Leaving London and downshifting to become a full-time parent and rural homemaker
I’ve just read another attitude-changing book, again borrowed from the library but like other inspiring reads this too will be bought for the home bookshelves and most probably as a Christmas present for other similarly minded friends or family.
We have rented a house in the countryside between three English towns for two years now we [...]
My poor little head is too full of too many things to do (an exciting dot com project with my beloved, administrative work for our small internet business, a small babe and two little kids on summer holidays to look after, a house to keep in order, tummies to feed, this blog to write AND [...]
Hmmm. I’ve just been watching the boldest, chunkiest rat while I did the washing up. He/she/it was waddling around the path in the garden, popped up the apple tree and sat looking at me then waddled back down, had a sniff around the drain and the rubbish bin (no lid and generally has refuse sacks [...]
I’ve got a new veg patch and it has many tender seedlings and young plants growing nicely which I’ve tended to with more care than my own children. We’ve had to ensure it is rabbit proof by completely surrounding it with chicken wire fencing dug deep into the ground as there are loads of rabbits [...]
This weekend I paid a visit to my remarkable friend Jane who lives on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire (a large rock in the Atlantic ocean just off the coast of south western Wales).
Jane won’t mind me saying that I was completely humbled by seeing where she lives with her young daughter Martha and her partner Juan.
They [...]
Edie and I watched some ladybirds ‘cuddling’ last week and photographed them.
Later in the week when we found our newly flowering aquilegas were covered in aphids I suggested we go on a ladybird hunt as they are good at eating all the aphids.
We were both a little surprised to find one who did in fact [...]
At the beginning of April I planted my ‘early’ potatoes (a variety of spud which is ready to eat early in the season) and ‘main crop’ potatoes (a different sort which is ready later in the season – and bigger? I’m not entirely sure yet) in a couple of trenches (about 20-30cm deep) next to [...]
Wow. We had a grass snake in our garden. We watched it, photographed it, video’d it and generally marvelled at how it moved like a snake a bit but also just sunbathed a lot in front of the compost heap where we keep the children’s outdoor toys and I have a water butt.
I LOVE living [...]
I popped outside on Thursday night just to fetch something in and was surprised to see that the kids had emptied a great pile of soil onto the grass when they know this is expressly forbidden. After a moment I realised that Bealers and I had been out in the garden long after the kids [...]
A lot of lucky kids have playhouses in the garden which are smashing but they do cost a fortune. This new structure in the garden for our kids to play in cost £40 for materials (willow ‘withy wood’, twine and weed-free membrane) plus a half-day of labour. It looks quite pretty already but it should [...]