that country cottage..

Here we are, back in Blighty and not exactly disliking it. It has been an interesting two months since driving ourselves and the pets out of the Eurotunnel and back onto English soil.

The first thing that struck us was the traffic - cars and people everywhere! The motorways are awful and always cramped. Never mind, we were pleased not to be heading for London and could not wait to see Chelmsford and surrounds, where we will be spending the next 6 -12 months.

Turns out Chelmsford is lovely and traffic is a doddle, even when busy. We collected the key for the house from the estate agent and signed documents and finally headed for the cottage we're renting but have never seen. What a lovely sight it was! Situated 7 minutes drive outside Chelmsford in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farm fields. Too lovely for words. I will not go into detail about the amount of cleaning we had to do to make it livable even though it was apparently professionally cleaned, but I will mention cobwebs everywhere and having to scrub all the kitchen cupboard doors and shelves and counter tops, and shower... ok I'll leave it at that.

The place is very small (but we expected this) , but has a huge kitchen (YAY! finally!!) and we had a fun time (not!) trying to figure out what to bring into the house and what to store when the moving company arrived the next morning. The space issue turned into a nightmare when we realised just how much of her own stuff the landlady had left in the house.

We also found out very soon (the day after moving in) that the gorgeous Rayburn cooker in the kitchen, which heats the house, does not work, and never will. We are still waiting to hear when it will be removed and replaced with a modern boiler, which will take some days as they have to install pipes and stuff. So, during most of April and May, we were frozen solid!

To keep our minds busy and not focussed on us nearly freezing to death we started planting seeds to later plant in the garden when it gets warmer, and to mow the huge lawn. The seeds did very well, but not so much the lawn. Unfortunately, half way through mowing the mower died and that was that, no amount of sweet talking, hugging, singing or threats of petrol dousing and lit matches could convince it otherwise, so poor Mr Fluff had to mow the rest with a manual push mower which we brough back from Germany, and it doesn't like long grass one little bit. This went on for a few weeks when we told the landlady bugger this, we will buy our own bloody lawnmower. This turned out so well, I'm totally in love with my new mulching, rumbling petrol mower! It's my new favourite toy. And this coming weekend we will be using our new petrol edge trimmer as well! Woo-hoo!!!
And yes, we plan to take both with us when we leave.

Here are some pics of the cottage, garden and veggies we've planted.

Our single lane street at the front of the property. Busy, innit? HAHAHA

We do get the occasional car, tractor, horse, fox, pheasant, bunny, duck... and many great-big-bloody birds that have no shame where they crap, or how much. We call those wood pigeons. Watch out for them, they're evil. Oh, and let's not forget the size and smell of pheasant shite! They have bigger poos than the dogs! I didn't sign up for picking up dog AND pheasant poo in the garden! It is really quite funny.

This is the front of the house and the view from the front

The front garden and side, facing towards the back

The back garden and patio area

View from the bathroom at the back of the house

And now some pics of some of the veggies we're growing:
The veggie patches from start to finish

We are attempting garlic, spinage, broccoli, peas, tomatoes, cucumber, courgette, butternut, sun flowers, a selection of other flowers, sweet pepers, chilli peppers, corn, herbs and salad leaves, and we also have potatoes, spring onions, strawberries, rosemary, sage, rhubarb, cherry trees and a few other unidentified fruit trees growing. Some of the good food will be grown in pots

Inside the house:
The front door

The kitchen

The first reception room which is now our study

The lounge/tv room

The conservatory

where Alula just can't help herself

The bathroom has thick carpet on the floor (eewww!), the bath is only half size and the shower has been renamed 'the dribble', so we squeeeeze ourselves into the tiny bath when we bath together, and believe me it is not that easy. Once the bubbles are in there is no space left for us! This is where yoga would come in handy.


I'm very surprised, but delighted to say that we are happy here. Would we reconsider and stay forever? Well, if the sun was a regular visitor, there were mountains nearby that we could snowboard on, and the population decreased by about 50 million, then we would probably consider it.

Anyway, it is great having a large garden as you can see from the pic below

And the pets have never been happier. This is pet paradise! And we like it too.

Mr fluff is contracting in London, and I drive him to & from the train station every day, take care of house & garden, and we have both joined the gym which we are really enjoying.

We love the fact that people speak english here (yay) and that everything in England is so easy and convenient. We are completely rural, but everything is between 5 and 15 minutes away. We have been to the cinema, fun fair, parks and country pubs, and we can't wait for the rest of summer to explore more.

So with that, I'll leave you with a couple of pics of a recent sunset