Moving, settling

and becoming

Hello lovely Substack people,

Just a quick hello to say I am still here! We have been moving houses (and shed). Not ideal in a heatwave with cats and a dog and difficult buyers but we are here! It was a hellish process but worth it now we are here. Slowly unpacking boxes and spending our days opening every kitchen cupboard looking for where to plates are, and wandering around trying to find shoes and such.

The house is so very lovely and bigger than our last one, with a kitchen that has room for a table to sit at, a bath, oh the utter bliss of a bath, and bifold doors into the garden from the sitting room! The garden is terraces and wild and plants everywhere, little hidey holes and trees behind and a pond with fish in. We are now fish parents it seems.

The Shed is now a room in the house, but it is lovely and bigger than the shed and the house is so in nature, I don’t feel I will miss the shed. It need s a lot of unpacking and sorting and I am wondering how on earth I managed to fit everything into that tiny shed!

Our lives and routine have tipped upside down and it has been so amazingly lovely to just start again, get out of those ruts of doing things because you do them. We have been sitting having coffee together in the morning, watching the squirrels and jackdaws in the garden. There is a pond with goldfish in it that need feeding each morning. A lovely new moment in the day to stand and watch them and listen to the waterfall.

We have been here 4 days and we have not plugged the TV in yet. I have not watched or read or listened to the news. It has been bliss. Life is calmer, quieter, happier. We have no internet for another week and though I run an online business and need it, apart from that, it has been lovely to not be scrolling endlessly.

I’ve been going to local shops rather than ordering online. We have been looking out the window and talking and just being in those moments we have stopped unpacking and sat down.

Dinner is when we feel like it rather than the set time it became. We have room to cook rather than the tinier than a tiny thing galley kitchen in the last place that limited what you could cook so now I am thinking what we might eat. I’d love to know of any fave dishes you like to cook to get some inspiration, do tell me in the comments.

Tonight we went for a little walk before dinner, just cos.

I have never slept as well as I did last night. The air is fresh and clean and I slept in late this morning for the first time in about 10 years.

The other lovely thing has been the welcome from the neighbours. They have all been round with flowers, booze, cakes, cards, chatting on the street to us, everyone shaking hands and introducing each other, all offering to help and asking how we are settling in. We have talked to more people this last 4 days that we ever did in the 14 years at the last place. I wrote a book called Finding your Place, mostly about reading and bookmarks, but also about finding your place in life and I think I found mine.

My son and his wife and two tiny grandkids are nearby. They walked down to see us.

I have never lived close to family before. I had friends who had family nearby who would pop in and out and I wondered what it would be like. I was always quite envious. Now they are within walking distance and I am delighted at this thought.

Lupin my dear little lurcher has been at his beloved second home dog sitter for the week while we moved and unpacked and today I am off to collect him and bring him to his new house. It will take a few days for him to work out what is going on, but I think once he does, he’ll love it here. So many lovely walks to be had.

The cats are now coming out from under the chairs and wanting to go out and explore. A few more days and we might start letting them out and then we can make use of the lovely doors into the garden too.

There is a lot to unpack and a lot to sort and fix, shelves to put up, lampshades to buy and all that sort of stuff, especially as the previous owners, took a lot of stuff we assumed they’d leave, like the doorbell!

but we are here and I am happy and relaxed and feel at home already. It has a lovely presence this place.

I can’t wait to show you the scenery and be inspired to make new creatures from this new upland environment.

I would heartily recommend shaking up one’s routine, even if getting on a bit. It has been wonderful to have a fresh start and leave behind the old. I feel like I am shedding a skin and slipping into a new me. Not sure how that will look yet, but it is intriguing to find out. Moving on a blue moon feels special and a fine time for new beginnings.

I need to unpack more and then next weekend I am away for a tribe of Chokliteers gathering (we will be opening up to new tribe members in a couple of weeks if you fancy joining ) and then I am off to London Children’s Literature Festival end of the month to do two events. But then I will be settling into my wild new place and making and experimenting and seeing what comes anew.

More anon when I am a little more unpacked, just wanted to say hi I’m still here somewhere under the boxes and thanks for waiting for me to get settled.

And now I need to find a new sign off as with love from the shed doesn’t work when you don’t have a shed, with love from the shed that is now an indoor room doesn’t have the same ring to it!

Love from over here

Karin