This week: a clearer view
‘Windows and Doors,’ I tell my Year 10 class, ‘are often highly symbolic in literature.’ We’re reading Jekyll and Hyde. Chapter One is called The Story of the Door; the title to Seven is Incident at the Window. Told you so.
I remind them that windows often symbolise seeing through into a different time, place or dimension. Similarly, doors can represent crossing a threshold – be it metaphorical or physical. Think Aldous Huxley, Lewis Carol or C.S.Lewis.
Over at The Shack in West Lulworth, we are starting to see into a different world for sure. We may even be verging on crossing a threshold. ‘You now have a front door!’ Will the Builder tells us via WhatsApp. It may not sound particularly exciting to the impartial ear, but it’s a gamechanger for us. No-more long treks around the outside of the building to a hole in the wall when you just want to feed the cat or grab a towel off the airer. This oft-trodden journey has become highly irritating – not least if it’s pissing down and you’re wearing nothing but cacks and flip-flops. Now we have a big, chunky proper entrance with a triple-lock and posh glass panels either side. Upon first seeing it there, I spend a full ten minutes gawping. ‘Look,’ I exclaim to my wife; ‘it opens and closes and everything!’
You should never underestimate a window ledge
The windows are in too – smart black frames and single-pane ‘tilt and turn’ affairs that you can swing open like a great big door. We’ve spent the nights of a recent heatwave with our huge bedroom windows fully open, letting the outside in. As the valley drops away in front of us, we look onto a canopy of trees; it feels something like sleeping in a treehouse. Our builders are starting to put window ledges in too. You should never underestimate a window ledge: more than once, I’ve absent mindedly gone to throw my glasses down, only to hear them slithering down the inside of a wall cavity where one has yet to be fitted.
In other news, the plasterers have returned. These guys are like modern samurai: they weave an air of mysticism with their niche skills and limited availability. When we leave in the morning they have yet to arrive; when we return, they’ve already vanished in a cloud of white dust. I would question their very existence if not for the fact that, also like the samurai, they leave carnage in their wake – carnage in the form light grey smears across every exposed surface.
They’ve plastered The Boy’s room – and he was also the first to be gifted a window ledge. He’s opening and closing his new window as if he’s trying to fan a fart out his room, and I’m fearful that the mechanism will be broken before we’ve even had time to register the guarantees. Whilst waiting for the plastering to dry overnight, though, he has been shipped out to what will be the spare room. He then declares that he prefers the spare room to the one we’d allotted him. Declaring it officially his, he moves the garden table in as well to make a point. This is not the plan. It is a lovely room, but it has French windows – the idea being that any guests staying overnight have their own little entrance onto what we hope will be a private courtyard. While we wouldn’t want to deprive The Boy of these features, we wonder if some of the aesthetics might be lost on his twelve-year-old sensibilities.
I go to tell him that, in no uncertain terms, the relocation is just a temporary measure; that the room is to be kept for our guests and will not be permanently subjected to his slovenly pre-teen habits. He must return to the room we’d originally set aside for him. But my wife holds me back. ‘Don’t say anything!’ she implores. ‘If you tell him he can’t have it, it’ll be the one thing he wants.’
She’s right of course. Kids.
Channelling ambivalence
So I saunter over to the spare room, channelling ambivalence. ‘I’m glad you’ve chosen this room,’ I say casually. ‘We were actually thinking that this room would be a better fit for you. The other one has a much cosier feel for any guests that might stay.’ I cock a sly eye his way. ‘In fact, we were thinking of making it part bedroom, part snug. No – you make yourself comfy on this room with your lovely French windows. I know you won’t mind people and the occasional pet passing through to get in and out at the side of the house once in a while. It’s all yours, son.’
The Boy rolls his eyes. ‘Dad: I know what you’re trying to do,’ he says. ‘You actually taught me how to do this when I was nine? Remember? When me and my cousin were arguing over green straws and blue straws. If you want the green straw, tell her you want the blue one; then the blue one will be the one she really really wants.’ He spins around on his heels. ‘I’m still having the room with the French windows, thanks.’ I take my reverse psychology card from my back pocket – well-worn, truth be told – and tear it into a thousand tiny pieces.
In the meantime, we wait with increasing impatience for our internal doors. Internal doors mean no more whispering in every room at nighttime for fear of keeping The Boy awake. Internal doors mean no more loud whistling in the khazi, for fear of being stumbled upon mid-ablution.
The final ‘windows and doors’ segway remains the big sliding doors that will reveal the glorious view from our main living area. While we wait for the planning consultation period and permission from Dorset Council, we make do with the original blown units that offer tiny glimpses, through a mist of condensation, of what will be. For a while, these were analogous to our shaky grasp of the building’s potential. Thankfully, a few months on, our resolve and the builders’ tenacity has made this vision much clearer.
Reader, we are getting there.
©Craig Ennew 2025
- New Year’s Eve, Lulworth Cove
- Coincidence?
- St Oswald’s Bay, Jurassic Coast
- Autumn at The Fells
- West Lulworth, Dorset
- Thirty-Eight: Two Legs Good, Eight Legs Bad
- Sherborne, Dorset
- Thirty-Seven: In for the Long Haul
- Petronas Towers, KL, Malaysia
- Batu Caves, KL, Malaysia
- Chinatown, KL, Malaysia
- Thirty-Six: All Going East!
- Redang Beach Resort, Malaysia
- Coral Island Resort, Redang
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Thirty-Five: A Farewell to the Close
- Thirty-Four: Windows and Doors
- The Boat Shed Cafe, Lulworth Cove
- The Fells, West Lulworth
- Thirty-Three: Old Friends
- Moreton, near Dorchester
- Thirty-Two: Bottled Up
- Lulworth Cove, Dorset
- Thirty-One: Another One Fights the Dust
- The Fells, West Lulworth: BBQ with a view
- Lulworth Cove: our first night
- Leaving Worth Vegas!
- Thirty: Channelling Alan
- The Garden of ‘The Shack’, West Lulworth, Dorset
- Twenty-Nine: Worth its Weight in Gold
- From the Cove looking towards Portland Bill, West Lulworth
- Twenty-Eight: Schools for Thought
- Dancing Ledge, Purbeck
- Bridport, Dorset
- West Bay, Dorset
- Arne RSPB Nature Reserve, Dorset
- Moors Valley Country Park, Dorset
- Twenty-Seven: Spring Forwards, Fall Back
- Twenty-Six: The Square and Compass
- Twenty-Five: About a Boy
- Twenty-Four: The ‘A’ Word
- The Priest’s Way, Swanage
- Twenty-Three: Why did the chicken jump on the trampoline?
- Twenty-Two: The Shape of Sundays
- Twenty-One: Who’s Gonna Drive You Home?
- Twenty: Keep the Change, Ya Filthy Animal
- Nineteen: A Fork in the Road
- Wareham, Dorset
- Eighteen: Elephants and Coat-hangers
- Seventeen: There is a Light…
- Sixteen: Twas the Night Before Christmas
- Fifteen: Christmas in Limboland
- Fourteen: Goodbyes
- Thirteen: Jumping at the Cupboard Knobs
- Twelve: When Good Neighbours Become Good Friends
- Eleven: A Cackle of Hyenas
- Ten: Turning the Page
- Durdle Door, Dorset
- Nine: A Wait on Our Minds
- Eight: Clouds on the Horizon
- Seven: The Naked Man Story
- Six: All Pets are Off
- Five: Space Exploration
- Four: Bungalows and Builders
- Three: Bland Designs
- Two: Killing Pianos
- One: Funky Little Shack
All Going South 
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