When I woke this morning it seemed like any other day. The sun was shining. I liked that. The boys were mischievous. I liked that too. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then I remembered: Today we get the keys to our new house.
Our new house is on a narrow street in Montpelier. When we arrived it felt like coming home, which it is in a way. The area’s old streets are more suited to horses and people than cars, regardless of the lines on the roads. Montpelier undulates up a hillside, at the top of which Cromwell once stood directing cannon fire onto the city during the civil war. It was market gardens then. It was, according to local legend, given its name by prisoners of the Napoleonic wars who said it reminded them of Montpellier in France. In Bristolian Montpelier, sandstone-faced Georgian houses sit next to ancient cottages and Victorian terrace town houses. Our house is one of the latter. More square than usual, on one of the lower streets, with a grape vine, a pear tree, and a passion fruit bush in the garden.
Number 172 is special for a few reasons. It’s the first house we’ve bought. Years ago, when friends were busy being career super-heros and I was busy being a itinerant vagabond I wondered if I would ever put down roots . They were buying houses. I was off to Australia on a whim, or living in The Seychelles, or running a stall on Brixton market for the summer playing French hip-hop and selling sunglasses. Until today I’ve always rented places. I fell in love with some. I fell out with others. I was always moving around and moving on. No longer!
Another reason is that this marks a return to Montpelier. An area I fell in love with when I first came to Bristol in 2000. Artists, musicians, film-makers all paint the walls, eat a lot of organic food, smile a lot, and generally act as a band-aid on the wound of capitalism lest the world forget that life is much, much more than paying bills and buying Apple gear. Architects, hippies, designers and fiends also live here. It’s an oasis of difference: From Herbert’s Bakery to Saj’s grocers; from veggie breakfasts at The Bristolian to the friendly smell of weed in The Cadbury garden and deli feasts from Licata’s; Montpelier is special. I’m glad to be home.
The final reason, and most important of all to me, is the most prosaic. This is ours. A family home that we own. It feels different. A calm kind of contentment.
As I sit writing this, the day is quickly coming to a close, and I wanted to mark the moment. As the States celebrate their independence, we’ve celebrated our own in a small way. I took some pictures. It was a wonderful day.
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