Spain, I still felt like that young student who’d just arrived.
Isn’t that a glorious view? That was my first Spanish apartment. A cute little penthouse in Marbella. Everything was so cheap then. It was before the euro. I still have those big glass candle holder thingies. Goodness knows how they survived so many years. Especially considering they’ve spent most of their lives outside.
I don’t want any more change. This is it. I very much enjoyed my delusion in Spain and I want it back.
My Mazamet 
Selfishly, I am glad for your change. Without it, I wouldn’t get to see the magnificent transformation at No. 42. With all of the photos you’ve taken of progress, it’s like you’re setup for visual aids to accompany the next treatise (love the insanity!)
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That’s so sweet 🙂 I am in love with number 42. Every time I come down the stairs I think *wow, this is pretty*. But definitely never another treatise, or another move or anything like that. This is my final home.
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One never knows what amazing possibility is around the corner, literally perhaps.
Ps in the real world, I do “change management” 😉
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Ha ha, I love your reply above, do you know how many times I have said “I am never moving again”! Quite a few! We have lived in the UK, New Zealand, the USA and France, and I always say never ever again, moving with five children in tow takes up a lot of energy!!! This time for sure I have said never again, never never ever! Perhaps that’s why I write the blog, I can’t move now!!!
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Growing up I lived in 4 different countries. That sort of exhausted me. By the time I became an adult my primordial goal was a *forever* house. That would’ve been the place in Spain, but so many things changed over the years- it just wasn’t the place we’d fallen in love with anymore.
Considering the menus here in Mazamet still make it look like it’s 1982, I think we’re safe here! 😀
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I have found that as Charles Dickens once said, you can “never say never.” We all suffer from bouts of nostalgia, but I’ve realised that we tend to mostly only remember the good things. Life is what we make it, and I embrace change, although not too often. 😀
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Then let me just hope for never! This last move was terribly exhausting. It’s 16 months later and we’re still not quite settled.
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If you’re not settled, just imagine me living in s half renovated house with no kitchen, and living in the bedroom, albeit a very big main suite. I would have said that we would never have bought an abandoned house that needed everything stripping out, but I would have been wrong. 😅
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As Mike keeps telling me: Take a deep breath, these are first world problems!
As we’re both people who experienced the 3rd world, I know that you’ll know what I mean 😉
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I’m doing fine, and looking at the terrible news coming out of Nice tonight, I realise that I have absolutely nothing to moan about.
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Horrendous! I’m awake watching the news as well. Just terrible.
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Just found news of this latest attack on the internet. Please take care. 😦
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Forgot to say that I do like the colour of your Glads. 🙂
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It’s the Purple Flora variety. The colour is deep and dramatic. It works surprisingly well with practically every other colour 😉
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Hmm…I don’t like change all that much either, but I never put it down to being a refugee [from the Hungarian Revolution]. Now that you mention it though, from Hungary to Austria, Austria to Wagga Wagga in Australia, Wagga Wagga to Melbourne, all before my 5th birthday, then multiple moves within Melbourne. We’ve been here in Warrandyte for 11 years and looking back, that’s probably the longest I’ve ever been in any one place. I think it’s best to just stop counting. 😦 Oh and I thought those gladdies were iris! Lovely.
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