Friday news and a finished blanket…

It’s been a bit of a week here at Holly Cottage. I woke up on Monday with a terrible sore throat which has progressed into a rotten cold during the week..so am feeling more than a tad fed up and sorry for myself…

We have also lost two of our lovely chickens during the last week, the first (one of our younger chickens) to a respiratory infection, and despite a visit to the vets and antibiotics for all the hens we were unable to save her. Then another suddenly went downhill with different symptoms, but by the time we realised she was egg bound, we only had a few hours before she too faded away. So upsetting. We’ve kept chickens for over two years now and have never lost one, so to lose two in a week has been really sad.

Anyway, on to more cheerful things….! I am cheering myself up today with this wonderful bunch of daffodils…only £2 and part of that is donated to Marie Curie…aren’t they gorgeous?

I’ve also finished the small ripple blanket that I started last week for my brother..

It’s not huge, just big enough to snuggle under while watching TV.

But I think it will do the job…

Hope you are all having a lovely Friday..it’s snowing here at the moment so I think all thoughts of venturing out are going to be put on hold and a day on the sofa doing some hooky and watching TV is in order!

Nikki x

Weekend Pottering

It’s been much of a stay at home weekend this weekend. I have been pottering. Pottering down the garden to let the girls out to scratch about in the garden…

Pottering in the kitchen….

this was the beginning of my preparation for a yummy fish pie that we had for tea last night. I have to confess that I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture of the finished pie…but it Was decidedly delicious…even if I do say so myself!

I served it with thick slices of home baked granary bread and lots of butter..

Today, I have baked some more bread and put a warming chicken casserole in the slow cooker for our dinner later..

Now I am off out to my “shed” which is being redecorated and repurposed as a new office for me. When I first started my business it was run from this shed/office for a few years until we had too many staff to fit in it (and there was an overspill back into the house on the dining room table!) at which time the decision was taken to take “proper” office space elsewhere.

If we take a peep inside you will see that it’s currently being painted out and at the moment has what is going to be my desk in bits, being painted …

I will bring you the finished article (and office) in another post!

Once I have finished another coat it will be back indoors for me and a bit more of this…

Have a lovely Sunday,

Nikki x

Downshifting

….I’ve made a big work change in my life recently in that I have sold my interest in the business I created over 6 years ago now. For too many years I have been working flat-out, non-stop with all that running business brings – staff, cashflow, deadlines, always trying to stay one step ahead of the competition. Then one day I realised that I was working so hard, I didn’t have time to enjoy the things that I love. Wow.,.. that was a shock…I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before. It was time.

The plan is that I will still work in the business…but part time. Which will give me the best of both worlds…continuing to work in the business I created AND having the time to give to the people I love, the things I love doing and the home I love.

I will have time for this…

And this…

However, changes like this come with their own “little” downsides….in that I won’t be quite as well off financially as I was before, BUT I will be a whole lot better off emotionally 🙂

However, this hasn’t been a quick decision for me…you see for a long time I have wanted to slow down, have more time to do the things that really interest me. One of these is for myself and Mr Holly Cottage to be much more self-sufficient than we currently are. At the moment our only nod to self-sufficiency is keeping our hens. But there is so much more that I would like to do, and so much more that I am sure I can do but just haven’t had the time to do up till now. So the adventure starts.

I have been researching this more self-sufficient way of life on t’internet and have found two amazing blogs which you may like to take a look at. The first is Frugal Queen This is written by an amazing lady called Jane who has paid off an amazing amount of debt (both credit card and mortgage debt) by just doing things differently. When I found her blog I spent almost two whole days reading it from start to finish! She too wanted a more simple life. Note that I say “simple” rather than “easy”. It has taken Jane an inordinate amount of effort to achieve all that she has – but I am guessing she would tell you she wouldn’t have it any other way. Because, she is now living her life on HER terms.

The other blog is written by a retired lady and can be found at Down to Earth. This blog also has a brilliant forum attached to it where you can register and join a community of people all looking to live a more simple life and to keep more of what they earn.

Both of these blogs have all the information, tips and advice that you could need to start your journey to a more simple (and frugal) way of living. Go have a look – you won’t be sorry!

If you know of any other blogs about frugal or simple living that you have found useful, please do leave a comment with the link to them…thank you x

A Stay at Home Day (and a first for the chickens!)

We woke (like most of the country yesterday) to about 6 inches of snow in our Garden so our much anticipated trip to a local indoor Car Boot Sale had to be postponed. Even if the main roads had been ok we live down a little lane with deep ditches on either side and absolutely no street lighting so you drive it in the snow at your peril!

So we had an unexpected day at home to potter and basically do not much else!

Of course we still had the chickens to feed and water so first thing we went down to see what they thought of their first glimpse of snow!

They were less than impressed to say the least!

They sort of peeked out, standing on the very edge of their pen…patiently waiting for the grass that is normally there to appear!

We waited for them to come out. They waited for the grass…. In the end Mr Holly Cottage scraped a small path for them with a teensy glimpse of grass poking through the snow…

And finally they ventured out!

The rest of the morning was spent baking a carrot cake with lemon cream cheese icing..

A bit of hooky time…..

… and finally we remembered that the chickens were still out. We rushed down the garden to see how they had fared in the snow….only to find them still standing, all 6 huddled up, in exactly the same spot we had scraped clear for them.

The day was so cold we spent the rest of it snuggled in the warm. Even my little demon (who would normally much prefer being in the garden guarding it from squirrels) was quite content to stay in her bed all day!

Hope you all had a restful Sunday, Nikki x

Backyard Makeover

I love our little cottage but I have to say that one of the spaces that has been sorely neglected is the space between the back door and the lawn area.

We just couldn’t decide what to do with the area and then this summer we were really lucky to be offered some handmade pavers which we hoped would be enough to complete the job.

Come the beginning of August we both had a week off so on day one we cleared the area and began to prepare to makeover our backyard.

By the Wednesday afternoon we were on the home straight….and finally ta dah! Our new backyard!

To blog or not to blog?

A question I have been asking myself as I have drooled over, delighted in and devoured the many amazing blogs I have followed, dipped into and stumbled upon over the last year or so.

I hesitated, I decided for and then against..always concerned that I would never be able to create something as interesting or in fact that anyone would be interested in….but finally here it is…my very first blog post!

I hope to use this blog as a record of the happenings, highs (and hopefully not too many lows) of life here at Holly Cottage, a home I share with my lovely partner, our two dogs, and six chickens.

I love thrifting, crochet, baking, reading and lately my iPad (on which I am writing this blog) – something that apparently isn’t recommended..but then I never have been a fan of doing things the easy way!

I do hope you will stop by from time to time and say hello,

Nikki