Back Home

I was curious to see how it would feel when we pulled into the drive after our break in Durham, if it would feel like coming home or just back to a house we are currently living in, like when you return to a holiday rental after a day out. Home but not home. This was the first time we'd been away and when we returned it did feel like coming home, but better, due to the added frisson of letting ourselves into the house and being bowled over by the newness of it all. I'm sure this wear off with time but I'm enjoying the novelty while it lasts.

The weather continues to be gorgeous. This afternoon my sister and I sat outside in the garden in deckchairs while we drank tea and chatted. In April! Lovely. My main observation in all this good weather is that I think the house is going to be an absolute oven in the summer. All those big windows, the chalet style roof, the south-west frontage - it will be warm. Luckily the air is cool now (and still cold at night) so open windows keep everything comfortable, and the kids' rooms are at the north-east facing rear of the house so hopefully they'll sleep comfortably when it's hot. If it gets hot. I realise I am already doing that typically British thing of running away with myself after a sunny spell, planning barbecues and imagining the beautiful spring and summer ahead....

I am in love with our bedroom, especially the window. I sat there the other day, cross legged on the floor, hemming the curtains, and the sun was pouring in and a gentle breeze was wafting around me and it was bliss.

The room has a door and window which open onto a balcony which runs along the front of the house. It's so retro, I love it. It's more a feature of when the house was built than a place I'd sit, but I like to go out there and look up and down the road.

To my left, the suburbs are becoming greener by the day. 

And to my right, down the hill to the dead end at the bottom of the road, to the cemetery beyond, it's all trees and sunsets. I like to just go out there and look around. 

We fixed two picture rails to the wall, joined together to make one long display space. I really love how this looks and enjoyed taking all our pictures out of bubble wrap to choose some to go here. I love how a picture or print can look so different depending on where you position it and what you put it next to.

I finally got round to painting over the plaster on the chimney breast. As predicted, it took longer to carefully cover the mantel, hearth and stove to protect them from splashes as it did to paint it all. 

It looks great now it's painted and I will take photos soon. I am struggling with how to decorate the mantel, what to put on it. It's massive, both in width and in the height to the ceiling. A jug of tulips looks lost on it. It's needs something big and sculptural, like maybe some blossom or pussy willow in a really tall, thin vase. And hanging pictures is tricky due to the asymmetrical chimney breast. Nothing looks straight or centred. I think a group of pictures or some propped on the wooden mantel will be the way to go. Anyway, it's a nice problem to have. 

We still have another week to go of the Easter holidays. The kids are doing well, happy and rested. Having good weather and the option of playing outside makes everything easier. Or course the tablets still come in very handy after a hard afternoon's partying.

I've been really busy crafting away lately, mainly crocheted things for the house. Two stool covers, a small wall hanging. I finally taught myself the crocodile (or scale) stitch, and I'm really pleased with how that came out. Bella's blanket is underway. I'm not sure about the colours but she chose them so I guess I just have to go with it. Anyway, lots to show you all soon. 

Beach Jewels

Hasn't the weather been absolutely glorious this week? Just beautiful. Even up here in the North East (where we've spent a lovely few days) it's been sunny and mild. I say "even" as I have been coming here long enough to know that it always feels cooler up here, and that the cold north sea wind blows hard. On Wednesday we visited Seaham beach, on the Durham coastline. It's not somewhere I'd been before, but since reading Caroline's post last summer, I was very keen to go. Seaham beach, it turns out, is absolutely full of sea glass. Seriously, I have never seen so much in one place before. We found all this in the space of a couple of hours:

Not to mention this pottery:

I was particularly keen to find some "end of day" glass, so called because the local glass factories (long since closed) would tip waste glass into the sea at the end of the working day. It tends to have variegated patterns and different colours. This was our haul:

The pink piece (pink sea glass!!) is about 1 cm across, to give you some idea of scale, so quite small.

