There I was - fashion and style books in hand, a new interest watching how people dress around me, a keen interest on the red carpet fashions at the Golden Globes...when suddenly the selling of our UK home and the buying of a US one took a sudden canter into action.
So we've spent most of last week reading forms and signing forms and visiting our realtor, and our banks, negotiating with Mr Devyne's work and tons of middle men and agents in between.
And we're saying goodbye to our lovely cottage deep in the heart of the English countryside. I've been trying to write some things about our lovely home for the last 3, 4, 5, 6 days now....I can't, every time I start to write something I start crying.
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the new chapter in our lives here in Arizona....but saying goodbye to the Cottage is......it's hard. It was my sanctuary, my refuge, the place my youngest daughter was born, the place I snuggled up with Mr Devyne in front of a roaring fire during one of the multitude of power cuts we had up on the hill, the place I played with my dog and my cats....(big sigh)......I will miss it terribly. So due to me not being able to talk about it without breaking down, here are some happy memory photos:
Our cottage is the one slap bang in the middle.
The front of our house the day Melchett was born....in the dining room...
What a lovely blurred photo of me, in labour before giving birth to Melchett at home.
A terrible photo of Goth Child and Melchett less than an hour after birth, I was still to the left in the dining room getting attention from the midwives.
That's enough baby photos for now....
Just like our cats, Melchett has always been one for climbing into boxes. Here she is one Christmas at the bottom of our stairs - stairs which I fell down numerous times, once landing myself in A&E after falling and smashing my head on the lump of wood at the bottom.
The beams in the front room that prompted Mr Devyne to buy the Cottage.
Two of the many internal windows throughout the house which prompted me to buy the Cottage. These are the two little windows from the kitchen (dur) into the bathroom. And this is all of us doing something we do every year together - decorate Christmas cookies for Father Christmas.
I miss this bath and this bathroom so badly - yes, it was on the ground floor and yes, none of the doors had locks - and this would put some people off, but I spent many a night in huge bubble baths, with the lights off, candles gently flickering and Classic FM or a CD playing through the speakers Mr Devyne have cleverly built into the ceiling....and for a while before it seized up because of the steam, I had a fully working rotating mirror ball above the bath too :) I do and will continue to miss this bathroom....and my nautical toilet!
....which one Christmas Eve was visited by Father Christmas - he leaves his snowy footprints around the house every year:
And one year he even had a go on my skateboard!
Naughty Father Christmas. Snow has always been fun at the Cottage - because nearly everytime it snows seriously, we got snowed in!
Which means we can go sledging down the road!
But we had some beautiful summers in the Cottage too:
This is the back of the house - where Mr Devyne put in french doors from our tiny bedroom to make a balcony:
...much appreciated by Melchett and her teddies...
But my favourite room of all had to be the kitchen, where I sometimes pretended to bake:
But a lot of laughter and 'real' baking happened too...
Bye bye wonderful home, sanctuary, refuge, fortress - place where wonderous things happened - house that not everyone would think very much of, because it was small, got snowed in at least once a year, suffered powercuts at least 3 times a year, was over 2 miles to the nearest shop/pub/post office - but we loved it, invested heavily in it, decorated rooms in it more than I can count - I'm going to miss you so much...
....but hopefully our new house (if every goes ok with surveys, financing etc) is just as quirky (for an house in Arizona) and we'll soon have a whole raft of photos of happy times in it to match those from the Cottage. Fingers crossed.
Yep, I'm crying :)
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