(Take your time reading this and fully appreciate the house. It’s worth the sneak peek, and after this post I won’t be able to take you back there again.)

Even though the large Swiss Army silver case now contains a purple fur rug, wetsuit, Wellies and velvet crown encased in an odd-sized Plexiglas box, we manage to leave the UK with the same two cases we brought over and no additional baggage. Along the way, we discarded worn out clothes, shoes and toiletries and made room for ivory-handled fish knives, Delft bells and a few odd new pieces of clothing and shoes – oh, and a menagerie of cumbersome plush animals that include two seals, two Westies, two Harry Haggis, two squirrels, a penguin and two large paper mache dogs!

With the two cases in hand we arrive at the Irish Family’s home and the four children fall into elaborate play and secret games while the adults retire to the garden for cherries and mint tea (it’s Wednesday, nobody ever works.) The mint tea is not bagged or boxed, just fresh leaves snipped from the garden and submerged in hot water from the kettle that sits in a constant state of pre-boil on the always hot Aga.

Sips of tea are wedged into sparse gaps in conversation ranging from mental illness to wars, past and present, and punctuated with the dermatologist’s recent case of hypertrichosis where a fifteen-year old girl has a full face of hair that resembles a werewolf. Poor girl is unable to leave her house and her mother is apoplectic.

Still chattering like mice, the group saunters down the lane to a nearby French restaurant, and I try to take a mental snapshot of Edinburgh’s stone buildings and daintily decorated pocket parks. Tomorrow morning we leave Scotland and head back to the land of cantilever, low limestone and barebones play parks with neither seesaws, Flying Foxes, spinning rope trees or merry-go-rounds.

After dinner the Irish Family’s house is busy. Two students, one German and one Spanish occupy the two bedrooms in the charming basement. The first floor hosts the men folk in the chartreuse living while the second floor secludes a mother soothing a little girl who is busy fighting her bedtime. On the second floor is my favorite room, a big open drawing room with formal furniture interspersed with easels and paints and a massive wooden dollhouse scattered with upturned furniture affecting a look that the dolls have been robbed.

The third floor finds me in the bathroom whose floors are the color of a mouse’s back submerged in an ancient porcelain tub overlooking the deep back garden that blooms with blue, white and pink hydrangeas. The fourth floor is where The Husband and I will sleep and where Baby G snoozes in an enchanting pale yellow bed recessed into the wall and papered with Beatrix Potter wall print. His angelic face looks as if he fell asleep staring at the glass and porcelain rabbits and other special treasures that sit atop the frilly mantle over the tiny coal-burning fireplace.

The fifth floor, which is really only six steps higher than the fourth floor is the very best room of all, an original Victorian room whose elaborate trim work and fireplace have been doused in deep pink paint and decorated with a hot pink chandelier that only a pre-teen girl could love.

The two primary school girls sit on the floor around a low square table and paint, an activity forbidden in my house, which is not nearly as nice or valuable as Irish House. Directly behind the children under a low skylight is a fabric-covered table holding a sewing machine. Next on the agenda the girls will sew bathrobes for their plush animals. Throw in some Hello Kitty tiny colored pencils and I would give my eyeteeth to be eight-years old again.

Plunged in goose feathers encased by supreme cotton printed with baby pink flowers, I close my eyes and drift into peaceful sleep on the twin bed that parallels The Husband’s twin bed. Tomorrow when I wake up, the dream will be over.
***************************************************************

On an unrelated note, I wrote this piece listening to the Scissor Sister’s Filthy Gorgeous. For a good time, do a quick download and have yourself a good time.