A visual feast, urban landscapes, changing views and Lucy's 'perfectly you'.
The visual is so vital to who I am.
Is that on a creative level, how I learn (visually), or am I just plain nosey?! Always wanting to see what’s happening around me. Perhaps it’s both of the above!
I have often said that sometimes I feel my eyes aren’t big enough to see all the wonder.
For me now, Exmoor is where I find my visual feast. Particularly on our hill farm, where we live work and play. Even more so now that a third Lockdown has confined us to this green paradise. When I worked in London, as a fashion designer, I was always using creativity to express what I was seeing. The visual reference was vastly different then. It was guided by the streets around me. People watching was my thing.
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Growing up, old socks, bedtime kisses and change.
I’m growing up. No, honestly I am! When we look at our children, we see how fast they grow and how quickly they become independent of us. If we look at ourselves it is easy to think that we haven’t changed, now we have ‘made it’ to adulthood. We are who we are. In reality we are still changing every day. I understand you will know that, but I do have to remind myself!
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Flood water, disappearing lakes, an epic journey, and bats.
Here we are…2020. A full 8 years since we arrived on Exmoor
to start our adventure. It really does feel like yesterday. Only my vivid
memories of how young the children were, brings the time passed into sharp
focus. Martha was 4, Alfie and George, 9 and 11 years old.
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Wonderful walks in the South West. Lundy Island. With mad mothers, green passengers, The Cheeses and dolphins.
I had been a holidaymaker visiting Croyde in North Devon, for many years, with a group of four mad mums and eventually 9 children. We all met when our first child was born. 18 years ago now. That makes for very special friendships. But also makes for VERY busy holidays!
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A positively good year, why project overload is good for the soul, hunting hounds and quiet moon gazing.
We are racing on with summer now and more than half of our year is behind us. It’s been a good year for the farm and our family. One where I can step back and look at the positive events and feel content. Maybe not everything has gone to plan, but I set my goals at a different level these days. I know what a bad year looks like, and how it can rip the very heart out of your chest.
That was 2016.
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A farmer's wife, my second life, community and hamsters.
I am living my second life. It is a life I never imagined! But I am embracing it with wide stretched open arms.
I am a farmer’s wife. How on earth did I get here?!
I often wonder what my day would have looked like had I followed I different path, and not met My Farmer.
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It's a dogs life, training the hard way, and learning from my mistakes.
Meet Ivy!
Isn’t she beautiful? Ivy came to live with us on the farm only a week ago. Already she is like part of the family…joyful, energetic, sleeps a lot, eats a lot, makes a lot of mess and demands my almost constant attention. Just like my children!
She is here to join my merry little band of gundogs/friends. We have six dogs on the farm.
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Family, farming on Exmoor, and a little taste of perfection.
Trawling through all my photos on my laptop recently, my mission was to sort them into labelled folders…dogs, farmhouse, nature shots, family etc… so I could access them for my writing. But I couldn’t stay on task!
The pictures of my family brought such rushes of emotion when they popped up on the screen. How small and very blond my children were! How windy that walk, with my father, at Putsborough beach had been. I could taste the salt air and remember vividly the sudden whoosh of quiet as the café door had closed behind us. It’s magical how images can bring senses and emotions back to you. Wonderful.
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Exmoor Beauty. This old house we call home.
Exmoor Beauty…
...the agents listing had simply said. It couldn't have been a more perfect description.
We were visiting Devon during the summer holidays, with 3 noisy, energetic children and a list of five farms to view. Heading back to the car after several hours spent on a scorching sandy beach, the phone rang. Another farm had just come on to the market. No real details available, but right sort of area, price and acreage stuttered the agent...mobile service is still poor over Exmoor!
Why not? Let's squeeze in another viewing before tea.
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Getting on with it, Nordic Walking and exercising my headspace.
My ‘Get Fit Again’ regime is gathering pace, and I’m not quite ready for it! Will power was needed here, which is a little lacking at the moment. So I enlisted some help and booked on to an instructor led Nordic Walk. It was a good day. Fabulous in fact. To be back out in Exmoors National Park, with its incredible scenery, with storm clouds tipping torrential rain on us at the start, then strong winds blowing the clouds away to reveal the brightest, bluest sky. I was in heaven again.
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Fantastic weather, tyrant business partners and beasts.
What fantastic weather we have been having! The moor and our farm are looking stunning. This time last year was a very different story. Although beautiful to look at, it was a very hard time for farmers on Exmoor. The snow drifts were as high as the top of our tractor in places. The lanes were completely blocked and we were snowed in for five days. It was still a special time in so many ways.
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How dreams, self belief, looking for adventure... and ferrets... led us to Exmoor.
My Mother used to call me “Dolly Daydream” in the early years, by my teens she called me a lot worse. But we won’t go in to that!
I was what you might have called an ‘average’ student. Sitting at my desk thinking about anything but the subject up on the board, but more than able. Coasting through lessons with a smile, but no interest. “Could try harder” and “talks too much”, also often on my school reports. School, for me, was all about the social life and nothing about an education!
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Another wonderful day has gone.
Never have I felt more connected to the moor than the last few months when I have been unable to be a part of it.
Many of you will have suffered from illnesses and ailments that have prevented you from doing something you love. I know you will empathise with my feelings of isolation and frustration. It’s almost unbearable! I have injured my back somehow. Probably repercussions of a cross country fall a few years ago when my horse landed on me. My body has been continuing to motor on with the many demands I put it through. Finally it can motor on no more.
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