The Cottage Smallholder

This is a three bedroom cottage. The smallest one is only accessible through our bedroom. It is not the standard Pink or Blue Room found in so many country houses. The name alone sets ours miles apart from any other bedroom. We tend to forget this when we casually refer to this room. I’ve spotted the nervous glances. Perhaps our visitors imagine that they’ll be sleeping in a room lined with cages and a thousand bright eyes sparkling though the gloom.

My sister lived here for a few months, between houses and this was her bedroom. When it rained and the wind blew horizontally, water collected in one of the walls. After a few days there was always an overpowering smell of rotting rat. My sister christened it The Rat Room. My pal Tony repaired the wall and all was well. The name stuck.

After my sister moved away, it was transformed into my study. It’s a lovely room overlooking the garden, with mansard ceilings and so well soundproofed that it’s like stepping into a tiny separate world. It has the big worktables from my London studio and a very plush chair that was tailor made for me when my back started to play up from endless hours propped on a typist’s chair that my ex husband had pulled out of a skip.

The Rat Room changed hands again, three years ago. It is now Danny’s domain. Swapping this prime rural office environment for the kitchen table was a bit of a wrench. Danny’s company sometimes lets him work from home and he needed space away from recalcitrant Min Pins and the distracting clatter of the average cottage smallholder day.

Broadband and a company mobile have given Danny a freedom undreamt of five years ago. He could be working from a tepee in the Tesco car park, no one would know. I did suggest this option but he’d had his eye on The Rat Room for years.

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