Pie in the Ground

Early on in lockdown, on one of those warm, sunny spring days, we were all sitting together in the garden having lunch. 

I can't remember who first looked over to the tumbledown shed in the corner (I had earmarked the space for my shepherd's hut when we first viewed the house, but David Cameron got there first and he doesn't appear on the list of people who I would want to share dreams with) but someone remarked on it. 

The idea of a replacing a leaky building that even the cat shunned on a wet day was born.

'I could have a dance studio!' cried Gertie.

'No - it would have to be a gaming room with a PlayStation.'

'And a chumfy sofa.'

'It would definitely be a spare room for when guests come to stay,' I said firmly - not realising then that people would not be 'staying' anywhere but at home for the forseeable future.

'A bar!' said Hearth Father, with a resounding lip smack, eyes alight.

It seemed that we all had a plan. Except that none of us did. Not really. It was all pie in the sky. (An expression, the origin of which incidentally, I had to look up: From the lyrics of a song called The Preacher and the Slave by Joe Hill in 1911, itself parodying a hymn promising heavenly reward after death. Now used to refer to something pleasant to contemplate but unattainable or unrealistically Utopian.)

And there were so may things in the way of it ever happening. Actual, big things - like an enormous beech tree, a brick wall and the aforementioned dilapidated shed. 

Yet somehow, from those idle words, seven months later 'Saplings' has risen from the ground. It comes complete with dance floor, games console and sofa (that becomes a bed for guests, when at some still far distant point in the future we are able to have such things again).

Tree surgeons, diggers, accidents with ancient walls - all are now a distant memory. 

Hours of impressive work from Hearth Father - groundwork, carpentry, building, roofing, landscaping - with much-welcomed support from good friends have helped the project come to fruition in late Autumn.

He just forgot one thing - his bar.

Cheers!

Currently Reading: A Portrait of a Lady by Henry James