A sneak peak...

Dearest blog readers,

A quick hello from the land of dormant blogs...

Thank you so much for all of your lovely greetings, both here and in emails 

- you have really touched me with your kindness!

Many of you have also asked to see the inside of my new home.

So perhaps it is time for a little sneak peak...?

Yes, there is an inside to this little cottage. 

A work in progress, you might say. 

An interior that is yet to be Helenafied, or Swenglified. 

For this I need a creative mind to outwit the challenges of compact living, 

a eureka moment about how to live with carpets e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, 

and the time and the head space to realise the ideas as they come to me.

But I think I might get there in the end.

Even if slowly.

The potential is there.

The good vibes.

The friendly house elfs.

Together, we will create...

HOME.

The walls look a strange shade of greeny-yellow here, but they are in fact white. See the strange and not at all straight line at the top of the first photo above? Yes, that is indeed where the wall meets the ceiling. Visitors taller than 1,87 m may think twice about coming for tea... Compact living? Oh yes. Bijou at its bijouiest...

Wishing you the loveliest of weeks!

Helena

Summer greetings...

Dear blog readers,

Have you entered the summer "lull" yet, 

the lazy days,

 the stopping what you are doing long enough to spot the most wonderful of growing inspiration, 

of "Nothing Is Impossible" and two fingers in the air to anyone who says 

poppies cannot grow out of a dry stone wall if they feel like it...

Does you laundry smell wonderfully fresh from spending hours in the light summer breeze, weaving more than fresh air into the thread count of the sheets, storing life and new beginnings in the same...?

Is your home-made elderflower cordial drunk yet, 

drunk with sparkling water to the tune of the ice cubes clinking and clanking in the glass,

drunk till the last drop of golden summer flavours is devoured 

and the longing for next year's harvest has begun...?

Has your vine started producing grapes yet? 

And more importantly... 

- have you stopped to smell the roses?

I confess, I am not quite there yet. 

My work has not gone on holiday, so neither have I.

But occasionally, and eagerly encouraged by my youngest son,

I do stop to smell the roses.

Literally.

My son says:

"Mamma, you have got to come here and smell this one. It smells like lemon."

Although he says it in Swedish. 

"Den luktar citron, mamma!"

"Oh, and come here. This one smells like raspberries!"

So I stop.

And I smell.

And he is right. The yellow rose does smell a little bit like lemon, the red one like raspberries.

So I pick one, put it on the table.

The scent of lemon, summer and sweetness fills the room.

Wraps us all in the arms of summer, despite the boys still having a week left before school finishes and my having more work than I dare to think about...

Lemon. Roses. Raspberries.

Sometimes that is all it takes.

Helena

♥

Why I think I might start drumming...

Every now and then I hear other parents tell me - not seldom without a poorly hidden despondency in their voices - that they have just bought a drum kit for their child, because said child really, really wants to become a drummer...

I have often wondered how I would react if one of my boys presented this idea to me...

Glorious, GLORIOUS part of this home, housing the indoor swimming pool.

I am not sure I would jump up and down with joy... 

I think I would rather spend the rest of the day trying to convince them that the instruments 

they are already playing are SO much better for them, for so many reasons... 

Noise level being one of them... 

However...

... having today fallen completely and irrevocably in love with this 

stunning house and its equally stunning gardens...

 I am beginning to think that this drumming business is not such a bad idea after all...

If this is what Nick Mason, former drummer in Pink Floyd, is able to call home (one of his homes) today 

(and yes, this is his home, on the outskirts of our little town)...

... I think my view of my boys potentially choosing a drumming career might just have changed dramatically...

In fact, I think I might give it a go myself!!!

Summer greetings to you all!

Helena

Garden glimpses...

Scruffy shed at the back of the garden?

Nothing that a few pots of lavenderishious loveliness and a couple of 

gently green garden chairs (from ASDA) cannot fix...

My peaceful friend joined me in the move from the old house...

 ... and now enjoys the scents of summer from the perfumed plants, 

whilst contributing to 'the calm and the cosy' 

in this little corner of contemplation.

The view from the chairs or the bench above?

Well, a lawn crying out for a haircut and the garden path leading back to home, sweet home!

Dearest readers,

I am - again - humbled by your kind words, 

your greetings here on the blog and via email, your warmth and your kindness. 

Thank you all SO much!

With love,

Helena

Trashy treasures and a woolly welcome...

Dearest blog readers,

Would you let me hug you, please? 

Hold you tight for a minute and tell you how lovely you are and how touched I was 

by your kind words after my modest blog come-back two weeks ago? 

I struggle to find the right words to describe how you made me feel. 

I feel I ought to say something profound and yet all that comes to mind, 

over and over again, is "you made my day". 

You. Made. My. Day.

During my blog silence, one of the things that kept me busy was moving in to this little 18th-century cottage, in a tiny hamlet a few minutes away from the "old" Swenglish Home. Full of good vibes, history, lady birds and spiders (!), this is a home where my compact living skills will be tested again and again...



However, my nose for recycling and turning trash into treasure has already proven intact, for example when I spotted these two rattan chairs being thrown away at the local recycling centre. "Stop, hold on! Surely you are not throwing those away?!" I bellowed at the men unloading the contents of their lorry into the skip. "Want them? They're yours!" they bellowed back, raising one or two eyebrows at the beaming Swede embracing their rubbish with such joy. Perhaps not my dream garden chairs, but they were free and they have already proven to be splendid seats for lunches in the sun.

The observant among you may have noticed that there seem to be two front doors to this little aged beauty. This is indeed true. In the old days, this used to be two cottages and as I sweat and fret over lack of storage space, I think of what it must have been like living here in those days, in only half of the cottage, and instantly I feel really blessed and grateful for the space that I have got!

The front door to the left in the photo above leads straight into the kitchen. This is a kitchen that, in the mouth of an over-eager estate agent might be described as "bijou", but which we all would know means "so tiny you can barely turn around". But do you know what? It also comes with this view:

 ... and that makes even washing up (my least favourite household chore) a joy!

And just like my woolly neighbour welcomed me into my new home,

let me welcome you to

 "The New Swenglish Home Blog"!

Helena

Winds of change...

 Dear blog readers,

It has now been an eternity or two since I last resurfaced, 

and many are you who have sent kind messages during my web absence 

- thank you so much! 

Days became months and before I knew it, 

five whole months had gone by without a sign of Swenglish life... 

But not to worry, there is still life here. 

Although with the winter storms came other winds too.

Winds of change.

And of these winds, I might perhaps speak soon... 

Until then, may your paths be lined with spring blossom,

and sunshine embrace your every step!

Helena