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.
After three months of living in a hotel, Rosemary and Bill finally moved into their new home. When they were searching for a place to call their own they came across a unique challenge. All the houses were either too small for a family of their size, or too big. In effect, they were looking for the Goldilocks of houses.
Then one day the realtor called. Bill was away on business and so Rosemary went over to check the house. The children must have been in school or something. It isn’t often, Rosemary tells me, that she gets words from God, but this was one of those times. As she walked up the stairs she felt God tell her this was the one. This was to be their family home.
“I just felt a great peace about this house which I hadn’t about any of the others we’d looked at.”
So she told Bill, they went to see it, and they decided to buy it. It was a big old Victorian house, perfect for them. They moved in as quickly as possible. The house was actually two. Downstairs was occupied by a lovely elderly couple who used to work in Pakistan but had moved back to Britain after retiring. Upstairs was once a hotel, or at least Rosemary guessed as such given all the numbers above the rooms.
It was… interesting. A lovely place but complete with a few quirks. Outside of the kitchen there was just one plug. That was it. So hoovering the whole house was a nightmare. The washing machine worked, but Rosemary had to fill it with a hose and she may or may not have run off to do something else while it was filling – she had six kids! – and she may or may not have overflowed the washing machine a few times.
The downstairs neighbours were brilliant. They were like grandparents to the kids and Rosemary and Bill got on with them swimmingly. But truth be told it was probably a little hard on the retired couple, having a bunch of children running around upstairs, shaking the whole house. Not to mention the ever-looming possibility of the drip, drip, drip of the overflowing washing machine.
They did, in the end, move out. Although it should be said, not out of malice, and Rosemary kept in touch with them for some time afterwards.
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.