The Play House

We peered into the small arched windows of the Playhouse, a two-room replica of the mansion whose grounds it was on.

Kitty didn’t have to point out the tea set, I saw it right away, finding it as enchanting as she did. How I wanted to be able to open the door and sit on the child-sized Victorian fainting couch.

“Look at the stove and the books on the shelf,”  Kitty called from another window.

Pale green wood-paneled walls, pink table cloth, what looked like a working wood cookstove and books on a high shelf over the small table with a single chair.

The bright sunny sky, intensely green grass, and estate trees brought the outside in as I took a few photos.

I thought it better captured our yearning to be inside, going back in time in our minds, remembering what it would have felt like to be looking in those windows as children.

Next we walked through the autumn gardens of the historic mansion and ended up in a field on top of a hill with a wide-open view of the surrounding mountains.

Before the pandemic, Kitty and I would have met at the now closed, Round House Cafe in town.  Now we take walks.

It’s a perk of the pandemic finding new ways of getting together.  Although in the winter I know I’ll be craving the warm inside of a cafe with something hot to drink and sweet to eat, my friend actually sitting across from me instead of on a screen.

But we’re not there yet.  Perhaps we’ll find those stray warm days between the cold ones to get together.  It will become something to look forward to, take advantage of and appreciate.