20 September

20 September 1920

Travelling to Menton, France

You could do all the garden. Theres a small vegetable plot outside the kitchen & scullery - there is a largish piece in the front -full of plants & trees -with a garden tap and at the side another bed - a walk - a stone ter¬race overlooking the sea - a great magnolia tree - a palm that looks as tho dates must ripen. You shall have photographs of all this. And then its so solid inside and so somehow - spacious. And all on two floors and as well all the kitchen premises away - shut away and again perfectly equipped. I shall of course keep the strictest accounts and see exactly what it would cost us to live here.
Marie, the maid, is an excellent cook - as good as Annette was. She does all the marketing, and as far as I can discover she's a very good manager. A marvel really. [. . .]
After lunch today we had a sudden tremendous thunder storm, the drops of rain were as big as marguerite daisies - the whole sky was violet. I went out the very moment it was over - the sky was all glittering with broken light - the sun a huge splash of silver. The drops were like silverfishes hanging from the trees. I drank the rain from the peach leaves & then pulled a shower bath over my head. Every vio¬let leaf was full. I thought of you - these are the things I want you to have. Already one is conscious of the whole sky again & the light on the water. Already one listens for the grasshoppers' fiddle, one looks for the tiny frogs on the path - one watches the lizards . . . I feel so strangely as though I were the one who is home & you are away. I long for you here. [Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters, 19 September 1920]