Impatient

Remember this post? I said I might like this house when we went to Wales and the problem is, we have fallen a little bit in love with it but are not in a position to buy yet. I am champing at the bit with impatience - we might have seized it off the market by now if only we had sold both our properties!

It wasn't the hugest house for the money, nor blessed with the enormous garden that I wanted to burden my inexperienced gardening skills with, but its location was breathtaking: an attention-seeking, double-fronted beauty perched amongst a small clump of houses on the slope of one of the Clwydian Hills. You couldn't wish for more if you wanted peace and fresh air - with a public footpath leading up the hill behind and Offa's Dyke Path just down the lane, it was enough to make me weep. And it wasn't too perfect - there was scope for converting the garage into a proper studio, opening up the kitchen and converting the loft.

We visited the house and its charming artist owners twice in five days. They are avid collectors of amazing vintage things, the volume of which slightly swamps the poor house - it is much bigger than it appears at first glance.


It also appeared, when I was nosing in the loft space with a torch, that they have a George Nelson Bubble lampshade kicking around in the dust up there. I nearly died.


The rest of the houses we saw paled into insignificance against it - too pokey, too messed-with, too dilapidated, too suburban... The only thing that I took from these house viewings was the realization that the Welsh are obsessed with badgers - one lady liked to feed them in her back yard and watch them at night, another moaned about the state of her lawn in their wake. They were funny. Oh, and there are prolific amounts of wild garlic on everyone's doorstep - foodie bliss! All we have here in Essex is bindweed and ground elder...

Ah well. I am trying not to choose a house with my heart before my head, if that makes sense. I am not in the business of house buying just to end up disappointed - it's no fun that way, so we continue to wait and watch.

I'm back!

And I'm a bit overwhelmed... with things to do, a new illustration job sitting patiently in my inbox, people to deal with. I'm a bit fluffy today.


We had a wonderful time - I'll tell you more about it tomorrow. The weather was beautiful, we walked over miles of hill and got lost in grand forests. I have fallen in love with Wales all over again.

bye for now

I'm off to London tomorrow for a gander at the Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy before it closes. Then I'll be attending a booze-fuelled screening of the latest Dog Judo, animated by my lovely friends at 12foot6. I can't wait to be in the city again for a day out.



On Friday we will be up at the crack of dawn to drive to Wales where we are staying for five nights, house hunting and enjoying the outdoors. Tragic news - the house with the pine kitchen and lovely outbuilding (pictured above) sold this week! I'm gutted. It was, for me, by far the best of the lot, with about an acre of lovely flat garden and only one neighbour. However, there are a few others lined up for us to nose around - a couple of enormous townhouses in need of renovation and some farmhouses in the middle of nowhere. I am so excited! This is the best part of moving house, the snooping around :-)

On the other hand I have some good news. After a couple of rounds of haggling, we have sold our house! All we can do now is cross our fingers and hope it all goes through smoothly. I am awaiting their 'cold feet' withdrawal already :-(...

Now I've just got to sell this damned flat in London and we are ready to go.

I'll be back next Thursday with news and pictures from our travels. Have a great week all. I hope you are doing something fun too. And thank you for stopping by! x

One Hundred Days - no. 86

POLITICAL ANIMALS GUIDEBOOK 2010 - NO. 0146
SPECIES: Liberattus nondescriptis
DESCRIPTION: This particular animal has few distinguishing features other than an outwardly pleasant nature and eagerness to please (Fig. 1). Whilst being somewhat spineless in appearance, and lacking in muscular tone, this creature can sometimes display an alarmingly changeable nature (Fig. 2) so caution is advised when handling.

That's the last one until I return next week. Not the best thought-out, but you know...

Blodwen General Stores

I came across the Welsh shop Blodwen General Stores via this article in The Telegraph today. It sells traditional Welsh handcrafted and vintage goods, such as beautiful vintage quilts, clothing, furniture and household goods. I put together a selection of things from their site that I liked the look of.

One Hundred Days - no. 85

POLITICAL ANIMALS GUIDEBOOK 2010 - NO. 0037
SPECIES: Toryboyus unpopularis
DESCRIPTION: A fine, upstanding creature, this bird is bred from excellent stock and carries great credentials yet it cannot understand why no-one likes it.
CHARACTERISTICS: A distinctive call that sounds like a piteous 'trust me! trust me!' repeated often and with increasing desperation.

One Hundred Days - no. 84

I've decided to skip weekend 'one hundred' drawings because they inevitably end up being drawn in a rush on Sunday afternoon. I will keep to weekdays from now on.

This one is for you and your boyfriend, Laura. (I tried others, porn included (!) but this one turned out the best - a beery unicorn after a night out with the lads) x

Selling up

Our house went on the market on Saturday and we had our first viewers on Sunday. It's a weird feeling, walking round your home with a pair of strangers, telling them about the little things, wondering if, maybe, they might one day be cooking in your kitchen, walking up those stairs and banging their heads on the low beams just like we do. Our visitors were far too tall for the house, even the young lady was at least three inches taller than me. Her partner pretty much had to stoop in the main room - he must have been about 6'3!

