A New Year

Our Christmas break up in Scotland was filled with toasty wood burners, delicious food and way too many games of Monopoly and Cluedo! It was really nice to see all of my family together and we all had a fun time getting the family decorations out, reminiscing on who made what in the rather motley collection of school-made Christmas decorations!
Mum and Dad's lovely old stone farmhouse looked lovely. I took a couple of snaps of Mum's amazing kitchen dresser

and their dining room where we had Christmas dinner and most of our other evening meals, the table has an extra leaf so the nine of us could all fit round comfortably!

We even ventured out in the stormy wind and rain to go to Kirkcudbright and Castle Douglas, stopping in at one of our favourite antiques shops, Country House Interiors which looked lovely and festive. A quick lunch at Designs Cafe and Gallery and then back to the house to warm our fingers and toes on those lovely wood burners!

Back at the cottage, our own tree has been taken down and the decorations carefully packed away in their layers of tissue paper and boxes. My thoughts have turned from festive fun and frippery to preparing for the things that the New Year will bring. Our garden fence was nearing the end of it's life anyway, but the storms in December and January have so we will be fitting in a new sturdier fence. Our reclaimed slates for the garden room also arrived on Friday so had a bit of fun carrying them through to the garden in the wind and rain!

I have become quite the avid armchair gardener, making lots of preparations for the coming spring and purchasing seeds, bulbs and tubers. I already have visions of large old terracotta pots full of lily of the valley brightening up our shady, gravelled side return...

Big peony-like "Cafe au Lait" Dahlias cut from the garden displayed in a recycled glass vase on our dining room table (inspired by Sharon from My French Country House). Light, airy slabs of yellow and green dill mixing with bishops flower and larkspur and grasses that ripple in the breeze. Fingers crossed work on the garden room can begin soon so that I will be able to start work on these ideas this year!