Home ~ A Year On

Coming back home the other night, I was met at the front door by the first opening bud on our rambling rose bush, winding upwards and standing tall. It reminded me so much of seeing it emerge this time last year – when we had only been in our new home a few weeks, everything still felt very strange and new, and we were just at the very beginning of settling in. I had been waiting to see what colour the roses would turn out to be when the buds opened, and I remember loving the vibrancy of them when they did.

Seeing them at the same stage again just transported me back and it’s strange to remember how different everything was then. When we moved in I worried I’d never love it like our last little house we’d been in so long – and yet in the one short year we’ve lived here it has been so poured full of memories and family life that it feels like we’ve been here forever.

We’ve had our first summer; watched the rowan berries appear – and the delighted starlings “disappear” them as quickly as they did; the autumn colours creep in, with the busyness of harvesting going on in the fields all around; our first Christmas, lights twinkling in the windows; an extra-long winter with history-making snowdrifts and village efforts to get dug out during the “Beast from the East”; a long-awaited spring, white and yellow daffodils lining the fence… and are now back in the season of days in the garden feeling the warmth of the sun.

Home in all its seasons

I remember the first time I watched the sun rise over the town in the distance – up early for a flight for work and needing to leave for the airport, but not wanting to look away for a moment.

Now, I’m so used to the view, watching the sheep graze outside the window and the windmill up on the hill whir and catch the fading light while we’re settling the little one down every night.

This year has been a whirlwind and there have been lots of changes as we’ve made our house our own. The utility room has become a totally practical space for laundry, storage and most of all our little rat boys – it’s the perfect home for them being so cool and set apart from the rest of the house but still accessed all the time, and they enjoy the coming and going so much. Upstairs, it’s been lovely to transform the spare room (briefly host to an air bed and a grand total of two overnight guests) into a bedroom for our daughter, enjoying decorating and adding new little bits and pieces all the time. There’s been a flurry of activity in the garden too since the weather improved, much-appreciated family team efforts to a build a shed and a fence to make it safest for when the era of toddling begins – and adding brightly coloured flower boxes, which caught Jasper’s attention on an early morning coffee in the garden before the rest of the house woke!

Life moves on at such a pace it’s hard to keep up with the passing of time, and I can’t believe it’s a year – and a good bit more now – since we arrived here. It is so lovely sometimes to pause and look back at the journey and appreciate it all – and catching sight of the bright pink of our roses once again gave me a jolt and a moment to do just that.. ♥️🏡

Have a lovely week all xx