Walnut Tree Cottage

This is Walnut Tree Cottage, 350 years old, in the village of Thorpe, Surrey, England, where my husband, children, and I lived for fourteen of the eighteen years we lived in England. At that time, this was the Headmaster's residence (my husband was the Headmaster) for the TASIS school, I taught upper school English there, and our two children attended the school.

The second-story middle window opens into the room in which I wrote Walk Two Moons, The Wanderer, Absolutely Normal Chaos, Pleasing the Ghost, Chasing Redbird, Fishing in the Air, and Bloomability.


Nearly everyone who entered this cottage said, "How quaint! How cute!", and it was that, but quaint and cute do not necessarily mean easy-to-live-in.  The plumbing was dodgy, the heating sporadic, the kitchen wee, the spiders a-plenty, and each spring plants grew up between the dining-room floorboards and around the windows.

But it was home and we were happy there.

Change of Perspective

I've been immersed in the land of snow since November, but am now in North Carolina for a few months. It's a shock each year to leave that white, frigid landscape and emerge in a place where the grass is still green and the sun shines more often and you don't need boots and hats and gloves to venture outdoors.

It's a healthy change of perspective. Awakens the senses. I'll be revising the current work-in-progress soon, and it's good to go into that fresh and alert.

The above photo is not from North Carolina, however. It's from Thorpe, Surrey, England.  When we lived there, I used to walk here in order to refresh my brain.

Another favorite spot on that walk is this fence (below). I don't know why I like it so, but I think it wants a story of its own.

Some day.

Bye-bye for now. Going for a walk.

Writer at the Window

One great thing about rain is that it makes it easier for me to stay at my desk and work.   The lure to be outside in dry weather--warm or cold--is great.  That my desk now faces a window with a view of lake and trees, of birds and squirrels and chipmunks is sometimes a danger ('Come out, come out'), but just as often, staring out the window seems to realign the tangled circuits of my brain. 

In our many years in England, we lived in charming 300-year-old cottages, but the hardest part of living in them was their darkness:  low ceilings and tiny windows. You have to get right up to the window to peer out. You are begging the light to enter, but it does not enter, and so you have to flee for the outdoors before you go mad.  

Well, maybe not 'you,' but me.

A Walk in England

One of my daily walks here in England is a circuit of the TASIS school's campus.  Here's a little commentary with it:

Back to the Spooky Cupboard

I'm going back to the spooky cupboard near the spooky room. You come, too. Please.

In the Spooky Room

I switched to a hand-held camera instead of carrying my laptop (w/webcam) around. Much better for showing you the scene. In this clip, I lead you up to 'the spooky room' in this 16th century cottage in England in which we are staying this year.

I think I might be going a bit bonkers. . .

Back in England

Well. I tried. About three times now. I'm back in England, attempting to give you a glimpse of our cottage. At least it's short! Click on the link:

Creech in England

Hidden Spaces


In this cottage in Surrey, England, are various niches and cupboards and hidden spaces. A child would have loads of hiding places for treasures. To the left of the dining room fireplace is a small cupboard.  Inside is a note explaining its purpose:

This is a typical example of a cloam oven. It was heated by burning large bundles of kindling wood in the oven. When enough heat had been generated the ash was raked out and baking commenced.



The interior is all brick, igloo shaped (round with domed top), about three feet in diameter.  A bricked-over space on the outside house wall is probably where the oven was vented to allow smoke to escape.  It seems such a sensible oven, and although I know it is much easier to turn a knob and have an oven pre-heated within minutes without all the fuss and bother of building a fire and raking coals and ash, I still wish this one were functional so I could try it.

More Old Time and The Unfinished Angel


This is another old clock I discovered in this cottage we're staying in, in Surrey, England. It has its own special niche, and at first I thought it was a non-working clock, but then discovered two keys tucked beneath it.  It has a gentle tick-tock and a sweet, soft-pitched chime.

Now this one, too, gets wound each morning to start the day. It makes me wonder about who else wound this clock and what other time(s) it marked, and I had the illusion that if it sat for some time, unwound, time could/would stop.

I also was reminded of a chapter in the upcoming The Unfinished Angel, "What is Time?" Here is a passage from that chapter (the odd spelling and grammar are not mistakes; this is the way the Angel speaks):

Peoples, why are they so compelsive, no, what is the word, propulsive, no, obsessive, yes, obsessive! Why they are so obsessive about time, and why they think it is like a cake you can divide into pieces, why? Why they have to have seconds, pinutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, sentries, on and on, tick-tick, whoosh there goes two seconds, whoosh, two more. What, they are thinking time is going somewhere? Where it is going, I ask you, where?


Listen. You hear any ticking? No. You hear just the world being the world. You see any clocks in the sky? You see calendars on the trees?

Winding the Clock

One of my favorite morning chores here at the cottage in Surrey is winding the clock.  It feels as if the day is not properly set in motion until I wind it up.  Very powerful feeling, that!

Through the Windows


More charm of England:  thatched roofs (see top left quadrant of window), gates, brick paths, holly hedges. The hedges offer some privacy; the little gates say 'welcome.'  The thatched cottage (built in 1490) seems to say, 'People come and people go, but I am still here. . .'

So small the windows of our own cottage and thus so dark inside and so like a cave.  Outside: a tidy, manicured world.