Haven Hope
The coming-together of each Character's Story
Haven Hope is an imaginary place. It is the name of a village but it is also the name of the large old house in which the StoryDolls
characters live. Haven Hope Home was once the manor house of the village and after that it became a hotel before becoming a very 'different' childrens' home.
Haven Hope Home is run by Jake and Teresa. They're a bit like the 'mum' and 'dad' of the place; they live there all the time although they do each get a holiday sometimes. They are assisted by Iris, who also lives on site and a few other carers who take turns sleeping over.
Children come to Haven Hope for all sorts of reasons. Family relationships may have broken down and there is no-one to care for them. Sometimes it's because their parents have become ill or worse still, died. Other children have been removed from an abusive or dangerous situation. Occasionally, a parent or guardian can place their own child at Haven Hope, but this would be after a great deal of consultation with the carers at Haven Hope and on the understanding that the parent genuinely feels unable to look after their child themselves. This was the case with Poppy and Effie, and also with Alice, and later Alices's baby brother Cory.
Haven Hope House is a huge white-painted building with a great big attic that runs the length of the house. There's also a large airy basement which opens out at ground level at the back of the house. The basement contains a pool table, darts board, an old fashioned juke box and a slightly battered blue-painted piano. There's even a curved wooden bar with tall stools made by the characters themselves around it. You can have fantastic parties down there!
The double doors of the basement open onto a large paved yard. At the end of the yard is a pear tree that reaches over an ornate iron gate.
Behind the gate is a daisy-strewn lawn surrounded by apple trees, which are great for climbing. Seth and Fenris have erected a platform in one of the trees which gets completely obscured by blossom and leaves and you can spend a whole afternoon hiding in there. There is a paved pathway around the edge, leading to a vegetable garden which has a gated fence to stop the dogs trampling all over it. And at the end of the vegetable garden is a red brick wall with a tall wooden door in the centre. If you open this door you will come out onto a grassy path which marks the boundary of the Haven Hope paddock. From the paddock you can take another path which leads through a narrow tunnel of trees alongside the kitchen garden wall and back into the large yard behind the main house.
On the side of the paddock closest to the house there are stables which used to be tumbling down and completely unusable. However, our young characters have worked really hard to help the builders renovate the stables and now four horses have come to live at Haven Hope. Altogether there are spaces for eight horses and the local community have been alerted to keep their eyes open for horses or ponies which have been badly treated and need a new home, or perhaps their owners are unable to look after them anymore, similarly to the stories of the characters themselves.
Haven Hope is especially lucky in that the stables have eight newly decorated rooms including a small kitchen and bathroom above, which would once have been used by the grooms who used to look after the horses.
Some of the teenaged characters such as Poppy and Effie; Jamira, Naj and Jamie, live in the rooms above the stables. Here they can be partially independent. They can do their own food shop and cook meals either as a group or individually. Sometimes, if they're in the mood, they'll prepare a meal for the complete 'family' at Haven Hope.
Haven Hope is situated within a landscape of fields, even though it is within walking distance of the nearest town. Not far away is a river and sometimes the characters go swimming in a part of the river that opens out into a pool. Beyond the rocky banks of the river is an area of woodland in which the Haven Hope residents enjoy a camp-out on summer evenings. Here they can also walk their dogs and ride their horses.
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