Days out with the kids: West Green House Gardens in Hampshire

Let me pique your interest with these beauties...

Come for a walk with me. We're going to West Green House Gardens in Hampshire, a third of the way down the M3...

We'll potter along formal garden paths, boxed by hedges and planted with such an array of beauty that your heart will sing, while your children run around excitedly playing hide & seek...

We'll explore woodland paths too, tickled by ferns and sheltered by boughs laden with all the shades of emerald...

We'll find nooks and outdoor rooms, and every now and then a peek at the house we wished we lived in, the chicken coop that is fancier than any we've ever seen, the statues that surprise us...

And if we're there in spring time, the blossom, oh the blossom. And for tulip lovers (like us), every shade, every form, every delight we could imagine. The children will hop over the channels of water while we soak it all in...

We'll take note of the colours we see, the flowers we love, and vow to take our mothers one day, who would love it so much...

We will show the children the flowers they can smell, the insects buzzing around in spoilt gluttony, let them run down the paths and play hide & seek some more...

And every corner we turn will bring us a fresh view of elegance, of artistry, of wonder. We'll imagine sitting by that fountain in the thirties, cocktail in hand, band playing in the distance. Or pushing open those formerly unlocked gates and strolling, Victorian dress swishing around our ankles, with someone we hope likes us back...

Our families will rest by the lake, searching the depths for signs of fish, watching the ripples as they dance away, looking at their reflections...

If we're there in early spring, the magnolias will be out in all their gravity-defying beauty. We will muse on their bold promise of warmth and daylight to come...

We'll grab an ice cream from the cafe, or sit at one of the pretty little tables, adorned with little pots of flowers, and drink coffee from a filter or tea from a teapot - served as it should be, - drunk with birdsong in the air...

If we're there with our husband, we'll hold hands and talk about life and our plans, delight in our children as they play, and think how lucky we are, and how many blessings we can count...

If we're there with our friends, we'll note the hellebores and bluebells hidden in the flower beds, plan our own gardens, tell each other of how our lives are changing and blossoming too...

Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to be local enough to visit again. Perhaps we'll plan trips to the opera there, staged in the summer, or the garden parties with strings. Perhaps though, like my family and I, we'll know that the chances of us ever passing by again are so very small, and instead we'll take photographs, breathe it all in, and then write a little about it to tell you that if you can't come with us, go with your own loved ones instead. It is heavenly.

On winning, instagram, and the pursuit of popularity

I resisted Instagram for several years but, in an attempt to get better at mobile photography, I started using it last summer. I'm such a convert. The photo (below) I took of my Thursday Breaktime  won a spot in Little Maldod's #mythursdaybreaktime roundup a fortnight ago. And I like to think I'm the sort of person unaffected by popularity or awards of any sort, but it turns out I am. It put a skip in my little heart that day.

I also published this picture of our winning May Queen window on Instagram. Our village has the longest lasting uninterrupted May Queen procession in the country (since 1928), and each year we enter the 'best dressed residential window' competition. Last year's won second prize, which was nice but didn't seem to affect me. This year's, on a space theme and featuring my sewn star garlands and the boys' homemade rockets, alien pictures and various space toys, won first prize. And again, to my surprise, I felt a swagger in my step. As a child I needed validation and as an adult I once turned my nose up against it. But it turns out that need is still there.

I'm working on some cushion covers for a competition, and it's my opportunity -although through random chance - to give someone else the feeling of winning. But I know, deep within, that it's also designed to validate me too - exposure, the number of people entering, eyeballs on this blog or my business site - all these things will be totted up in my head. Is this a bad thing? I'm not sure it is. As a writer, lovely though it is to write just for yourself, you have a symbiotic relationship with your reader. Can you really be a writer without a reader, or are you just a literary version of Schrodinger's cat? And as someone who sews for business, I do not exist without customers, and satisfied ones at that. I think it's possible to seek validation without decrying it as vanity, because it's an independent judgment of the value of your work, of the strength of the effort you've gone to and the result you've toiled for. And I can't deny that on a very basic human level, hearing someone else tell you that what you're doing is good, lovely, liked - or whatever - feels good.

And I originally planned this post as a quick one to let you know I can't actually take any photos at the moment as my phone's broken!

Days out with the kids: Eyam Hall in Derbyshire

This post is a long time coming. In that it was April when we went and now, shhh, it's June. Still, you can bet your bottom dollar (does anyone actually say that anymore?!) that it's even lovelier now the late spring blooms are out.

We love visiting Eyam Hall, a recent acquisition by the National Trust in Derbyshire. It has a beautiful garden that still feels like a work in progress, and there are often (very lovely) volunteers gardening in it while you're there.

The house itself (it was too dark inside for pictures when we were there - the sun came out in the garden) is beautiful and so interesting. It was inhabited by the same family until just a couple of years ago, and so is a lovely mishmash of centuries. It almost looks like they were there yesterday and left in a hurry. I love it.

The best thing about it when you have small children is that the house is just the right size to be manageable by children who start inquisitive but can run out of steam in the more stately properties. And the garden is the perfect size for them to run off without getting lost, play hide and seek, and whatever other Robin Hood/Star Wars/superhero games are currently in rotation.

