The lesser-spotted, red-footed rabbit

Well, as we have just moved in, we have been keen to put our mark on the place.

Although full of character, because our house is fairly new, it is rather bland in its colour scheme.
I do appreciate minimalism and I know it is fashionable and easy to customise, but I come from a family home full of wallpaper and experiments and 'techniques' and 'features' so I like to really add my personality. Hopefully, in a few months there will be no beige walls at all!

Anyway, whilst I am unemployed and whilst my partner is hard at work in his office, I decided to start decorating - yay!

I started with the living room and chose a lovely wallpaper for the large walls either side of the fireplace. I searched everywhere for inspiration and was eventually smacked in the face by inspiration in B&Q! Gorgeous pale green wallpaper with subtle green foliage pattern.

So that was my first thing.

My partner and I, on moving in, decided that he would have the office (the 3rd bedroom), and I would have the guest room to play with.

So, this was my next task and I really wanted to do something very different and very special.
It had to be cosy, warm and quite girly so I bought some really floral wallpaper and lovely sage green paint. I love it!!

My rabbit, Alvin is absolutely delighted with it. I have hidden all the cables and wires so now he is actually allowed in there.
If I ever can't find him, I know to look in this room which he seems to have taken for his own!!

Anyway, then I decided to add a bit of colour to the bathrooms. They were white with white bathroom suites, white walls, white floors, white ceilings, white tiles, white everything.
Now, I am the exception and do think that white bathrooms make sense, but I like a bit of atmosphere, so I chose to paint the two guest bathrooms, cranberry. It's a rich, dark red and just oozes elegance I think.

It was a bit of a chance and quite hard to use as a tiny slip onto the white ceiling or tiles, can be fatal! But I persevered and after a few hours of close, intricate, detailed painting, I stood back and admired my efforts!

But who else should come to admire the view but Alvin, the nosey rabbit.
And he got a very close-up view because he decided to run through my tray of paint!!!

In slow motion, I cried 'nooooooooooooo' as I leapt to the ground to scoop him up in my arms before he legged it upstairs, up the cream carpetted stairs, onto the cream carpetted landing, and into his favourite place, the newly decorated guest room.

Well, I caught him, to the detriment of my grey vest and jeans.

His little paws were just coated. Absolutely bright red. There was nothing for it to get a cloth to remove the wet paint from his toes and then to stick him in his cage to dry off.
My partner wanted to reprimand him (as he still hasnt learned that rabbits can't be reprimanded) but I assured him that Alvin would feel punished enough with his bright red feet when he went into the garden that afternoon - the laughing stock of the lawn.....

Knuts about home

My partner and I have just moved into our new home and we love, love, love it.
We have moved to Knutsford in Cheshire and it is just so completely far removed from our old flat in Tooting.
We have swapped our 1 bedroom ground floor flat, for a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom house in a lovely Close. We love love love it!

The town is beautiful and everyone so friendly that we are really feeling settled and homely already.
We have a pub round the corner, The Builders' Arms, where everyone says hello when you walk in. People take their dogs there and there is a garden in the back with a climbing frame.





Just across the road from us, you have a side entrance to Tatton Park, a beautiful park with deer, rabbits, free-roaming herds of sheep, all sorts.






We go for runs in the morning, covering a tiny portion of the park in proportion, but actually running 4 miles around the mere. With rabbits and squirrels and sheep dodging out of our way, and the silhouettes of antlers amongst the bracken, it is a far-cry from our morning jogs around the block and the local cemetry in Tooting.





Walking the other direction, within 5 minutes you are just walking through meadows of long long grass, with cows in fields and patches of woodland, and little brooks and lakes. It is just fantastic.



We love it more than we ever thought we would and so far we haven't missed London at all, despite secretly thinking that we would have a few withdrawal symptoms.

There are loads of lovely bars and restaurants about and quaint little boutiques.

We go to jive lessons on a Wednesday! Something we'd never have done in London!

The house is fatastic. It's a new-build about 5 years old. We ideally were looking for a Victorian / Georgian town house but that's til we actually visited Knutsford. The houses are either really really old or they are post-war boxes. The post-war boxes had no features and no character at all.
The old houses were full of character, but the ones that we could actually afford required way too much work and would end up costing way more money than we could ever afford. Also, they were tiny.

After viewing 50 houses (and that is no exaggeration) over 2 weekends of commuting from London, we finally saw this new-build, even after having specified to all of the estate agents 'No new-builds!'
But what the heck, we saw it anyway.

Anyway, I am sure it is the exception, but this new-build oozes charm and character and what's more, it is huge! It is by far, the biggest house we saw, has a lovely garden, and like I said before, has 3 bathrooms. And, it was cheaper than the flat we were selling!

Now that we have moved here, we still look at houses (especially the ones we viewed that are still on the market) and know we just made such a fantastic choice.

Our quality of life is so great and we have never been happier people. Every day is wonderful!

This used to be the kind of place we would visit to get out of London for a weekend, and we would browse the little shops and buy little home-made jars of chutney as a token of our break, and now we live here!!!