There's too much to say! And I'm too sleep-deprived to make sense of it and put it in any kind of order. Maybe it'll sort itself out as I'm writing.


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Matt, in his role of stay-at-home-dad, has been taking River out in the sling, exploring the footpaths and beaches and tracks near our village. On my rare days off we've explored a few new-to-us places together. The current favourite is a little patch of old trees next to a stream at the base of a sloping field. Lots of things to excite a new ( Read more... )

She is wonderful.


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I hated the front bedroom most of all when we first saw the house. It's on the north side of the building, so hardly ever gets direct sunlight. The previous owners had painted the walls a shiny, cold, lime green and had painted the wooden trim bits glossy black. It just felt sinister. Also, the electrics didn't work, the light fittings were ( Read more... )

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One of the first problems we found with the house was that there was no wall long enough downstairs to put my piano against. Or rather, there was one stretch of wall just long enough but it was appallingly damp and I refused to put my precious (and expensive) piano anywhere near it. So we had to think of a way of restructuring the layout to ( Read more... )

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. We've moved into our house (!) and it took a while to get the broadband connected ( Read more... )

The landing is one area of the house that's been through some satisfyingly big transformations. Here it is in its primal state:


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I can't remember why we wanted to buy this house now. In the end we will have changed everything, except the stone walls, the number of rooms, the wooden floor joists, and the location. Surely we liked more than just those bits though? It was definitely love, I remember that. We saw it, loved it, dithered about putting an offer in, discovered ( Read more... )

We bought this little coastal cottage two years ago, and are about to move in. At last! To celebrate the almost-finishedness of the renovations, I've decided to start blogging about it. I've never liked it when people start blogs that promise to depict wonderful transformations and redecorations and repairs etc, and then peter out after a few ( Read more... )