I have a really good pal who’s wife is from ‘up north’. This is fine, she used to be a lovely friendly, person with whom I would spend a good couple of hours chatting and exchanging notes about the lovely cottages we’d stayed at for our respective holidays. Our families always tried different parts of […]
When you buy your very first property, it is usually a flat or a terraced house. Usually in need of a full refurbishment or at least a hefty chunck of cash for making it more habitable and comfortable. It’s extremely rare that a couple will enter the fray by buying a fully fledged country cottage […]
Wherever you go in the country, there will be a wide selection of country cottages to look at, pore over, rent, buy – all of these things and more. The only problem with this is that they are generally concentrated in hot spots and the price of them is necessarily very high, compared to normal […]
I was beetling off through some very narrow, hair raising, but pretty country lanes the other day. I was actually on my way to a big plant nursery that advertises in trade papers and as my gardening help had suggested a couple of new plants to fill in gaps, this seemed the ideal opportunity to […]
I belong to a very well known and well established womens’ group – the formation of which commenced over a century ago and many federations are still going strong. The appeal for the younger woman is a bit tricky in some areas where there is still a massive bastian of the previous generation, but on […]
I have just got back from a simply wonderful family break down to the area where my siblings and I grew up. It always was an affluent area and my parents, well dad, struggled like crazy to get a mortgage for the house he and mum chose to get us out of the strange little […]
Whilst sitting here looking out into a snow filled garden, it is rather difficult to conjur up thought of happy summer holidays and moaning about how flaming hot it is ! Some days last year though, we were doing exactly that and it seems unbelievable at this very minute. so with happy thoughts thrust firmly […]
Just what we need is a tonic, a lift from the dismall and quite frankly debilitating grim weather of late. I cannot understand how we end up with clouds, heavy rain, thick fog, snow flakes and bright sunshine all in one short day. It ddrives me mad and I find myself getting morose and snappy […]
When you get an invite out of the blue you just never know where it could land you. This is very much the case whenever I take up offers of staying over Christmas or New Year with friends rather than going to family gatherings. I have gained many chums in recent years; some are single […]
One of the joys of afternoon tv is the innocent pleasure of watching folk looking over other peoples’ property – discussing this benefit and that peculiar little corner. The programme host will have been given masses of information on the property to read off camera, and the punters are intorduced to us as wanting to […]