What follows is a short story from Rosemary’s past. After talking with her, I have taken our discussion and turned it into a series of small stories highlighting the incredible life that she has led. Direct quotes from our discussion are highlighted in quotation marks. All else is a retelling written by yours truly.
When the lovely couple downstairs moved out it was decided rather quickly that Rosemary and Bill should buy that share of the building. After all, they were social people and always had friends over. But with so many people and only one bathroom for two storeys it wasn’t the easiest jigsaw puzzle to manage.
Unfortunately, buying the rest of the house meant having to take down the wall separating the two homes.
Builders were brought in. But it was a big job. Not only was there the wall to remove but a bathroom or two to be added. And a few other walls were to be knocked down to make things a little roomier. And a proper kitchen had to be built downstairs. The original one had been a few smaller rooms, including a room for storing coal and one for storing tools for the garden. Why these rooms were part of the main house and not separate, Rosemary never knew. But they needed to go.
And the builders needed to install more electrical outlets. Rosemary was not about to try and hoover the whole house with only a few outlets around.
The work took eighteen months to be finished and during that time everything was very, very dusty. It seemed to get everywhere in the house. The family still lived at home and went about their busy lives. The children were growing up and now even their youngest was in school. There was always movement.
When the builders were finally finished Rosemary and Bill had ten bedrooms in total. They were also able to set up an arts and crafts/mess-making room, and a games room complete with table tennis table.
Now they had enough room to house as many guests as they wanted.
“It meant we could have visitors, which we did. Masses of them. And it was a nice place to live in but it was very big.”
It was very big. And something Rosemary wasn’t used to. Her and Bill had lived in nice houses in the past. The Perth house was nice. But this was big. And it took the farm girl some getting used to before she really settled in.
Having visitors helped. It was a joy for Rosemary and Bill to have people around and the house was never short of activity; not that activity was wanting when there were no guests. The family made sure of that.
Now the old Victorian house was really turning into a proper home.
Stay tuned for more stories from the life of Rosemary. Please note: these stories will not necessarily hold any chronological grounding. They are designed as snippets of understanding into the life of Rosemary and while some will hold chronology, others may not.