As regular readers will know, I’ve been dropping hints about something exciting for some time, but until now I’ve not had a moment to reveal the big news, which is that Ste and I have bought our first house together!

My followers on Instagram will have seen that we moved in on 19th December, just in time to get things (almost) sorted before Christmas, and even with time to put a tree up! The house is in Yorkshire, some 250 miles from where we lived before, so it’s a complete life change as well as a house move.

We got the keys on the 19th, but our belongings didn’t arrive until 20th, so the first night in our new home, we lit the log burner in the living room, set up the television and internet (cleverly Ste ordered our tv box to arrive earlier that day for self-set up), inflated an air bed and stacked up some pillows and sleeping bags, popped open a bottle of Prosecco, and snuggled up with the dogs (very excited to be allowed on the ‘bed’) in front of the roaring fire and watched a film. Simple, complete happiness.

 

We went home to my family in Somerset for 4 days over Christmas, to see all my friends and godchildren and spend the usual family Christmas in Dorset with my extended family. As ever, it was absolutely perfect, and I got some brilliant presents again from Ste this year, as well as a “housewarming present” from my parents… a log wrapped up under the tree! They thought it was hilarious, but since I’d just been complaining about the price of firewood and told them I planned to fill the car up with a load of theirs to take home, I guess I deserved it. I even had a present from my absent little sister Tash, currently on the most incredible round the world trip (if you’re interested in her adventures in Latin America so far, check out her blog here), of two fabulous books about English cottages and kitchenalia – she knows me too well!

Arriving back ‘home’ from Christmas was a bit of a shock – Yorkshire was covered liberally in snow! It was beautiful, but the roads were terrible, and I hate winter driving so Ste had to take over. I had basically decided that I would not be leaving the house until Spring, but the authorities are very well prepared for such weather in these parts, and snow was shovelled, roads gritted, and routes cleared in no time. In Somerset a few years ago when we had a similar amount of snow, everything stopped for about a fortnight until it thawed. Definitely not prepared.

Neither of us could wait to get back to the unpacking and organising and DIY’ing. It is actually incredible how much we have already done. I’ll post some of the changes we’ve made already soon, but suffice to say, even we are a bit amazed, me especially – Ste is proving to be a far better plumber, electrician and general DIY genius than I could ever have imagined!

Today it was back to work, me from home in my new office, which has lovely big windows looking out onto the garden. I’ll be commuting down to London for two days a week for work, but the rest of the time working from here, which is wonderful. We have plenty of time in the mornings to walk the dogs in the huge woods next to the house before Ste sets off to his office, 1o minutes drive away. It already feels like a whole new life. A pretty wonderful one!

I’ll show you all around the house next week in a photo tour, but for now, I’ll leave you with a last little hint of Christmas – our living room with the tree up, presents below, and the dogs making themselves cosy in their new home!