Our different dreams
A week or two ago we briefly indulged the dream of buying this old house and moving to the country. It was nestled amid an ancient orchard, the ground covered in daffodils, snowflakes, jonquils and anemones that had been allowed to grow and spread for more than a hundred years.
Also on the property was a 160-year-old cottage with a thatched roof where I imagined my parents living, and an old farm shed that had been converted into a yoga studio, that was just begging to be turned into a place to host creative workshops and classes for likeminded souls.
There were 150 acres to play with, as well as a bore with water that was so fresh it was sweet to drink, and in my dream I was already sowing seeds and planting trees to bring back diversity to the soil and draw down carbon. I was purchasing truffle-inoculated oak trees; and Cream Legbar hens for blue eggs and Plymouth Rock hens for brown eggs; and a little herd of Anglo Nubian goats for making chèvre.
My imagined life on the land was magical.
It’s funny how the same dream can look so completely different, depending on who is doing the dreaming.
As I wandered through this old house, I could feel it calling out for someone to love it. For a gentle hand that would remove the birds’ nests from the ceiling and restore the rusted old Aga stove to working order in time for cold wintery days, and tend to the fruit trees and roses and orchard like Mary and Dickon in the Secret Garden.
“Me!” I all-but shouted, waving my hand in the air. “I’ll do it!”
I pictured dances in the old shearing shed, and long lunches under the grape vines outside. A gigantic kitchen garden and a medicinal herb garden next door. The children racing over to Nanna’s and Pa’s house after school every afternoon. Horses. A puppy.
But where I saw potential, my husband saw a money pit. Endless weeks and months, probably years, of spending our every spare minute and every spare cent on bringing this old farmhouse back to life.
Our weekends would be tied to this land; we could probably never afford to go on a holiday again; our choices of schools for the children would be curtailed; and he’d have to drive more than an hour each way to get to work.
My dream was cosy, botanical and gentle; Mr B’s was exhausting, expensive and stressful. I suspect the reality would have been somewhere in the middle.
Would the dream have been worth the sacrifice?
We see the world very differently, he and I. Sometimes, this fosters disagreements but mostly, we complement one another. He helps me to be practical, and I remind him that sometimes, it is fun to let yourself dream.
