My favourite place in the world is my office, well when I say office I mean my bedroom. It is a large room split down the middle by filing cabinets. An alcove just inside the door houses my beautiful dressing table, an old piece of furniture given to me by an elderly neighbour several houses ago. This table is home to a glass dressing table set and several small glass and enamel perfume bottles collected from junk and charity shops over the years. It’s drawers are full of magical tubes and compacts in every colour of the rainbow, the tools of my war against time. On the wall, a picture of Audrey Hepburn circa Breakfast at Tiffany’s, my favourite film and an actress that inspires me.
Slotted into the small space behind the filing cabinets (this space being a very much smaller half of the room) is my bed, a wonderful medley of White linen, assorted cushions and stuffed toys. A heap of books and magazines line the side nearest the wall. Books that I have read form a pile that doubles as a door stop and as I read 3 or 4 books a week this pile gets quite tall before they are slotted in alphabetical order on to the book shelves downstairs or passed on to friends and charity shops. I love books from Mills & Boon to Chekov to business manuals, they all have a place in my collection.
And so the space between the cabinets and the window, the place where I spend so much of my time …. My office. In front of the window an oval antique dinning table (my desk)looks out over the streets. I say streets because we live on the corner of a crossroads and from my desk I can see in several directions. My portal to the outside world is dressed in layers of white voile and on the sill sits a frame containing my eldest sons Oath of Allegiance to the Queen. On the desk sits pen pots made by small hands, photos and other trinkets that have no value other than making my heart sing. In amongst them are my laptop and printer. This is where I write this is where I feel complete. When I write my soul breathes and the world becomes clear. There is also a shelf of filing trays and a much larger modern desk usually covered in pages of A3 and sharpies, this is where I do my campaign boards and I must just mention my big swivel chair, a birthday present from my grandson and very much kinder to my bottom than the chair I was using.
As I sit in bed writing this post and drinking tea, I can’t see my office space, the backs of the cabinets are decorated with family pictures and a print of pink roses. So it is here that I end my day and this post. The space on both sides of the cabinet are my sanctuary, a place of creativity of reflection and of peace. The kind of peace that comes from being where your heart is.
