City Living, Country Life – the best of both worlds
I cannot tell you how different life feels with a piano in the house. It all started 25 years ago, when my parents discreetly removed me from ballet (apparently I had the grace and co-ordination of a bull elephant) and signed me up for piano lessons. Even at the age…
This weekend has been one of outdoor pursuits. You may remember my elderflower picking post from last summer with my brilliant countryside guru, Mrs B, well I decided it was high-time we put her local foraging knowledge to good use again. Namely blackberry and sloe picking, all in the name…
If the last few months have taught me anything, its to stop and smell the flowers. On which note, has anyone noticed how amazing it is outside? Instead of moaning on Twitter about the intolerable heat, I have spent the last few days letting my body relax in the warmth…
Hello! Brrrr! and Phew! That pretty much sums up our weekend at Countryfille HQ. We headed into Exeter on Sunday, to the annual Christmas Fair in the shadows of the Cathedral on the cobbled ‘green’. It’s my favourite quarter of Exeter, with its narrow lanes, beautiful mix of Tudor and…
She’s a beaut huh? I just stopped on my way back from the shop to take this snap. The Italian, rather romantically, got me an original 1970 Raleigh Caprice for my birthday, a grown-up version of my very first bike in the early 80s. It’s even in the same metallic…
When everyone from your mother to the Devon Twitterati (Kirstie Allsopp included) mention a ‘great little pub doing modern Italian food up a side street in Honiton’, you know you need to pay a visit. Only 8 miles from our front door we finally nipped over for my birthday dinner…
When we decided to take the plunge and pack up our London lives and move back to my childhood home in Devon it was the vision of the picture above that kept me going through the 2am neurosis (Why would we throw away careers we love? Will I ever eat…
So, it has been a seriously stormy week in Devon. In fact, last Friday the wind records reached the highest in 5 years. How do we know this? Because this happened: We woke up one morning and our 80ft, 6ft high boundary wall had fallen flat overnight, taking a beautiful…
In search of some inspiration for our new seaside garden we decide to aim high and take the rare chance to glimpse the 2,200 acres of the local ‘Big House’, Sidbury Manor. The opportunity to snoop amongst the azaleas was thanks to the National Garden Scheme, opening the private residence’s…
After a week that can only be described as THE PITS (teething baby, plumbers from hell, serious family illness… you get the drift), come Sunday we decided to get in the car and DRIVE. Finally, fortune was on our side and the sun shone as we ditched the car and…
Devon. After a lot of house-hunting, umming and aahhing, a whole heap of soul-searching and should we/shouldn’t we midnight talks, we’ve decided that Devon will be the Mansi family’s new home. While London was a loyal bedfellow for the last decade, with the arrival of Country Bebe it felt right…
This week has been all about the brunch. One in the city (Crouch End) and one by the sea (Lyme Regis). My city haunt is, by happy coincidence, on the same street my parents-in-law have lived for 30 years. The Haberdashery. I love the bones of this place. From the…