Of course, I'm not alone in that. Our revered Spin Doctor in Chief, David Cameron, has been hinting about intervention in Libya, or possibly unilaterally declaring a no fly zone, forgetting that to do that you have to take out the ground radar and surface to air missiles first. Hmmmm. That's not good is it? Fortunately the Arab League has told everyone to keep their noses and guns out. This is an Arab affair and nobody else's business. And so it is. That hasn't stopped our fevered media gunning for an all out conflict to throw out yet another despot. Well it's worked so well in Iraq hasn't it?
Gadaffi falls into the category of 'bad dictator' so why we've been doing business with him I don't know. Anyone remember Tony Blair's ethical foreign policy. Some may say you need a moral compass before you can have an ethical policy of any sort. I hope the rebels win, and Gadaffi goes, but it is indeed a Libyan affair and any interference by the UK, or indeed other former colonial power will only make matters worse on a broader canvas. I'm using Twitter to keep up with the latest goings on from the ground, but it's any body's guess at this stage at the outcome. A couple of weeks ago Libya ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT CHANGE ITS LEADERSHIP. So who knows.
This is our cottage in Buckhurst Hill.
We bought it without too much thought. It was near the school The Boy was moving to at the age of 11. In fact that was the only criteria. It was the only property we looked at one weekend. It then took nigh on six months to complete, which meant our target of moving in before he changed school was missed. The poor lad had to commute first from Borough High St (London Bridge) and then Finsbury Park to Woodford Green for a month. But in we moved. Then I realised we had no furniture (the previous place had been rented out furnished). So for another six weeks we sat on the floor.
The first thing that had to change was the dark blue that oppressed the living room. We put down lovely wood, and on the advice of a friend who writes for Wallpaper magazine, left the York Stone fireplace. I hated it, but freely admit to being a fashion victim. Anyway, then it looked like this:
It had a lovely garden if you don't like gardening. We had some fabulous barbecues in it. Indeed, the summer of 2008 must have been a good one because we seemed to eat outside every night.
We did three more things. We removed the artex from the walls of the stairway and upper hall, put down oatmeal (that's beige to you and me) carpets and replaced the back door with a stable-style door. It was complete just as The Boy was getting bigger than me, and frankly it was getting a bit cramped for us both. But we loved it.
Then last year, we effectively abandoned it. We moved to Loughton to share a home with The Cat's Mother and The Cat. Our cottage was left and almost forgotten, but was always somewhere for us to retreat to if it all went wrong.
Well it hasn't all gone wrong, and at the turn of the year we decided to rent it out rather than let it go to rack and ruin. So we've had a few traumatic weeks of emptying it. Do you know how difficult it is to give away stuff like furniture you don't want? Nigh on impossible. But just before we went on holiday it was empty and ready for new tenants. I hope they love it as much as we did. For us there's no going back.