Over breakfast this morning Chris was talking excitedly about his plans, not only for new paintings (he’s an artist too), once the work has been finished on our house, but also for a new workroom/studio. At present Chris’s workroom is the inner room of our old bedroom on the sea-side of the top storey; several years ago we divided the large room into two equal-sized smaller rooms by erecting a stud partition in the middle, therefore, in order to enter the workroom one must walk through the first bedroom. Chris intends to take over the larger bedroom on the same level at the other, colder side of the house for his new studio, thereby freeing up the inner room for use as another bedroom.

“Do you think it will be alright to keep the door as it is or should I build a lobby to separate the rooms?” Chris asked.

“Well, it will be used mainly by the kids when they come home so I don’t think they would mind.”

Chris looked relieved because a lobby would require more building work from him (and he’s been working on the house for ten years already).

I thought about the thickness (or rather the thinness) of the partition wall, and the fact that all our children have partners, and I wondered… My mind went back to the days when I was a young woman living in Australia – to Parker street – and to the sleeping arrangements when my sister and her husband and children came to stay with us. Our combined four children occupied the far bedroom; Mary and Geoff had the middle bedroom and my boyfriend and I were in our usual bedroom next to their’s.

“Young people don’t mind thin walls. We didn’t mind thin walls when I was young,” I said, “At Parker Street the walls were thin and we didn’t worry about it. Of course, you could hear everything… but the men used to yodel and we all used to laugh about it.”

“Yes, people were very open back then, they used to practically make love at parties in those days,” added Chris, nostalgically.

“And when I think of the barn just down the road from the Football Club…” I said wistfully.

“But yodelling?” Chris asked, bringing his attention back to Parker Street.

I nodded.

“At the same time?”

“Yep!”

Chris pretended to be shocked and I laughed like Calamity Jane (for the second time this morning) as I walked out to my studio. And now I must return to my painting and listen to the American voice on my Kindle device read me the last few chapters of “Sons and Lovers”. How apt! No yodelling so far.