Whenever I can’t sleep, or I’m sad, or a combination of the two, I poke my partner in the ribs and ask him to talk about Lottery House with me.
(I hasten to add he has said multiple times he’s okay with me waking him up, and even then I won’t do it much past when he’s actually fallen asleep.)
Lottery House is, obviously, the house we will design and build when we win the lottery. It can’t be very far off now, with the Euromillions at an obscene amount for Tuesday’s draw. In Lottery House, Brexit is not a worry and Covid is over.
The first thing, says he, is to decide where we’re going to build it. Maybe the Scottish Highlands? We love nature, I have family there, land is a bit cheaper. It’s rainy, sure, but I like the rain - atmospheric Marianne Dashwood that I am.
What are we going to have in the house? I ask, huddled under a warm duvet and peering up at him while a pillow corner tries to get in my eye. We need a library, obviously.
Obviously, he agrees. A library with a mezzanine and a huge fireplace where the cat can flop himself in cold winter months, writing-desks and a hot chocolate tap. But wait, where’s your writing office going to be?
This is easy, because I read about the ideal shape of my office in The Little White Horse, years and years ago. It’s in a turret, right--
--so this is a castle we’re building?--
--maybe, I haven’t decided. Shush. Okay. So it’s in a turret, the highest room of the tallest tower, and I have a desk for research with my laptop and reference books and a smaller, Wes Anderson green desk that just has my notes and my typewriter, a pen and one of those green and gold lamps they use in posh libraries.
A pause. I readjust to see him frowning, deep in thought, at the ceiling. The ceiling we haven’t painted yet despite making those grand plans back in the summer.
We’d need a kitchen island.
In my office?
No. The kitchen, obviously. Maybe two ovens, he suggests as he rolls over to face me and hug me more securely against him. For when we host Christmas at our massive Highlands castle.
That would work, I reply. My sister is a veggie, after all.
The chat about Lottery House generally goes in the same direction… we don’t have to work anymore, so I can concentrate on getting some novels finished and, in this universe, automatically published. He either TAs at the local school or runs a fencing academy, potentially in the grounds of this mansion we’re building ourselves.
The next morning, when we wake up, nobody’s won the money.
Links:
Romancing the Runoff | New York Times Books
If you don’t know who Stacey Abrams is, she’s a lot of the reason Georgia went to Biden in the US election. She’s also Selena Montgomery, a romance author. Her fellow romance authors have come together to raise money supporting Georgia Democrats in the fight for the Senate.
How to cook deadly blowfish | The Guardian
Y’know. In case you wanted something different for Christmas dinner this year.
'Underwhelming' Christmas tree put up for 100th year | BBC
This is quite a sweet story, really, about a wonky-ass Christmas tree and its journey through several generations. It reminds me of a very sad children’s book I sold when I was at Waterstones that to this day makes me cry.