The Fishermans Cottage
A sea breeze amongst the peppermint trees in a 1960's fishermans cottage.
The old key turns in the lock, you can hear it click before the door swings open with a groan.
Salt water in the air is to blame for the rusting of the metal and swelling of the wood.
It’s dark and cold inside.
But it’s also dry.
And the first priority is to light a fire.
Wind howls through the shack as rain starts to pelt the tin roof.
Another storm blowing in from the south.
There will be no fish today.
Perhaps tomorrow though, the lady of the sea will bless us with her bounty.
Do you ever find yourself in an old house and wonder about all the people who lived here before?
Who put a key in the lock and turned the door knob?
How many dinners were cooked on the hearth?
Whos tiny feet ran through the hallway?
How many hot nights were spent trying to sleep on the porch?
How many low conversations were had by the fire in the depths of winter?
Who stayed here, for how long, and what brought them here?
If the walls could talk, what stories would they tell?
I recently found myself wondering all of these things in an old fisherman’s cottage overlooking the vast Indian Ocean.
Could you imagine spending time in a cottage like this, writing stories about the people who wandered these halls and tended to the kitchen? I’d love to spend time doing that, one day.
The dunes here used to be covered in little cottages like this one. Some housing fisherfolk, but many also housed young families and nomads. Almost all of the shacks are gone now, some of them are buried under the sand dunes.
But up here, on the hill, amongst the peppermint trees, a few of the shacks remain.
They’re simple, rustic, many parts unchanged.
A timestamp from the 1960’s.
An opportunity for me to daydream about a time since past.
