Red letter day

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a girl who lived in a big city.  She wasn't very happy in the city, despite her big job and her little pots of gold that her big job brought her.  Everyone around her was Settling Down, so she decided she needed a Place of Her Own.  A safe place that she could retreat to when it all got too much.  She bought such a place, a place looking out on to trees and sky.  She loved this place.

But after a time, when she'd thought and thought about things, she was brave enough to venture forth from her safe place into the wide world.  She allowed other people to come and live in this place instead.  She travelled and had adventures.  From time to time she would return to her safe place to make sure it was still there if she needed it.  And then one day, she came to visit the safe place, and the sight of other people's things, their pictures on the walls, their cups in her cupboards, made the girl realise that she had left the safe place for good.  She still owned the place, but it wasn't hers anymore.  And then she thought  that maybe she might not need it after all.

Time passed.  The girl met a boy, and they had adventures together in other places.  She took the boy to see her safe place and he loved it.  But somehow she couldn't see them being there together.  So she decided to let go of her safe place for good.  After much to and fro, and lots of this and that, she has passed the safe place onto someone else.  Today, she is home free.

And she knows just where she wants to put the pot of gold she was given in exchange.  A place by the sea.  Not balmy and warm, but bracing and exhilarating.  Where the trees and the sky give way to waves and weather.  She and the boy will live happily ever after there.  She knows it.

C.x