Twenty-three years! Last night, over the traditional fish&chips dinner (well – the at-home version: air fryer potato wedges and salmon fillets, no f&c shops around here) and fuelled by a celebratory glass of blueberry wine, we zig-zagged up and down this bafflingly long timeline we created back then. Twenty-three years! Neither of us has ever done anything for that long. We both had been married before and we didn’t feel the need to make a public declaration about ‘us’, but eventually common sense indicated that being married would eliminate a lot of unnecessary kerfuffle as and when one of us got ill or left the planet. So we picked a favourite location – Whitby, North Yorkshire – gathered our respective kids and future daughter-in-law, and spent a sunny September day on the coast, introducing our baby border collie Alice to the sea, having fish&chips for lunch and driving home across the Moors to end the day in style: beloved kids (2- and 4-legged), dinner and cake. Perfect.
Twenty-three years later, here we are in our ‘hexenhouse’ in Germany, the painter and the writer, sharing a life the depth and beauty of which we could not have foreseen at the beginning of our journey. We were well into our forties when we got together. As second chances go, I think we hit the jackpot!
Missing This
We do miss England. There’s no way to mitigate this: England is where our kids and grandkids live, where Mr W. comes from, where I spent thirty-odd years of my life, where we planned to return to after an interval in my native Germany. Who would ever have thought of something as bizarre as Brexit? Very quickly it became too difficult and too expensive to try and resettle in the UK, and way too uncertain – we’d risk our home base, our livelihood, our ability to live together, at a time when populist politics and their unpleasant proponents were gaining a foothold. But oh, we miss it! Our kids of course, first and foremost, and some good friends. And the architecture. The landscapes. The wide skies. The sea never more than a couple of hours’ drive away. The language. The museums. The people. The crankiness and the sarky sense of humour. Even the potholes and the overall chaos that necessitates inventiveness and the art of improvisation. Yes of course we visit – but that’s not the same…
Red Socks (Wallowing)
OK – no use crying over spilled milk, as they say. We do have a good life here. But just for now, let me wallow in what-was, just a little bit and in no particular order: Stomping along the beach in a bad mood, gulls screeching overhead, waves pounding the shore, clouds gathering at the horizon and drifting away, taking my glumness with them. The Ferens Gallery in Kingston-upon-Hull, where I had one of the best job interviews, ever. Walking down Shaftesbury Avenue, London, very early one morning, in that strange silvery light that makes everything look sparkly clean and new. The tiny end-of-terrace house in Worthing we shared with seven cats. Climbing up Helvellyn from Glenridding, eyes fixed on Mr W.’s red socks as he strode ahead of me – I get dizzy climbing up a five-rung ladder but was determined to do this and made it all the way up to Red Tarn where I stuck my blistered feet in the icy water and chickened out of the daunting prospect of Striding Edge. Camping out in the Lake District and waking up to a herd of baa-baa-ing sheep stampeding across the campground, bumping into our tent that offered meagre protection from the rampage. All the beautiful gardens in our various homes. Kew Gardens! Driving along the South Coast towards Cornwall with my young son, wanting to explore ‘the shape of England’. Guy Fawke’s night with my little granddaughter, waving sparklers, watching the fireworks. My very first writers’ group meeting in a pub in Caterham. I could go on and on but … End of wallow.
Right now, the sun is streaming in through the open window and across the hexenhouse garden still bright with greenery and flowers, I’m about to wrap this up and brew another coffee. Not a bad way to start the day. Have a good one, peeps!
Gitta Wolf 