Finding a happy balance for the new year

I returned from a week in the countryside of Fife, where my husband and I had rented a little cottage, on discount terms, from the National Trust of Scotland. The cottage is a pocket on the grassy skirts of the magnificent “Hill of Tarvit” mansion. The estate was built for an Edwardian jute king and left to the Trust after the jute king’s daughter died in 1948 — probably to circumvent the crippling inheritance taxes. Before the Trust was founded, many desperate owners just destroyed their ancestral country homes. Thus, the rescuing National Trust, my husband’s job, and our little holiday in the quiet countryside.

It rained. However, that didn’t matter very much. The nearest village, with its excellent butcher and useful grocery store, was only a 25-minute walk down peaceful country roads. And there was a pleasing variety in the rain, from the light drizzle we could easily ignore to the downpour that gave us excuses to linger with our guests inside the cozy cottage.

That cottage is the epitome of comfort and balance, perfect for four or five. It has a wood- and coal-burning fireplace in the sitting room and digital space heaters for every room. It has hardwearing carpets and upholsteries in a chic and muted modern plaid. It has kitchen and sitting-room windows that look out upon the wooded hills and bedroom windows that are modestly sheltered by thick green hedges, allowing in light while shutting out the glances of the curious. The kitchen, with its wooden table and chairs for six, stretches the entire length of the building. It has one door to the lane and one door to the sitting room. The sitting room has a door to a narrow hallway. The hallway leads to the front door, the three bedrooms and a bathroom. It is festooned with a massive glass-covered map of Fife. Taken down, this served us well as a surface on which to put together a 1,000- piece puzzle of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.