martha stewart and me

Shall I let you in on a little secret?

This blog is about the lovely stuff. The gorgeous sunny days on the beach, photographs of the children being beautiful, stories of the allotment.
The clue’s in the name – tales from the village.

Not ‘gruesome reality from the village’. I could give you the lowdown on what an absolute nightmare this week has been.

autumn leaves

I know, it’s July. But around this time of year I get really bored of summer, and I can’t wait for autumn. I want leaf-collecting walks to the woods, and bramble-picking, and collecting sloes for making sloe gin. I want dark evenings with the curtains drawn and candles lit, curled up under blankets watching Harry Potter films.

This photograph was taken in the autumn of 2007 in the woods which back onto our allotment. It’s my entry to The Gallery at Sticky Fingers, the theme for which this week is Nature. It makes my heart ache to look at it, partly because it is a shock to see how much the children (and the trees) have grown, but also because it was taken when I was spending time with my sister, because it was a year since our dad died. And now it’s nearly four years, and we still miss him terribly.

left handed crochet

We left the village behind and headed for the seaside on Saturday. I’ll get to the left handed crochet in a minute, but first the calm part of the weekend, before the yarnstorm.
(That’s a little in-joke for my fellow Jane Brocket fans.)

keeping chickens in your garden

I’ve always loved chickens. I spent a lot of time on my friend’s farm when I was growing up and one of our chores was cleaning the chicken house.

I can’t remember when I first read about keeping chickens in your garden, but I can remember falling in love with the the Eglu chicken house as soon as I saw it.

For Mother’s Day last year I got my wish: an Eglu, and four hens from the lovely Jude at Cotswold Chickens.

meet Martha, Pamela, Hermione and Nancy