Corner of the "Garden", aka back yard
The attraction of French property is that you get so much more space for your money: and French provincial houses seem to be built on a larger footprint in any event. Moving back to a house that is 40% of the size has taken some getting used to. But I remain amazed by the ability of the human brain and psyche to adapt - and after three months I am so used to our smaller house that I have stopped making comparisons.
You don't need to be aware of the latest discoveries of neuroscience to know that the decision to buy a house is made by the subconscious. There is that "click" that happens when you walk into the right place. In the case of the Shoebox, the click did seem to fly in the face of sense. I am 65, and enjoy cooking and gardening: the Shoebox offers me a kitchen the size of a cupboard and a garden that is no more than a back yard. What is more, at a time when my contemporaries are thinking (rather unnecessarily, I feel) of transferring to single storey dwellings, we have moved to a house on four floors.
So why did we do it? For two main reasons. First, the location. We are on raised ground, in the lee of the East Hill. This means we can stroll into the centre of the Old Town in two minutes in one direction, while in the reverse direction and in more or less the same amount of time we can be in the wide open space of the Country Park. Secondly, the light. The light in Hastings is hard and glittering when the sun comes out - as it does quite a lot. The sea is always changing colour. And each of our rooms other than the cupboard kitchen has windows on two walls, so this wonderful light just pours in, while we look out onto fabulous views of the Old Town and the sea..
Meanwhile the kitchen is to be totally rejigged, which I am looking forward to. And the garden - well, I'm still getting used to that. However, if we are in one sense reduced, there are already a lot of compensations. The subconscious is rarely wrong.
Antony Mair
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