It’s been a long time, more than any other, since I have written my blog. The urge has come to me, but I have deflected (I realise now) with other renovations, or chores to do. My last post was about Christmas, and my love of decorating, and there will be more about our home and renovations in the future. But I think the real reason I have deflected is because my blog was always for me. to write what I wanted to write, and hopefully encourage people to sit back and think. And I had lost my mojo for doing that. Because I was finding it difficult to think for myself. Due to my realisations this ..read more

Listen To Nature, The Animals Know Artwork by Jessica Boehman I love this picture. To me, in this time of consumer led madness, it resonated, in the way it shows how nature invites us to embrace simplicity at this time of year. I had been meaning to share it for over a year now, but Life took over and here we are, coming up to another Christmas time. Another Winter Solstice. In past times the Winter Solstice was celebrated in a way to give thanks for the year past, with everything it brought with it – happiness and sadness. For without sadness there can be no happiness. Everything in life tea ..read more

Our Old Kitchen Renovations Part IOur Reworked Kitchen Renovations Part II So in October last year we started our renovations. we had to rip out the awful wardrobes, so we could rearrange our bedroom, to enable us to knock a door through into our back room, which would allow us to could close up the door to the living room and make it bigger. This enabled us to then knock down the wall between our kitchen into our hall and change the layout of the kitchen. Phew…. The above pictures are the view I have had of our kitchen from the living room. It has all evolved over the year, as we saved our mo ..read more

Our Christmas Garland Now anyone who has followed this blog over the years will know that putting the Christmas Decorations up is actually my most favourite time of the year. Christmas In Montague 2017 We have had real trees, fake trees, and one year we had two trees! Christmas at Montaigu Over the Years But this year has been all about embracing our tiny bungalow. I have, in line with our renovations, gone small. Instead of buying a big tree I have taken into account the fact that our house is small, and our puppies are naughty! A Christmas Tree that was on the floor would not survive, nothin ..read more

So here we are. A year has passed, and we have been a year without a Welsh Terrier in our lives. It still seems incredibly weird. I knew that today would bring tears. Even though I know that Boy Boy is here with us in spirit. Wiglet? Well she came back, as only Wiglet could. Here she is in a shrunken boil wash version…. Pixie Poptart (AKA Wiglet) But that is for another story. Grief is such a funny thing, although RD and I are united in so many things, grief is so personal. He woke up this morning more tired than when he went to bed, I have been irritable with life (a little bit.) Both of us ..read more

This is a post for believers. People who have an open mind. Who understand that there is more that we cannot see than what we do see. That ‘Life’ shows us every day, but most fear it. There is nothing to be afraid of. Our beautiful boy Harley used to love these balls. Made of soft latex, he would stand stock still, with one in his mouth and just happily squeak it for ages. It will be a year next week when we lost him. I still miss him every day. Harley As part of our renovation we have been moving a lot of furniture. Because of our love of Harley when we moved the sofa there were about fifte ..read more

So following on from my post about inspiration this was the next post I planned to share with you. The one where I had a revelation way back in the summer, in the midst of our renovations. When we left Montaigu we left behind our big black American style fridge freezer. (It was the present I had given myself to recompense for leaving Selsea, the house that I loved so much). So when we moved here we did what so many of us do, we tried to recreate our old life in as many ways as possible. Why do we do that? Part of this was to buy another American style fridge freezer. I love it, in fact it is ..read more

It’s been too long since I blogged. This wasn’t the blog I had planned to write, but, as always ‘Life’ shows you the way. Despite not blogging for over two months my blog had a phenomenal number of hits today, over 250! I thought I’d take a look at what people were reading, and out of all the views I chose this one…Considerations It made me cry. Harley We are coming up to the anniversary of losing our Boy Boy, Harley. It’s easier, only just, but as the anniversary looms I am finding it hard. I wrote in that post, back in January 2020 , how within the next decade we wouldn’t have a beautiful We ..read more

This is the smallest house I have ever lived in. So it is fair to say that we have to be inspired in our thinking, we have to think innovatively (blue sky thinking, thinking out of the box all that old bollocks!) or simply just thinking differently. So far we have changed our microwave for a smaller version, our butler sink for the new kitchen is only 60cms no draining board, we have to think smaller than we have before. But hey, is that such a bad thing in this day and age of sky high bills and the destruction of the world by man? I have written before about how we are going to block the two ..read more

Sparkly Corners In Our Bedroom I have been meaning to write many times. But we have been so busy. in fact I only said to RD today that we have worked through our holidays this year, with the exception of a few days our birthdays and we are feeling it. But onwards and upwards. During my life I have always loved finding little gems in bric a brac stores, car boot sales (my beautiful antique washstand was found in a car boot sale), and Vide Greniers in France. As you know during our break at the end of May RD finally took out the blocked up door into the narrow little hallway. This enabled us to ..read more