Day 6: Our home

The front of our house

I thought today I'd tell you a little bit about the house we're living in. It is a four-bedroomed house with an open courtyard in the middle which has a small fountain in it. There is a garden with some living plants in it but also plenty of dying or dead ones (Saïd is supposed to maintain the garden but I'm not sure this is his forte! He, like most Moroccans it seems, prefers to hose down all the different levels of courtyard every day rather than actually water the grass and flowers!) Along the length of the kitchen/diner/lounge which form one room are floor to ceiling windows as mentioned previously - from here we can view fields and distant mountains...wonderful. (Last night there was even a faint dusting of snow on the highest mountains!)

Me on my balcony

The bedrooms are very rustic with traditional tiled floors and windows set just below ceiling level with wooden shutters. The two main bedrooms have small balconies which look out onto the garden and trees beyond -  they remind me of my favourite Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet. They have rubber sheeting on the outside which can be drawn at night to keep out early morning light and ikea-style tab top curtains on the inside. I love my balcony, so romantic. None of the rooms have much furniture - this is the berber way. There are twin beds, bedside tables, a wooden desk with two chairs, and an open hanging space for a few clothes, that's it! Our bedroom is ensuite - we have a beautiful cast iron roll-top bath with a shower above (the head of which is massive!) and also a typical Moroccan-style stand-alone shower with a view of the garden.

Our bathroom

What I like about it is that even though this all sounds idyllic, the reality is that the whole place is very rustic and not at all posh in any way: doors hang awkwardly, some of the windows have glue stuck to them (which obviously dripped when they were being installed and nobody thought to clean it off - and is now therefore a permanent fixture), the tables are wonky and generally it is all very 'shabby-chic'. I do like our bamboo ceilings though where Gertie has kept herself well-hidden since our first meeting - and I've always wanted a house with wooden shutters on the windows. Now I have it - for three months anyway!