Long Goodbye

My house, with the green door frame leading into the kitchen, a step down to blue vinyl flooring. The high shelf of books in the living room, the uncarpeted stairs up from the kitchen, noisy, white-painted. The upper stairs with the dark blue carpet with red and yellow border. All the stripped pine doors, the quirky assortment of old doorknobs, the green and white tiles in the bathroom. The view across the road, up into the trees behind the allotments, shining dark in the rain, branches edged with white in the snow, all the birds that visit the hawthorn just across from the window. The fat blackbird L's been feeding every day with ham fat, and bread crusts, apple, dripping and crumbs! And the newly arrived blackcap who seems to rub along with the backbird, and the jackdaws, occasional visitors who see everyone off... The running milkman we hear every morning, thundering down the alley alongside the house at about 8 o'clock to deliver milk to our back neighbours. Our porch, with the walking boots on the shelf above the door which I can reach and L can't. Our two little rooms under the roof, with the dark beams and the velux windows. The view between salt-glazed chimney pots down into the valley.