There's an adjoining craft centre with some sweet little shops, and the house is on the same road as all the information boards, the church and other historic places that reference what Eyam is famous for: its sacrifice at the time of the plague.

We go at least once a year. You should too.

An introduction to myself, which is a little odd several years into blogging, but here I am!

I follow a blogger on Instagram named Little Maldod, who is running a lovely project called my Thursday breaktime that I was featured in last week. She has also started a series called little introductions in which instagrammers reveal a little more of their true self behind their online business identities. I joined in and then I thought, why don't I share it here too? In all these years of writing online you've not seen much of me so, here goes, and here's the little snippets about myself that I revealed too...

Hello! Here's nine things you may not know about me:

1. I was clever enough to get into Cambridge University at 18.
2. I was stupid enough to get pregnant at 18.
3. I chose the baby over the university. He's now 16 and I couldn't be more happy with my choice.
4. I met my husband when my eldest was 5, married when he was 8, moved to the Peak District when he was 10.
5. I had my 2nd boy when the eldest was 11 & my 3rd boy when he was 13.
6. I chart my whole adult life by the age my eldest was, since my entire adulthood has been motherhood.
7. Surrounded by boys, I can be a bit of a girl. I love the little creative domesticities of life, from sewing to baking to flowers to... well you get the picture.
8. I dream big but I procrastinate and potter. Not the best combination! I have however made my dream of starting a sewing business a reality (Sparrow Stitch).
9. I am not a natural in front of the camera!

the end of winter?

I didn't think I suffered from SAD. 

I think it's the snow that bothers me most, in the way that it's so restricting up here and lasts so long, slowly turning into ice. And I'm not the biggest winter fan, but few are. I dance my way to Christmas and then idly twiddle my fingers and circle my ankles while I wait for winter to slope off, tail between its legs.

But a few days ago, before it turned chilly again, there was the littlest touch, the daintiest spring of Spring in the air. And oh my goodness. I virtually skipped everywhere rather than walking. I unbuttoned my coat. The boys took theirs off. The green tips of emergent daffodils were beginning to whisper their yellow secret. And you should have heard the birds. They weren't singing to communicate they were singing a song. Suddenly it was like the whole of our little, 200m-above-sea-level world stopped, stood up and listened. From cheery daffodils still hidden in their winter coats, to small boys throwing theirs off and whooping: we all heard the sound of Spring.

I knew that morning that the day was going to be good. I knew I was going to tick a whole raft of limpets off my to-do list. That I would be a lovely mother. That I would smile at the villagers as I walked past, that I would be airy and cheery when my husband came home at the hungry-boys-witching-hour, that everything would be so gosh-darned lovely.

And afterwards, when the next day dawned swathed in cloud and washing cold air past my ears, I thought: perhaps that SAD thing affects me after all. Or affects most of us. And actually, I'm done with treading water while the world tips over the bottom end of the year. We're 5/6th's of the way through winter. The snowdrops have already popped up to say goodbye to it. The daffodils are waiting impatiently in the wings. I expect I'll spot some crocuses soon. We're all done with winter. Let's all tell it to head off where the sun don't shine.

And spring comes Marching in

Oh joy! Yesterday was beautifully moody, with mist settled on the hilltops, drizzle in the air and a painted grey sky. Today - spring! Yes the daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops were already out yesterday (we're having the earliest spring we've had up north since moving up over three years ago). But they didn't look truly spring-like til the sun hit them this morning. Ping, all their lights came on!

 I have some grey shots from yesterday to show you. Today's will have to wait (the lovely husband, a.k.a my photographer, is shut in the playroom revising for his Big Exam at work).

And I also want to tell you that this post, this joy, this burst of spring comes courtesy of a lovely, lovely friend. She brought the bulbs when the season and my mood was wintry. She helped me plant them. She's a walking spring herself - nothing but kindness, selflessness and thoughtfulness. She has seen me through many a dark patch, and however murky she may be feeling she always gives me the gift of spring sunshine. I am so lucky to have her. Of all my friends, she is the one who has always given the most, to whom I want to give the most back, who deserves the most yet asks for the least. This post is a small thank you to her. I could not have got here without her, and I don't want to travel anywhere else in my life without having her in it.

Floral undertones

When we were a two-income family living in London, my little treat to myself was a weekly bunch of flowers sat on my kitchen table, cheering me and the house up.

We are now a one-income family living up north. I've spent a long time looking at my bare table, diligently reminding myself that staying at home and looking after my family is much more important than working to afford little treats like that. And obviously, easily, it is a price worth paying.

But there are free treats! And I did say, when I set myself this challenge of living a year of making, baking, wandering and wondering, that I would have flowers on my table again. Nowadays they come from the garden or the hedgerow, but I think I like that better.

A jug from a special friend, chives planted by the house's previous owner, some 'weeds' that I adore, and I have a vase of cheer on my table again. Plus this sort of thrown-together garden harvest is just what my mum always has, sat nonchalantly on tables, shelves and mantelpieces at her house. It's nice to feel I'm connecting to her as I cut, arrange and enjoy.