I live in a tiny hamlet on the edge of Colchester, Essex, in the UK
Colchester is Britains oldest recorded town!
Colchester is Britains oldest recorded town!
A few years before we came to live here, 17 years ago, it was a dairy farm - so we are surrounded by lots of quiet countryside. The view at the top of this page is the back meadow - there is a big lake opposite us, a water meadow at the side of us and hundreds of trees all around.
This 2013 Google image shows the position of our 'humble abode'. The barns in the old farm yard next door have been renovated since we moved here and are now small business units. We have access to the yard where we walk the dogs - the red arrow pinpoints our own area. When we first moved here, the tumbled down derelict barns were full of wild life, barn owls, stoats and hundreds of swallows. Most of that left during the renovations - but there is an owl box which has been home to several lots of Tawny Owls, and the swallows still come each spring - but not so many anymore |
Never a day goes by without us saying how lucky we are to live here.
Our dining room looks out onto a traditional Old English hedgerow, so whenever we sit at the table our view is straight into our own personal nature reserve! This photo was taken late autumn - the view is quite different in the spring! We keep that part of the hedge cut lower so that we can see into the 'willows'. This north west facing window sill is perfect for my collection of orchids. I will photograph them again in a couple of weeks because there are so many new flower stems coming up, that it promises to be an amazing display. Most of them are white, because I love the pure simplicity of all white flowers. |