Coming up roses
Yesterday was four years since we swapped London for Suffolk, and moved into our new home.
I took the photo above to celebrate our fourth birthday here in Hadleigh, because as on moving day, roses were out all over the garden.
Then as now, we got hit with bursts of scent as we ran in and out of the house. The back door is not quite as covered in flowers as when we first arrived, due to attempts to stop the climber’s quest for world domination. But the mass of tiny flowers is still a delight.
I’ve come to know many more of the flowers in our garden since moving, partly through my attempts at posting one flower a day over on Instagram. (Do come over and follow me, if you don’t already)
When experienced gardeners reel off lists of plant names, it tends to go in one of my ears and out the other. Asking about one flower at a time, and writing it down, has definitely helped. Still a lot to learn both here and further afield!
I love how our garden explodes into colour during May, plus the chance to see flowers elsewhere including at Chelsea Flower Show (more on visiting Chelsea Flower Show for Less in this post). Here’s a collage of all my most recent photos on Instagram:
May’s instagram photos
The garden is still a source of great pleasure, despite the lengthy ‘really must’ list. For the children, the trampoline kindly left by the previous owner still provides hours of entertainment, even if the swing and slide set looks rather forlorn.
Inside the house, our biggest change since last year was getting our bedroom and the dining room painted, once we the damp in the corner was fixed and dried out. We’ve also finally replaced the carpet in our bedroom, stripped out on day one. No longer do we play Russian roulette in bare feet on bare boards, fearful of errant carpet tacks. Instead we have the luxury of thick cream carpet. You never now, by this time next year we might even get round to fitting wall lamps in the children’s bedrooms.
On Sunday, we headed off to see the Duck and Raft Race by Toppesfield Bridge, as both children enjoy being members of Hadleigh Sea Scouts. We all now see friendly face to stop and say hello. My work is busier, so I go back and forth for meetings in London more often, but it’s always a relief to swap the grey City streets for green fields on my way home.
Celebratory scones
Yesterday we were all busy in different directions, but I did manage to get outside while the sun shone.
I even bunged together some celebratory scones, using ingredients from East of England Co-op’s Sourced Locally suppliers. We travelled from rather further afield to our new house, but I’m glad it’s our home now.
Previous posts:
A year since we moved to Suffolk
Repairing the house for the winter
Three years since moving house
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It’s very different what is considered country living in the UK vs USA. Suffolk is about the same land area as my rural county in Arkansas except you have nearly 750,000 people and we have only 43,000. I think the people density in the rural UK might be more like the metro areas in our state. And our rural areas probably have no equivalent in the UK. Or maybe I’m looking at the wrong Suffolk?
You’re right, Steveark, England is much more densely populated than the US. On our small island we just don’t have the space to spread out!
I think of Suffolk as rural compared to London due to all the fields and farms around us, and the tractors and trailers chugging down the High Street.
When I say we moved to the country, that can sound like we ended up isolated in the middle of a field, miles from anywhere.
Actually, we moved to a market town, so while farmland spreads out behind our house, there’s a road in front and we can walk to shops, the school and so on.
I wrote a post about weighing up the different kinds of country living, before moving away from a city, here: https://www.muchmorewithless.co.uk/2017/07/moving-to-the-country-how-to-decide-where-to-live.html
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I love your daily flower pictures. I might even do the same if I ever get round to it!
A gardening target is to have a scented flower blooming on every day, they give such joy
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