My dream house.

I had the dream again last night. In it, I am trying to make sense of a house that’s too small and cramped. It's awful. We have to move.

And then suddenly I discover a false wall, or a door I never noticed. Once it led to an entire empty floor above the one we lived in. Another time, an acre of land.

It always feels like a revelation.

Last night it was a tiny room behind a false wall.

What else is this house hiding? I wondered.  Stepping through another door, I found a vast space made of stone, like the ruin of an old chapel, sixty feet high.  Beyond this wonderful space was a narrow cobbled street with a row of shops I had somehow missed for ten years.  A bike shop, a book shop….and just beyond…the sea!

This was miraculous.  I followed the road down a bit more and came across a branch of John Lewis. Practically next door. Oh joy and rapture!

I hated to wake up from my discovery that the house wasn’t too small after all, but full of potential and interest and just next door to all the things I love.  (No horses? Asked my husband incredulously.  But no, no horses.)

I started writing again this week after a long and frightening logjam that seemed to last forever.

My dream always tells me the same thing: There are more spacious and wonderful places to go than you ever realized. Even when you can’t find them, they’re there.  Waiting.