Views from my House.

When I bought my house, I bought it for the windows. I realise now that in all the houses I looked round, I went straight to the windows. My views are my serenity, my space to think, my thinking time. They lift my heart, allow my soul to fly. At nights, I'm surrounded by fairyland lights of houses across the valley, lit by star patterns and watched over by the moon. When I wake in the night and look out upon my back garden, I see constellations of ox-eye daisies, and garlands of white clematis, glowing in the dark.

By day, each window tells a different story. From the living room, I look into a secret world of bird feeders hidden inside flowering shrubs. I see squirrels leaping, a rainbow of birds feeding on nuts and seeds.
From the sunroom, I watch gulls, jackdaws and pigeons soaring over the valley, perching on roofs and phone wires, thrushes bathing in the bird bath, foxes wandering at dusk.

From the dining room I watch the sun rise behind the conifers, making my climbing roses blush, painting colours into the morning, and by night I watch badgers searching for slugs and snails among the tomato tubs.
The kitchen window is cameo-framed with roses, passion flower and jasmine, and I watch robins and dunnocks in the holly tree.

The library windows look out at the front on an imported tree which I haven't identified, which spreads one branch to frame the view of the valley, and another like an arm protectively round the shoulder of the house. In it's branches, blackbirds sing, magpies, jays and starlings fight, greater spotted woodpeckers search the ivy, long tailed tits flit like musical notes. Sometimes, I catch the golden eye of a passing sparrow hawk, as it rests to observe the next stage of its journey.

At the side, I look out on an arch of pink roses, white jasmine and golden clematis, beneath which a Buddha statue waits with the frogs for me to excavate a pond filled in by previous owners. At the moment, the site is full of heathers, pink aquilegias and the tall nodding heads of comfrey flowers in front of a weeping willow. From this window I watch the sun setting over the hills.

The windows at the back of the house look out over a steep garden climbing the hill with winding flights of stone steps and terraces, a silver birch standing on the lawn as etherial as a shy bride, jays flying between dark yews and fruit trees, buzzards occasionally circling on thermals, kestrals hovering above the slopes, yellow laburnams and white and mauve lilacs.

On the roof, a cat watches the borders for lizards, a magpie peers in at me.
Yes, I definitely bought my house for its windows.