Finally Morningstar

The last week slowed down after Wednesday, when we finished cleaning Barnsfield - oh, it was pristine, immaculate, beautiful by the time every cupboard had been cleaned, the windows sparkling and the grass freshly mowed.

The last of the furniture had gone to the charity shop, even my grandmother's super heavy lead-lined trunk. I felt a little pang, but glad it had not just gone to be recycled. It must have been, conservatively, at least seventy years old, returning with my grandparents from India when my grandfather retired from Government Service at independence. Or, perhaps, it accompanied my grandmother in 1920 when she went out by ship to meet and marry my grandfather. But that is another story, and I have kept another piece of family history, a similar cedar trunk with my grandfather's initials on, which sits, where it has done in every house since it has been in my possession, in the hallway.

The pot plants were moved. The garage swept clean. Last photos taken.

And we got up at 4am one day to go to fetch the motorhome. We had travelled only a few yards when we had to pause: the lane was blocked by the poo truck, visiting the neighbours:

Only in Guernsey.

And there, in the background, is the large field we would walk across to the garden, searching for orchids, and 'our' trees, the Leylandii which blew over in the winter storms and were generous with firewood.

No longer our home, but the sunrise at Morningstar an hour earlier had heralded promise of a new and different life...and with it, roses...