Life Lately

This Friday was the loveliest of Fridays. I have Friday afternoons off, and this week Jamie and I had an unspoken agreement that the rainy weather obliged us to spend it in the kitchen where the Rayburn would keep us warm and we could generally do very little. Jamie duly snoozed for hours and I was the…

Small Things

I never get tired of writing my Small Things posts – isn’t gratitude the best way of life ever? Ann Voskamp never fails to remind me of this and I love her recent post on spending Thanksgiving with her family. Even when things are hard, there are always Small Things to be glad about and I…

Recipe: 3 Slow Cooker Meals to Welcome you Home from Work :-)

Slow cookers are a great invention 🙂 As the evenings get darker and colder, our dinnertime cravings tend to be for warmer, heartier fare and we’re often ready to eat much earlier. Slow cooked dishes can give us just that. I’ve been experimenting a lot with our slow cooker, leaving it on while we’re at…

Making home homely

I LOVE the concept of an imperfect but personal home, one that is welcoming, cosy and restful – and the last month has seen me enter a phase of working out how to create this for us, in our place, in the day-to-day. I recently chose The Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith as one of my current…

Small Things

It’s time for another list of the ‘Small Things’ I’ve been feeling thankful for. Having written a few slow, rambling posts lately, I thought it would be good to make this mid-week one short and snappy – so, without further ado, here are the past few weeks’ lovely Small Things: *New pens, and writing letters. *Making…

Spiritual Whitespace

Since reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Where you Are, I have discovered a whole range of American writers who are exploring different ways of thinking, living and believing. All have come to points in their lives where they realised they were desperate for change. They wanted to break away…

Bitter Sweet

Later this week, I’ll be posting a few reflections on a great book I just finished, Finding Spiritual Whitespace: Awakening your Soul to Rest, by Bonnie Gray. I enjoyed Bonnie’s book so much that I looked up her blog, Faith Barista, and found it a beautiful way to slow down for a moment with a coffee…

Small Things: Nature’s Pace

Rather inevitably, since moving to the countryside, I find myself slowing down. As I write I’m sat on the sofa. The sun through the window feels very natural. The dog sat in the patch of light on the floor does, too, and the quietness broken by Andrew’s voice chatting to our neighbour outside, and the…

Recipe: 6 Hearty, Healthy Autumn Lunches

As the weather gets colder, there is something lovely about sitting down to a warm lunch: it affords us a slow, heartening moment in the middle of our day which is good for the soul. I’ve been collecting ideas for simple, healthy, warming lunches for this time of year. Some, like the squash and feta salad,…

Small Things

This week has been a busy one full of appointments, meet-ups and plan-making, but I’m finding that when I am at home I’m embracing rest time. I think it’s something about the rain on the windows and the crisp air outside – it makes me want to slow down and look after myself, to walk outside,…

Walking at the Weekend

There is something rejuvenating about a weekend walk, particularly at this time of year when the air is fresh and cool and your return can be heralded by a cup of tea or hot chocolate 🙂 We’ve been walking through woods and fields and beaches lately. There’s something momentous about finding a new walk with…

A little update…

My posts have been sporadic recently, to say the least. I am still getting used to my new life and haven’t yet found a regular writing slot, but I haven’t forgotten my little blog, and I thought it was time for a catch up. So – Life lately, in verbs: I’ve been… Working on: taking…