Looking for sea glass is enormously, incredibly, relaxing. It was absolute heaven to wander up and down the beach, scanning the pebbles to see what treasure lay hiding there. John and the kids joined in. 

Actually, Bella is completely obsessed with sea glass and has appropriated all that we found on Seaham beach to add to her already quite large collection. There are also some excellent rock pools and on a warmer day I'd have been in them, flip flops on, paddling around.

Occasionally we would find a kind of seam of glass, a small area rich in it, and if you pushed your hands in and under the pebbles there was more hiding, waiting to be found. It's a cliche to say that a piece of wet beach glass glistens like a jewel, but it's true, it does.

And of course the fun doesn't end when you leave the beach, as when you get home you get to play with the treasure, sorting and arranging your haul. Look, it's like a paint box of colour.

If you want to read more about Seaham sea glass, Emma of Silverpebble wrote a great post about it, and if you type "Seaham Sea Glass" into a search engine there is a lot more information out there. 

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Thank you for your kind words about our new home and all your good wishes. I am sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately, not visiting or saying hello, but I'll be back properly soon. Not having broadband has been both liberating and constraining. I've had a much, much more time to do other things without the siren call of the laptop, but often, when I've just wanted to check something (bank balance) or buy something or look something up, I've really missed it. And I've missed you all too.

Settling

Hello there! It's been too long, I miss blogging, I miss you lot. We are staying with John's family in Durham at the moment and I'm taking advantage of their internet connection to have a quick catch up and share some recent photos. Our broadband should be connected this weekend and then normal online life can resume, thank goodness. 

I am glad to say that we are settling in to our new home, and much more quickly than I thought we would. I guess that's because we've had the keys since the end of January and one or other of us has been there most days, paintbrush or drill in hand, and so now we're actually living there is all feels quite normal. 

The kids keep saying "It's the first..." about everything; the first meal, the first bath, the first hair wash, the first night's sleep. They love to count things, how many nights they've slept in their new beds, things like that. I was amazed how quickly they settled down on the first night. I was braced for either giddiness or tears, and just had two kids very glad to be in their familiar beds. 

John and I have been enjoying "firsts" too - the first fire, in our much longed for wood burning stove. I can build a fire now, I know all about kindling and seasoning wood and all sorts. We've only lit a few, and now spring seems to be well and truly here they may be the last until next autumn.

The first big food shop. After three months of staying with my parents, I really enjoyed the autonomy of shopping just for the four of us, of planning the meals and then going and buying the food, of exploring a new supermarket. I spent much longer filling the fridge than I normally would. I am just enjoying being back in my own domestic space and doing the tasks and chores I would normally rush through.

The first crochet project. It will be a blanket for Bella, in colours and a pattern entirely of her own choosing (a rainbow zigzag). I started the dreaded foundation chain and first rows today and hope to finish it by next autumn. Set realistic goals, that's what I've learnt with blankets.

Our first Easter. There wasn't time for much in the way of decorating, but I did find the box marked "Easter decs" and put up a few things around the house.

We ate our first roast dinner on Easter Sunday, a leg of lamb, and invited my parents to come and share it with us. It was so nice to be able to cook for them; they've been brilliant these last few months, steadfastly supportive, loving and helpful, and we owe them a great deal. 

For pudding, I made my first lemon meringue pie. I even made the pastry! Clearly that pastry below is homemade, I mean look at the state of it.

It came out well, although I think a sweet shortcrust pastry base may have been nicer than the plain one. Good meringue-peak-action though, I was pleased with that.

Our living room is coming together. Most of those boxes behind the sofa, in front of the window, held books. 

As soon as John had bolted the bookcases to the wall I spent an idyllic few hours one evening unpacking and alphabetising the books. They are divided into fiction, poetry and reference. Sorting books into alphabetical order might be a lot of peoples idea of hell, but I can tell you that it was both soothing and satisfying. I worked in a bookshop for some years before having the kids, and I like to think it's a habit I learnt there, but in truth I suspect I'm the kind of person who would alphabetise them anyway.

