the simple things

I think most of you have worked out by now that I’m easily pleased. Iced tea in the sunshine, keeping chickens in the garden, walking in cornfields, pumpkin pie and planning autumn gardens, ladybirds, hoar frost on a dogwalk, apples, cake, crochet, cats. Writing my book (I forgot there was a snippet of the novel on here if you want a sneaky look, and there’s another bit here.

Anyway, you know what I mean. Finding lovely things in the everyday. Little snippets of happiness. So the arrival of this new magazine has filled me with glee (and a slight attack of the ooh-I-want-all-the-pretties-featured-within). Have you seen it yet?

autumn wishlist

The lovely thing about this house is the beginning-ness of it all. Here we are in a 120 year old house which waits patiently for us to fill it with memories. We’re not rushing to decorate or hang pictures, preferring to get a feeling for the place. (Yes, that might be code for ‘we haven’t finished unpacking because we’ve got no blooming time because we’ve got six children here most of the time and end up half-doing one box then disappearing to the beach.’)

But seriously, when you take on a house this big, with this much personality, you have to give it time. We spent ages trying to work out where one seaside sign should belong.

We’ve got so many plans for the house and the garden.

First of all there’s the whole chicken thing. I’ve written before about keeping chickens in your garden and since ours went to live with friends we’re all missing them. I’ve been looking at this and daydreaming about painting it a pale green.

Then there’s the apple tree. A huge Bramley apple tree which is groaning with fruit.

Garden Trading have the most gorgeous harvest season section on their website and I’ve been compiling my wishlist. We’ve got a huge two roomed cellar underneath the house and this apple store would be perfect:

And I want one of these because it’ll make baking the eleven billion apple pies I’ll have to make much more fun:

And I’m definitely buying one of these, because we have so many apples we’ll never be able to get through them and I want to leave it at the front gate with a ‘help yourself’ sign:

Every garden should have a bug house. This is gorgeous.

And last of all (I do hope the buying-me-presents fairies are reading) I want one of these:

I could spend an absolute fortune on the Garden Trading website. Better get on with writing and make one, really, hadn’t I?

This was a sponsored post. If you’d be interested in working with Tales from the Village, give me a shout via my contact page or by getting in touch through twitter (@karamina) or come and say hello on the Tales from the Village facebook page.

I love this new life

Created with flickr slideshow.

I was going to make this a blog post and edit photos and do all that stuff. But d’you know what? This says it all. Watch it and see, instead. I am gloriously happy. I love this seaside life and these people.

—–

I’ve discovered that for some reason the photo slideshow doesn’t work on iPad or iPhone. So if you click here you can see the whole set on my Flickr account. R x

beside the seaside

Well, I’m on a roll now (or you could say I’m procrastinating and should be packing and you’d be right).

So here’s one of those what-I-did-on-my-holidays (or for the last year since I didn’t go to Canada and decided to be a single parent instead) posts.

Well. I got divorced. By internet. Isn’t that clever? And I wrote about it on the Huffington Post (because anything’s fair game if you’re a writer).

And I moved from the village and into town, where we discovered that actually being able to go to the corner shop for wine and chocolate biscuits milk when you run out is rather splendid.

And then I fell in love with a man who lives by the sea.
This is Southport. It’s a beautiful Victorian seaside resort, and it’s where we’re going to live. Two of us, my four children, and his two. And there’s a shop selling wine at the end of the road. I suspect this may be A Good Thing.

Anyway. This is Crosby beach. It’s not far from Southport and it’s where Anthony Gormley’s Another Place installation can be found. It’s breathtakingly beautiful.

If you’re twelve and ten, however, it’s just awfully funny because there are loads of naked male statues with bottoms.

.

Look look, this is going to be our house.

Southport has loads of stuff that I’m going to take photos of.

Mainly the house. When the owner showed us round, I was so excited that I may have cried and hugged her. The carved wooden fireplace and the huge Victorian skirting boards and stripped wooden floorboards and kitchen with a stable door and walled garden and OH I am going to take loads of photos. I think my year long blogging block might be over.

Isn’t it beautiful? Someone said to me recently that as island dwellers we all dream of living by the sea. I’m a lucky girl.

(photo taken by my dear friend Jessica at Pink Magnolia Photography, Peachtree City, Georgia, USA)

Tales from the Seaside will be coming soon. More of the same, but a little bit different. I can’t wait.

the Olympic torch passes by

Exciting stuff. My boys have no idea how amazing it is that they stood next to the Olympic flame today as it passed through Buckingham.

We just happened to be standing in the perfect spot. I can still remember the first Olympic Games I watched on television: Moscow 1980. There was a bear called Misha. I was seven and the memory of the closing ceremony has stayed with me for 32 years. I love thinking that one day they’ll share this memory with their children.