“We need to talk about your behavior!” I shout. “I am so tired of these backhanded comments, I feel our relationship has denigrated to the point where it cannot be rescued, to the point where there is no justification for our feelings!” With that, I administer a slap to the pale flesh of the one I loved. I stand there, steaming and full of anger.
Angus looks stunned.
I don’t blame him-he has just walked in from going to the shops to find me screaming into the ass cavity of an enormous turkey.
“Are you ok?” he asks.
I have my sleeves pushed up to my elbows. I blow a loose strand of hair off my forehead. “It’s Joseph. I just can’t deal with this anymore.”
“Who’s Joseph?” he asks, shifting the shopping bag to his other arm.
“The turkey.” I say patiently. “We’ve been talking while you went to the shop. It started off well, while I removed any small pin feathers we talked about how things have been, his experience of Norfolk farm communities. But once I had to wrestle out the neck, it really went to hell. I just don’t like his company anymore. I don’t think our relationship is constructive anymore.”
Angus nods nervously. Joseph the Turkey and I continue our dialog of love lost with me shouting up his back passage, and when I finally slide him in the oven it’s with the knowledge that our relationship has truly run its course.
I find it fun, anyway.
Thanksgiving was Saturday. It went well, actually. I had overestimated the eating capacity of our 8 guests and bought a 10 kilo turkey (said Joseph, whose outer wrapper confirmed that he could feed up to 18 people. As long as I live, I shall never go hungry again!)
This is Joseph, after I had slapped him the final time and coated him with my traditional Thanksgiving basting.

We’d pre-set the table, with Angus’ homemade starters (hors d’ouvres) on the table (which we’d accidentally forgotten to include ourselves on, so we had to hastily set another couple of places). You can see our vintage French street sign on top of our cookbooks, as well as a chili pepper wreath on the wall.

I served homemade biscuits, which caused much distress.
“I’m serving biscuits.” I told Angus, my arms covered in flour.
“Cookies? You’re serving cookies with dinner?” he asked, confused as “biscuit” means “cookie” in England.
“No. Biscuits.” I replied.
“What are biscuits?” he asked.
“They’re like bread rolls, only not bread rolls.”
“So they’re scones.”
“They’re not scones. Scones are sweet, these are biscuits.”
“So…what are biscuits?”
I despaired.
But the pride and joy of the evening was not our lucious dinner, but our living room (Angus calls it the lounge, which to me conjures up images of us swanning around in silk pajamas and paisley cravats a la Hugh Hefner). After we lost The Blackberries, we had to sign a new lease on this house for another year. We did so, but decided it was time to make this place a home, instead of a stopping point between selling a house and buying another.
We were full of dreams and decided that the industrial magnolia walls, the hallmark of a rented property, had to go. We would re-paint them back to industrial magnolia when we moved out, but for now, we wanted to make this place a home. We decided to paint the walls a light green shade called Wind Chime, and buy shelves which were painted a dusky purple color.
It took a week.
I painted.

No, I have no idea why I was standing on the ladder that way.
And Angus constructed.

And naturally we had lots of help.

Our Quality Assurance specialists inspected the new work carefully.

And after loads of effort

we got to the finishing touches.

And now we have a space that we are utterly in love with.

The shelves hold Angus’ old encyclopedias, pictures of us, DVDs, and dried artichoke flowers that Angus’ Mum gave me. On our Victorian pine box resides a Christmas moose we bought in Paris and a vase I filled with glass Christmas bulbs. On the wall are two small shelves we fill with candles to make the wall light up with warm light. An antique chamber pot holds scraps for the fire, and our TV hangs from the fireplace, out of the way now.

The other side also has dried flowers Angus’ Mum gave me, as well as a framed print from the London Underground in the 1940′s. The red star is a Christas candle from Paris, and our surround sound and satellite receiver lines the shelves above more DVDs. On the floor, an antique enamel pitcher and a side table we use to rest laptops, feet, or wineglasses on.
And on the wall behind our newly covered sofa, we hung three pictures I brought back from Sweden with me nearly a year ago, pictures that I love.


They read “Dream”, “Sanctuary”, and “Magic”.
Kind of like what this house is for me.
-H.