sent from: London, UK. destination: Bombay, India |
I have a house in California.
It’s not as evocative as “I had a farm in Africa”, but it teases the imagination, evoking postcard images of the desert-surrounded modernist marvel, the oceanside cliff-top structure, the palm-fringed faux-roman mansion, the elegant restored Victorian townhouse beside a city park.
Mine is none of those things; a modest cottage nestled in a bowl of pine and madrone with an orchard of fruit trees atop where once ran a small river that the earliest neighbourhood inhabitants would play in. It remains the oldest house I’ve ever lived in, despite being in a US state that prides itself on newness and re-invention. This may surprise people who think Europe, where I now live, is nothing but ancient castles and medieval alms-houses.