A favourite...

...colour. I think this is my favourite glass to use. It just reacts quite naturally to the heat from my torch, and depending how you do that you get the most wonderful colours...

I call it Shadow Grove

The moving...

...of rooms has started. Our present kitchen is small, dark and not very nice, and one thing we decided on when buying our cottage was to move it.

We have two rooms that have light pouring into them all day, and have a view of the garden...rather than the churchyard opposite. The water is already there, as one is a tiny utility room, and with a thin partition wall between that and a small sitting room, which we'll never use as one...we can take it down with ease, and open this space up.

Well, we've ordered ourselves some units...just a couple for the sink and a larder cupboard. The kitchen is my one extravagance, I've been saving for it. I had an AGA previously, and that's it...the man comes in a weeks time for the survey. Oh, to get back to one...I can't wait!

We have a large hand built oak table, which needs some work, but will be beautiful once the orange modern varnish is removed...we were lucky in acquiring it. That will be the main surface in the kitchen, and over time we'll find ourselves an old cupboard for crockery, odd dining chairs...and the bits and pieces that gradually makes it mine....

My minds eye has a picture, now I just need to make it happen.

Seems my team's Saturday match is in doubt. After the pre-Christmas big freeze and snow, we now have the next. Though we've only had a sprinkling here so far, further south is suffering...my brother in law did not make it home from work tonight... My team is in South East London...and that's quite white, and though the ground staff team have worked hard, it will be decided before the weekend, but it looks as though a postponement is more than a possibility. This comes hard on last weekends postponement, which saw Norwich catching...and over-taking us on goal difference. Do we need this match to keep us sharp, or the postponement to get some of our injured players back?! Do we need Norwich to get a points difference too? They've signed two players this week too...we've extended a defenders loan spell until the end of January...

Some additional pieces of jewellery were added to my Etsy jewellery shop tonight...some simple "Little Misses" bracelets, and adults bracelets and necklaces...

My wish...

...is that everyone has a wonderful new year, and the happiest of coming years.

May your life be full and glorious...

May your business succeed, may your home be happy...and may our team win.

Happy 2010, one and all...

We are...

...on the whole a resilient bunch. When you live in the middle of nowhere, you don't expect to see the gritter lorry pass your door, so you're not disappointed, you just get on with life. The local farmer gets his plough and digs a way through the top layer of snow, you go for walks, meeting neighbours, following tracks, until the sun is shining enough to venture into cars and travel.

We don't have anything as easy as snow chains, we just slide our way out.

Now the main road you do hope the grit lorry might have found that, but here...no, no such luck, so you slide your way, albeit a little faster, towards the lights of town.

New snow I can deal with, it's the ice and the promise of cold nights and bitter mornings that keeps me huddled in my village.






So I'm discovering delicious sounding paint colours for the rooms in our cottage, thinking of kitchens(we're moving it), the one we have at the moment is the only room that doesn't get any sun, so is naturally dark, with dark brown floor tiles, and dirty wooden units(and smells, however much I clean)...and warming myself on a reclaimed AGA sometime next year. It's going to the back of the house where the sun pours through windows and stained glass french doors...we're knocking a small sitting room through to a tiny utility room, to make one reasonably sized kitchen...having free standing furniture...reclaimed mostly...we've found a great shop in Dereham called Steptoes, who only sell second hand furniture...and pieces picked up as we go...

Then there's the outside to paint...and the sitting rooms...and the...oh, I've loved moving!

I should...

...have had a new electric meter installed today, alas he couldn't make it down our road...and this is why...

Our garden..

Our cottage

St Andrews and lane

St Andrews

A rather beautiful reason...though next week would've been nicer, and we would have had an "official" white Christmas...and as I type, the snow is falling again.

Our cottage...

...I promised some photos...and gradually I'm getting there...


When the drawing room extension was built, the owner had the wonderful idea of placing this in the corner, it looks out over the entrance to the house, and sparkles in the evening...



We have no idea who and when this was placed in the cottage...a "yet to be discovered" element...I love puzzles...



And our fireplace...or inglenook, and in this weather, a warm refuge.

Several...

...weeks ago, or rather months ago, I was asked if I'd make some bracelets as presents for a wife and a mum. With the move and some photos of colours coming, the making was delayed, but now they've been sent and approved, I'm happy to say.

My brief was to complement a ring and necklace of sparkling gems, so gathering the colours together I made the below crystal charm bracelet...

I do love this silver heart chain, it just gives a special touch...don't you think? Especially for a wife...

And Mum, I was told, likes bold, black and white and chunky...so the two below were designed and made...




And I have a happy camper...hoping the recipients are as happy...

Thank you...

At last...

...I've met another neighbour. The couple who live on the corner, which is next door. They have the post box outside, and when I had cards to post and saw the lady of the house hanging her washing...I had to say hi.

They were very nice...we had a chat about this and that in the village, which houses are holiday homes (which seems the majority are). I'll be interested to see who comes for Christmas...and about the Carol Service on Christmas Eve and all back to the manor house for nibbles after. One thing she did hint at though, our lady of Norfolk has put her house on the market! And yes, sure enough it is.

My home is beginning to sparkle. I've got my tree all decorated and lit, and anyone who knows me will tell you, this is early for me...and the logs were delivered earlier this week, and now I have fires in the evening, keeping us all snug...

How happy and contented life is, when you know you've done the right thing...

Yesterday...

...was the first visit to Norwich since we've moved. It's strange how being a "local" gives you a whole new view of a city, and you don't feel as though you've got to cram the whole city into one visit, that you can make another visit next week.

In our visiting around we were looking at sofas, for next year you understand! Ha...it doesn't work like that, now does it!? We have two sitting rooms, one has beams, and our current furniture is great for the traditional feel, the other room is a newer extension...and that's where we needed the sofa for....and this is the one we've found...it's not as matt grey as this photo, it's more slubbed and mottled greys...and is in fact a sofa-bed with a proper mattress...
It's coming early February...so I need to get my pots of paint out! The fabric for the blinds is(at present) going to be..."Silver Birch"...again not as grey as this shows, but with a more creamy grey background.

The windows are reasonably large and give views right through the garden. With wooden flooring, a large chunky rug...and splashes of colour brought in...it wasn't going to be the first room thought of, but you just have to do these things sometimes, now don't you!

I've decided...

...we've bought a house in it's very own "Brigadoon"...I'm sure everything will disappear at the new year.
Speaking to real locals in Fakenham, which is five miles away, they've never heard of our village. A cousin who was looking for the village before we moved in, asked a policeman there and he had to get his maps out to find it. Yesterday I had a delivery of glass via Parcelforce and she looked at me saying I could have had it Tuesday, but she couldn't find me...we're not on their records, though the normal post gets through, but then I get others too! The chimney sweep has never been here and he's lived three miles away all his life.
So, if you decide to stay in either of the two holiday cottages, or the bed and breakfast opposite, then make sure you come prepared to disappear...it might be a hundred years before you surface again!