And my London flat is also up for sale. It's the place where I first found my feet as a non-student - a little studio flat just a minute from the yuppie pleasures of Fulham Broadway on one side, and wonderfully seedy North End Road on the other. I loved being a Londoner - with so much to do just on your doorstep, and feeling like you're at the centre of the Earth. I can see why people want to live there, cramped, noisy and expensive though it is. It makes you feel like you're interesting, like you're alive and living the high life. You can be who you want, dress how you like. No-one stares at you because you're Chinese or you decided to wear leg-warmers. And I have a lot of friends there - I will miss being able to see them on a whim.

Of course, that's the Londoner's attitude to things - they like to think that they are the only ones having a good time and that everyone else is living in the sticks eating at under-quality restaurants, going to uncool places for a night out. But the thing about me is that, more than those things, I want space to breathe and a bit of green to call my own, where I can grow my own food in clean earth and sit outside without a hundred near neighbours all piled on top of each other. I like the quiet life and don't hanker after trendy bars and great shopping (Lord! I need to be kept as far from shops as possible!). I'm happiest with a pair of walking boots on and the wind blowing hair into my eyes or pulling something that I have grown out of the soil. There is a wonderful life to be had outside of London and I'm glad I escaped, even if only to commuter-land in Essex. Next step: the back of beyond!

Image courtesy of Intercounty Estate Agents.

EDIT 11.13am: we got an offer! It was too low! We'll see...

One Hundred Days - no. 83

POLITICAL ANIMALS GUIDEBOOK 2010 - NO.0068C
SPECIES: Lapinus labourius (flatulentis)
DESCRIPTION: Once a popular choice, this particular breed of rabbit has become somewhat inbred in recent years and now suffers from a whole host of disorders that have emerged in the most recent generation. Symptoms include severe flatulence, eye problems (blindness, tendency to look in the opposite direction from where it is going), respiratory difficulties and emotional instability. No longer suitable for most domestic environments, this animal is best kept in outdoor pens and handled with extreme caution.

Thanks for your suggestions - I will try to do all of them at some point! They are all great. Today, I thought I'd kick things off with the Labour Party. I have very few political leanings and am mostly a greeny neutral/ignorant sort of person. I am tempted to spoil my ballot paper instead of voting. So these pictures don't really say anything at all about what I think of the parties.

More chairs

I know, I know, I sound like stuck record sometimes, but I couldn't resist this one. Pigeon Vintage has just put up a new selection of 20th Century architect's chairs. This one is German and from the 1930s. I cannot imagine spending so much (£325!) on a seat, but I think it's magnificent. Go to their website for more.

Where do you think this is?

No, not France - Wales, would you believe? Purely out of nosiness we will be looking at this house next Friday. It belongs to an artist and his wife. There is a separate converted garage which is currently his studio and is full of paintings of jackets and things like that. They have crammed the place full of beautiful vintage things and it is probably a bit too 'finished' for us to buy it (this isn't the one with that pine kitchen I showed you the other day!), but since we're up there, we may as well take a look :-) The house is outside Bodfari and Offa's Dyke passes very close by. The countryside around there is stunning - I have a feeling I will like this place a lot.

One Hundred Days - no. 82

A penguin for Kat and Laura.

How about this for an idea: write requests for things for me to draw in the comments section of my posts e.g. an animal, or several animals/people, or some kind of interaction, like 'a mongoose eating a pineapple', 'two canaries fighting over a sausage'. Go on. It'll be fun! I think I need to be brought out my dog/rodent comfort zone for the final push!

One Hundred Days - no. 81

Back in the comfort zone...

I can't wait...

until next Friday when the husband and I are running off to Wales for a few days. We will be scouting around for places to buy a house, having a peek at a couple of properties we've been eyeing up, and the rest of the time we will be doing a lot of walking.

So today I was wondering what to write about and came up with a blank. But as I like to say: when in doubt (and with time on your hands), turn to Polyvore! What clothes would I like to wear on a short break in springtime Wales? (OK, the shorts are a bit optimistic...)


This is the set that I randomly put together just now. Comparing this one to the others I've done, there is definitely a theme going on here - very simple, lots of neutrals, shorts worn with long sleeves, a snip of blue and a pop of colour in the accessories... but it's not even as if I dress like this - I hate my legs so shorts are a bit of an issue! I need to get over that...

Items in this set: Grey cardigan, Jack Wills, $170; Embly Racer Back Tee, 39 GBP; Vanessa Bruno Athe Wool cargo shorts, $105; Carraville Walking Socks, 24 GBP; Moccasin Boots, $240; Toast Elsie Satchel, 325 GBP; Bordfield Belt, 79 GBP. Other items - Barbour Beaufort wax jacket, Stanley food flask, necklace from Eclectic Eccentricity, squirrel necklace, blue scarf and Toast blanket - click here for the full list of items.

Of all of those things I only own the Barbour jacket and Stanley flask. Well, I suppose I could put together a vest, shorts and cardigan combo too, plus long socks and lace-up boots. I'm almost there! Bring on next Friday!