Saturday 25 January 2020

Where to start?

There may be a few people reading this who think I simply disappeared in 2015! My brother’s death then a rather protracted house move meant I felt exhausted and just too tired to bother with writing a blog. I feel quite guilty that I have enjoyed reading the blogs I subscribe to and was giving nothing back. Also, selfishly, I realise I have no record of the changes to my life for the last 4 years.
Well, all that is about to change. I have decided to start a new blog as I do less quilting now but I still enjoy some crafting.
Mike and I moved to a beautiful village in Worcestershire. I have new hobbies, new as well as old friends and family changes too. So many changes it is difficult to know where to start so for this first post I will tell you about our new house and the village.
Our house sale took forever which meant we had plenty of time to look around to see where we might like to live. I have two daughters, both with families, and a stepdaughter and family too, so we needed to be able to get to them fairly easily. My parents were living in Manchester too. We decided that somewhere in the Midlands with easy access to the M5/M6 corridor would suit best. At heart we both need the peace and quiet of the countryside but with the chance of making new friends and ntaking up new hobbies. After months of searching we decided that the area of south Worcestershire around Malvern suited us best. Small villages and market towns, a thriving music scene, beautiful countryside and almost equidistant from one daughter in the Lakes and one in Wiltshire with the others in between.
We had very few preconceived ideas about the type of house that would suit us after living at East Barn. We looked at Tudor cottages, converted barns, Arts and Crafts Edwardian houses but finally decided on a fairly standard design modern house in the heart of a popular village. The house purchase left us sufficient funds to do some building work, replace the boiler and make the house that would suit us for the foreseeable future.
Hanley Swan is picturesque. We have a village pub, a village green, a duck pond, a shop/post office, a village hall, a couple of churches and easy access to our nearest small town of Malvern. Many local groups use the village hall and I joined the local W.I. almost as soon as we moved.
So, a few photos.
Firstly, the sitting room before and after a new fireplace and redecoration




The outside looking away from the house in summer and winter.

 
The garden was totally enclosed at the back by huge evergreens which we had removed in the first year leaving a totally blank canvas so this is an ongoing project.





I’m sure that is quite enough for today. I’ve so much to tell you that this could go on for a long time. I’ll leave you with a sunset from earlier this week.



I hope you will follow along for a bit and please leave a comment so that I know someone has read the post. It feels a bit as if I am sending this out into the dark!

Catherine. xxx

14 comments:

  1. It's good to see you back, Catherine! I am on my way out, but I will come back later to read the whole post :-)
    xx

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    1. Happy New Year Radka, how are you? I still follow your blog. I thought it was the right time now for me to begin again so lovely to hear from old friends

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    2. Hi Catherine, I have only found your reply here by chance; I don't normally return to places I commented on (that would take too much time). I think you can reply to me by just clicking on my name and I will get your reply by email, it seems to work very well with other blogs I comment on. Or if you get your comment notifications by email directly to your inbox, you can just answer me directly from your inbox.
      xx

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  2. Hello Catherine and thank you for commenting on my blog. Beautiful photos....I love your lounge curtains and pelmet, such gorgeous colours. And the cottage garden flowers in your garden are absolutely lovely, I adore lupins, roses, delphiniums, sweet peas, etc. I started a new cottage garden flower bed in my front garden last Spring and am hoping it will be as lovely as yours this coming year.

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    1. Mine is only three years old. I have old roses and lots of perennials and bulbs. I kind of colour themes it from pink and white at one end, then deeper pinks deepening to reds then burnt oranges and a bit of yellow at the circle seating area. It is a work in progress

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  3. Welcome to Hanley Swan. Thanks for following my blog.

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    1. Thank you Brian. It’s very interesting to see what grows well just up the road.

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  4. Hi, Catherine. I got here via your comment on my blog and I'm really glad I've found this blog. Your home looks and sounds really lovely and the photos of the garden are amazing.
    Looking forward to your posts.

    (are you going to add a 'follow' button?)
    xx

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    1. The follow button should be there now, thank you for reminding me. I think all my Blogger problems were due to Google changes a couple of years ago but I seem to have solved my present problems by using the Google Chrome browser. I wonder if that is what they wanted to encourage. Very Big Brother.
      Lovely to have you following me. I hope you enjoy my musings

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  5. Lovely to see you back Catherine! It's funny how life seems to move from one season to another, often brought about by big life events such as a move, death, children leaving the nest etc. Even hobbies that we once loved and thought we would be doing forever make way for new things. I'm glad that you have finally settled into your new home and are back to blogging :)

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    1. Hi Shirley-Ann, yes, I’m back. I was really thrown by Steve’s death, more than I thought at the time, and it is only in retrospect that I can see how it affected me. Still, life is very good. I’ve moved to a beautiful part of the UK. Good walking, good pubs and restaurants,, very community minded and the opportunity to try new things and make new friends. I hope you are keeping well. Thank you for leaving the comment, it felt a bit lonely for a couple of days!

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  6. As you know, we visited Hanley Swan and Malvern couple of times for the quilt show; it is a lovely area, you have chosen well :-)
    xx

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  7. Replies
    1. It looks a bit different in the winter and I think it needs more structure and evergreens but it is not to bad considering we started from scratch. Thank you for visiting

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