thank-you, matchbox

Dear Matchbox

We move out of you today and into the luxury of the (more than one-roomed) cottage on The Wine Farm. I just wanted to thank you for being fab.

Thank you for showing the Hillratts that we can live in a tiny space. And for teaching us how to live in a tiny space. Stoffel and I always knew it might be important to tidy up after ourselves, put things away in particular places and have an actual organisation system, but we’d never quite got the practice of that theory right. It will be an awfully useful skill on a boat.

Thank you for coming with marvellous landlords, including: (1) a wonderful little girl with tight strawberry blonde curls, an open face and the most delicious way of dancing with excitement (particularly on sighting Stoffie); and (2) a sandy-blonde dog called Sparky who is Cowboy’s n.b.f.f.

Thanks for being in such a beautiful place. For having a gorgeous view of Lion’s Head and loads of sunlight in the afternoon. Thank you for being so close to a place where an actual albino squirrel lives.* I also particularly appreciate how I could virtually free-wheel down the road from you to  work, achieving an all-time-low consumption rate of 3l/100km by the time I hit the traffic lights at the corner of Orange street. That makes me feel awesome.

Thank you for feeling like home, even though you are nothing more than a little garden flat. It helped that you have fresh cotton sheets and beautiful crockery. Mostly, it helped that all three Hillratts could be together (Stoffel, Saartjie and Cowboy).

We’re going to miss you, Matchbox (especially me, when I’m stuck in traffic in the morning and the evening for the next month).

With love

S, S & C

PS: Oh! And thank you for not actually being the place where my keys were lost. While I am glad that they turned up in my Scissor’s car a month later, I am particularly chuffed that a space as small as you did not turn into a car-key vortex.

* I saw it again! This time I was close enough to see its pink eyes.