~all change...~

so...

here i am...

after a years break from blogging....

i was walking down from my kitchen and thought of my living 'my little life' and realized i needed to blog...

so here i am...sitting in my bed with a bucket of good strong yorkshire tea, still not using upper-case....i am sorry life is too short!

my life has changed a lot since my last post...

i am still with my NS i am glad to say and our relationship is stronger and more secure than ever. he has become more settled, open and after a couple of very, very rocky moments he finally...finally realized that i am not like the women who have become before-i am not out to lie, cheat and abuse him

also, please meet Arthur-i took him in as an illegal lodger who was living on the cobbles and fed by my neighbour and then myself, and i brought him with me when i moved to live out a splendid retirement in the country.

i am nearing the end of my classical studies degree-this time next year it will all be over. right now i am in revison mode with an exam in june and i am already in panic mode, feeling i know nothing...less than nothing! but already i am thinking of doing my masters with the utmost in support from NS. its a lot to think about which i will be doing over the next year while i finish my degree.

the biggest thing...well two things really...is that i moved from my home by the sea in february...at imolc actually which felt so perfect.

i only moved about 7 miles but it feels like a million miles. i am now back within the boundaries of the new forest national park, still only a few miles from my family home, living in, what i call 'splendid isolation'

i am not totally isolated, but close. 

i now live in a small village with a strong history to the witches of the new forest in a little cottage that was once a one up, one down to the groom who looked after the working horses of the farm here...the stables are still next door but now home to my neighbour and her cat.

best of all i have a garden, a little patio and a shed and...off road, private parking so i will no longer have my beloved car vandalised.

 the french doors lead to a small cosy living room and i wish you could see the patio now...

 the kitchen is up a short flight of steep, narrow stairs and the floor has the oldest and longest oak boards i have ever seen

 i was finally able to plant out my welsh rowan

 oh, did i mention the woodburner?!

the first weekend i put in a feeder and now get...robins, sparrows, blue tits, great tits, gold finches, jackdaws, dunnocks, starlings,  wood pigeons, magpies, the occasional nut hatch and rooks and also wood mice, shrews and bank voles

and oh my but i am happy.

my old flat became awful...the almost constant noise from the art gallery downstairs, noise late at night on the cobbles, noise and smell from the salon, it didn't feel like home and the final straw was just before Christmas i caught my landlady coming down from my flat after using my bathroom...within two weeks both NS and i were looking for my new home.

i didn't hold out much hope of finding anywhere and so was a little half hearted then one morning NS sent me a link to a small, independent letting agent and this cottage had literally been listed only an hour earlier. so i launched an email campaign, suddenly the cottage was listed as let so then phoned only to be offered the chance to view the next day.

i was one of four people who viewed it and after a very anxious week i was offered it because 'they knew i would stay and love it'

two weeks later i was in,,,the same day going down with flu

there then followed the very rocky time with my NS

but it passed

so here i sit, in my little bedroom, drinking tea, hearing nothing but bird song and the classical music from my radio, Arthur is fast asleep on the end of the bed...and i just realized with all this catch up i went off track from what i originally wanted to write...