However the cookery books, which are kept in the dining room for ease of access in the kitchen, I arranged by colour. I don't need these to be alphabetical - I don't think I have that many and can find them all quickly by their spines. This arranging was as pleasing and enjoyable as the A-Z fiction, let me tell you. 

When I come downstairs in the morning and walk from room to room, opening curtains, switching on the kettle, I can't believe this house is ours. I love it so much. It thrills me! It's coming together and I am happy.

Imposing Order

Every day this week, between the hours of nine and three, I have been unpacking. Unpacking and cleaning, with just the radio for company, and it's been wonderful.

Yes, that is a perfectly reasonable number of mugs to have.

The kitchen was a challenge and I didn't enjoy this task as much as I thought I might - I was even looking forward to it, seeing all our familiar and much loved things come out of the bubble wrap and newspaper. I had it all planned out in my head: the toaster next to the bread bin, the kettle near the mugs and tap, the pans by the cooker. But I felt like I was playing a game with the boxes and cupboards. Will it fit here? No. Here? Yes, but only if I move all of this...and there are all these boxes still to unpack! It was like a big rubik's cube of crockery and cardboard, and there was always a box right in front of the cupboard I needed to get to. 

But then, one the second day (yes, this was a two day job), it all clicked into place. Order prevailed over chaos and I was so pleased by the neatness of it all that I took a photo of a cupboard on my phone. Just look at those beautiful, tidy stacks of plates!

The dishwasher is plumbed in, the leak under the sink has been fixed (thanks Dad) and everything is on and in and working. I've wiped, scrubbed, mopped and polished this little room and - this I did not expect! - I'm growing rather fond of it.

In our house in Leeds, the kitchen looked directly into my neighbour's kitchen, and I couldn't see the garden. Here, the window looks out over the garden and the room is full of light all day long. I can watch the kids play outside. What a difference things like this make. 

There is no budget for a new kitchen for now - and honestly, it's a perfectly fine kitchen, if badly fitted - but there are little things we can do to make it more efficient. A rail near the cooker, from which I can hang all my utensils, would be useful.

Plus some hooks on the back of the door for aprons, and we need a bin.

We moved in yesterday and those jars are now full of pasta and rice, ready to use.

I feel a teeny bit possessive of my, I mean our, kitchen. I've been in it on my own all week, making it mine, getting to know it. I don't want anyone to make a mess in there. I scrubbed that sink, I mean really scrubbed it, and it gleams. I dont want it to get dirty! I need to get over this, or I'll be doing all the cooking and washing up on my own for the next twenty years.

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A few lovely things happened lately which I forgot to mention. I've had three really nice coffees (lady dates, as I like to think of them) with friends I've made through this online world. I am missing my Leeds friends a great deal and, while I've started to make tentative friends at the school gate and on the PTA, these things take time and so it's wonderful to have already formed relationships with people I "know" through blogging or Instagram. A couple of weeks ago I met up with Jo; we connected through Instagram and share many things in common, and realised that we actually live about a mile away from each other! What are the chances of that? And I had a very nice morning in Chichester with Caroline and then a few days later in Arundel with Sara. With both it was like meeting up someone you already knew, and we chatted for ages about all sorts of things - children, education, blogging. Interesting, funny, intelligent ladies, all of them. Good eggs. And I hope soon to be meeting up with Chrissie and maybe even Jooles too - that would be amazing. Chatting about craft over coffee and cake - I don't think it gets much better than that.

We are now finally in our new house, surrounded by boxes. While the kitchen may look tidy, rest assured that the rest of the house is chaos. And unfortunately we won't have any broadband for the next two weeks. Agh!! This is going to be a huge test for me, for all of us. I hope I will read and crochet and spend amazing quality time with the children...hmm. We'll see. Which means blogging and emailing (and also really necessary things like internet banking!) will be challenging and so I may not be around much over the next few weeks. But don't worry, I'm not going any where. If anything, I feel like I've just come back home.