Hello.
My name is Tessa Hampton. I am a school teacher working and living on the outside of the city.
My grandfather was a native from the town of Ellington. Although he moved away from this idyllic little village when he was a teenager, he took me there many times in the summers of my youth.
Usually we would go camping beside the lake near Chapman Cottage for about a week. And we would fish there. After that we would stay in an hotel in Humpshire before going back home.
When I heard that Chapman Cottage went up for sale, I had to take my chance. There was no way I could say no to the place where some of my favorite memories have taken place.
Luckily I was early in contacting the previous owner. And she was willing to put off some of the price.
That owner is the lovely Mary Hurt. A lovely woman who is around sixty years old. She explained how she fell in love with a local. Both divorced, and just two lonely hearts that happened to find each other.
She moved from York to live with him. But after a few years of living together, he died. And now nothing keeps mrs. Hurt here anymore, she decided to go back to York, to take care of her elderly mother.
And I happened to be buying her house.
I learned that the Cottage was a place of summer holidays for the Chapman family. Just like me, they spent the summers here.
They were apparently London based, and owned this Cottage as a summer house and a stop between travels across the country.
It's just after the school year and I have been planning this trip well. And now I can move in and prepare myself before the new school year starts.
Actually. I need to sign the papers before I can officially move in. But in my mind I'm already moved in.
I know Ellington a little bit. There is a park, the lake, a library, a school and a community center. Other things I have yet to discover, but I'm so happy to be here.