So following on from my post about inspiration this was the next post I planned to share with you. The one where I had a revelation way back in the summer, in the midst of our renovations.

When we left Montaigu we left behind our big black American style fridge freezer. (It was the present I had given myself to recompense for leaving Selsea, the house that I loved so much). So when we moved here we did what so many of us do, we tried to recreate our old life in as many ways as possible.

Why do we do that?

Part of this was to buy another American style fridge freezer. I love it, in fact it is better than the one I had in Montaigu. But here is the thing: Our house is too small for it!!!

When we first moved here, we had it at the end of what we call our ‘back room’ from our kitchen.

It was a long trek to get the milk, I can tell you!! But still we persevered. I was not to be beaten!

Once the wall between the kitchen and hall was knocked through I came up with the absolute gem of a brainwave – did we really need the front door? Because this was the only place where our giant fridge freezer would fit in our small house. We both decided, in our wisdom, that no we could have another door cut into one of the main supporting walls in our house, a bit further along the now very small hallway that was left.

So we humped the huge fridge up to the front door, only to find that it was about 2ml too big. As I said, not to be deterred RD proceeded to chisel the plasterwork off around the door, and by hook or by crook the fridge was commandeered into place. All of this was taking place whilst RD had an infection growing in his system, from falling through the old kitchen worktop.

It’s funny how you look at things in a certain way, but they never work out that way. As the days progressed we came to realise that to really live in this house, without the huge expense of making it bigger, we had to go smaller. So we bought a small microwave, which I love. But all the millimeters were adding up, so we removed all the skirting, it will be replaced with plywood skirting; and the door frames, they will be replaced with ply wood doorframes. We were making all these plans whilst the great Megalith sat in the doorway of our front door.

Then one day I had a revelation. I sat at my desk and looked at the fridge and thought ‘What the fuck are we doing?’ It was just there.. that question. What were we doing to even contemplate leaving the fridge there and even contemplate the thousands of pounds it would cost us to have a new front door put into the wall – we may as well as had an extension. The answer was simple.. We had to buy a smaller fridge.

So that was exactly what we did!

The Megalith, that I do still love, it is a lovely fridge, now has a new home in the newly cleared out garage (that is slowly starting to fill up with cardboard boxes again. But that is a story for another day.)

I love my new fridge that now sits in our ever evolving small kitchen. But here is the thing that got me thinking…

Why do we hold on so tight to things? Things that are clearly not right for us? Why do we always try and recreate what we had? For me I found this even more shocking after moving to France and then to Ireland. I thought that I was able to let go, I thought I had let go. And yet here I was again trying to recreate instead of running headlong into the something new.

We have to let to, to grow.

We now have access to the front door again. The kitchen is in place, look out for the big reveal. There is still so much to do, but manageable things, and it will all come together. As we can afford it.

Rosie