The cottage, photographed in 1991.

I ran over to the big plastic bag. Her long plastic legs with white shoes stuck right out from the top. “Mommy, she’s here,” I shouted as Daddy took the pram off the train. Mommy was carrying my baby brother and she found it difficult to keep up with me.

Then everything was green. I was surrounded by green. And more and more green. The walls of our new house were grey and stony and the roof was made of straw. Myself and Doll walked through a funny small wooden door. I secretly hoped that we were only here for a visit. Like our other houses. Everything was all very strange.

So, I decided to explore with my doll. I knew I was small! But this looked like a doll’s house to me. Not at all like our other houses! Well, maybe not! But still. I didn’t like it very much. The ceiling of our house was very strange. It had lots of long wood bits I could see through and a wooden staircase that disappeared into the straw. I heard Daddy say that was our attic. This was the best place to explore. So off I went, not only with Doll, but Panda as well.

I got there after much climbing. Doll and Panda took all my effort to get to the top. The long wood spread away into the distance. Then two stone walls and lots of straw. This seemed much bigger than downstairs. I jumped across each section of wood. Panda and Doll were very heavy and they almost fell through.

Over at the stone section I could see through the cracks in the wall. This would be a good place to use as my lookout over the new place we were visiting. I snook a peek out one of the cracks. There were some loose pieces of stone so I pushed them through with my finger. I thought I’d be able to see nearly as far as our first house. Daddy told me it was the other side of Ireland. But it was just terrible. There were no other houses around.

We had to be miles away from the other side of Ireland! I jumped over to the other wall, leaving Doll and Panda behind. I had to. What if we were the only house here and all the other people lived on the other side of Ireland? That would be a travesty!

The other stone wall also had a small crack. I squeezed my eye right into it. Then I saw it. Another stone house. With straw on top, the same as ours. But there were no other houses. Okay, it was a small travesty, but nonetheless a travesty.

I had to think about this with Panda and Doll. We all sat down. It was then I got the idea that if I pretended to be Doll and put on Doll’s dress, Mommy and Daddy could pretend Doll was me until our visit was over. I took off her dress and put it on. It was a bit tight, but it fitted. The dress was a bit hard, and I felt a little stiff in it. Just like the ballerinas. I was going to be one of them. Until I tried the dress on. Nah, it was too stiff. But for the visit it was okay. I put my clothes on Doll and then I took off her shoes, but they didn’t fit me. I couldn’t wear the dress without the shoes so I had to swap all our clothes back again.

Now, what was I to do? I could hear baby Ter crying.

Then I took the notion that if I cut open Panda and took out his stuffing that I could fit inside. No one would ever know it was me and I could pretend I was Panda. I stood Panda up against the wall and measured myself up against him. Just like I did with the clown hanging on the wall. The one called Mothercare. Panda was a little shorter than me. It would be a squeeze. Then I felt really bad as I looked at Panda’s eyes. I wouldn’t like anyone to cut me open and take out my stuffings. Even if they did keep them real safe, like I would with Panda’s.

Anyway, I was hungry. We all slowly bum-slid down the wooden stairs, Panda, Doll and me.

“Daddy, look what’s on the floor!”

I don’t think Mommy liked it because she screamed, “Daddy, get rid of it!”

I thought it looked strange, moving its body from side to side on the brown stone floor. It looked like a small dinosaur. I knew they were still alive no matter what anyone said! At least one lived in every mountain and hill. I was just glad that this one came from a small hill. If it was a mountain our new visiting house would have ended up in China and what would we do then? Mommy was holding on to baby Ter and running around the house. Maybe she knew something we didn’t know! Daddy saved the day. He picked it up. He said it was a lizard, but I knew he meant dinosaur. So, we burnt him. Daddy said it was cremated, but it looked like it was burnt to me. This was to make sure that it didn’t get as big as a mountain and come back and send us all to China. Then we were all hungry.

The following day Mommy, baby Ter and me went for a walk. Baby Ter was in his pram.

He was lucky he couldn’t walk, ‘cause it’s awfully sore on the legs. We walked for ages, until we got to another grey stone building. This one was smooth and tall with a normal roof, like all the houses on the other side of Ireland. It was next to another big white building with a cross on top of it. We never went there. I was glad, because it was bigger than the grey building, and I didn’t like going there. I’m sure the white one was worse.

I had to sit next to the Turtles. The room was full of Turtles. Mommy said it was school. Well, I didn’t like school. I couldn’t bring Panda or Doll or baby Ter and all the Turtles were smelly. They were the family in the other straw house. And there were millions of them. And every one of them smelled like the cows. Maybe they lived with the cows. I rathered playing with Doll and Panda. I had to walk home from school with the Turtles. They weren’t as smelly outside because everything was smelly there. But they were mad, hopping walls and chasing cows. Maybe that was why the cows were always around their house. They didn’t live together at all. The cows just had their revenge and poo pooed all around their house. It was then I decided not to talk to them again, so as the cows would know I didn’t approve of the Turtles chasing them. I also thought the smell would go away but it didn’t. So, I just played with Panda and Doll.

Then Mommy got a new friend and she had a smaller baby than baby Ter. Mommy gave her Ter’s bed. The one with bars around it because baby Ter was too big for it. We all visited her a lot. She lived in a house with a proper roof. We had to walk up a big green field to get to the house. Mommy said it was near to our house, but it felt like it was way past the school. One day I had to stay with Mommy’s friend by myself and she was making dinner. I was hungry so I took some carrot off the table, and Mommy’s friend was mad. Very mad. So mad she told me I was bad and she locked me in a cupboard under the sink. It was very dark and I could hear her baby crying. But I knew it was late and that Mommy would be here soon. But it was still very dark and I was scared and I couldn’t understand why. I was just hungry. Mommy came and took me home and I wished she had never given her Ter’s bed. Then our visit to the straw house was over and I was glad.

Written 21 February 2007. Lightly edited for publication in 2026.