By the time the children go to bed I am as drained as any mother who has spent her day working car pooling building Lego castles and shopping for the precisely correct soccer cleat.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

Simply by not owning three medium-sized castles in Tuscany I have saved enough money in the last forty years on insurance premiums alone to buy a medium-sized castle in Tuscany.

What I really tried to do with Helen was make her show this sad side of her. She was married off at 16 was so young and living in this castle that can't leave because of how she looks and married to a man she hates and three times her age.