Friday, December 24, 2010

In this home on ice

Snow builds up outside our door alarmingly fast. When any way untidy, our Portobello basement flat looks a lot like a storage cupboard, the kind where you keep all your old coats and where the cat goes to shit (though that may just be in my family). But she found a way to make our two too-small rooms look like a home to be proud of. And every time I gaze at our bookshelves that feels like us. And every time we mistrust the rust on TV and stick on something better it feels good. A pot of tea feels like an event. I asked her to marry me here. We spent our wedding night here.

I don't get, more often than not, why she'd even want to live with me at all. When I tacked up fairy lights with electrical tape they fell down, probably minutes after I rushed out to the pub. It must have looked like someone had mugged Christmas when she got home, deserving far better than that. And me, bumbling home hours later, all "What? Sorry." Slinging my clothes everywhere but the shelves. Jesus, she'd have to love me.

She has the fairy lights sitting beautifully above the fireplace now, like I knew she would. Black ice permitting, we could be spending Christmas here, and that'd be fine. This place is big enough for the both of us, and my many varieties of cuddle attacks, but it couldn't take the strain of a puppy or a baby or a hamster or a goldfish and so we both know that it's an interim house, here to keep us warm and build on all the massiveness we have, until the next good thing.

10 comment(s):

Janelle said...

cosy! HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOURS! (stinking hot here in arusha) x j

Andrew said...

Thanks, Janelle. I'd swap Arusha heat for Dublin's snow and slush right now. On my first Christmas in Dodoma we had a powercut and my poor mother had to try and cook a goose on a tiny little jiko. It's all far too convenient here. Heri ya krismasi!

Tessa said...

Sounds like you and Rosie have built yourselves a little slice of heaven in Portobello, Andrew. I hope you both have a wonderful Christmas, wherever you spend it.

Holemaster said...

That wasn't your buddha snowman on Sygne street was it?

Rosie said...

so you're saying i'm not getting a puppy? or a hamster?

DISAPPOINTED.

i know the fella you mean, Holemaster. twasn't us, though. we're too soft for larking about in the snow. it's cold out there.

Some Birds said...

Gorgeous post about home. Merry Christmas, black ice and all!

Annie said...

awwww :)

Jo said...

Lovely :)

Kitty Catastrophe said...

Ah now. This was just lovely. I hope your collective Christmas is great. I'm back home in Waterford for mine but so looking forward to getting back to Dublin to spend the rest of it with the Bear in our little apartment.

Andrew said...

Tessa - Thanks, and the same to you. It was possibly a whiter Christmas here than in Canada, for the first time ever.

Some Birds - Cheers, hope you're having a great Christmas.

Annie - Awwww yourself. I've been enjoying my Christmas presnt of your book. It's very cool that I can say that to you.

Jo - As are you. Hope you're having a lovely Christmas, filled with cupcakes and the like.

Kitty Cat - This is the first Christmas where we've woken up together, it was deadly. Hope you and The Bear enjoy the rest of it, little apartments leave you no choice but to snuggle.