Then I’ll talk about us and the kind of people we are. Our house is in Maryland, USA. Our local town is called Cedar, but we’re nine miles from there, out on our own, facing a creek. We call the creek Our Creek and I built our house at the edge of it, with every window looking towards the water. I’m an architect. Retired now. This was my last big challenge, to arrange this house so that wherever you are in it you get a glimmer of Our Creek. Janet, my wife, didn’t believe I could do this. She said: ‘Don, what about the rooms at the back?’ I explained to her that there wouldn’t be any rooms at the back. ‘Sweetheart,’ I said, ‘think of the house as half a necklace and the water as a neck.’ The only thing that’s at the back of the house is the front door. Our Creek flows towards the mighty Chesapeake Bay. On summer evenings, Janet and I stand on our jetty, hand in hand, sipping a cocktail and watching the water slide by. Sometimes, we don’t talk. We just stand there watching and sipping and not talking.
