what our days look like

Here are some of my recent instagram pictures of the everyday goings on around here lately. @fayelarsen if you want to follow.

1 // Blanket forts are always the best place to eat morning snacks.

2 // Kitted out to help with some gardening chores.

3 // Now she is old enough to sit through a full film she can stay up a bit later for a movie night with us every now and then. We just borrowed Lemony Snicket's An Unfortunate Series of Events from the library for our next one. Pretty excited about that.

4 // Nothing better than a pyjama morning dance party to get the day started.

5 // When you have a house full of post-move empty cardboard boxes the obvious solution is to make a house with them (this one had four rooms, a front and back door and a back yard and required about a roll of packing tape to secure it).

6 // This weekend we took the girls to a fair at the kindergarten Lila will be starting next year. This involved pony rides, a bouncy castle and a stick of candy floss (or fairy floss as they call it here). I finally caved after saying no every other time she's come across it. Once it was in her hands it was barely around long enough to snap this shot.

7 // Rose has decided she is far too grown up for her high chair and now throws a strop unless she can dine at a table like the rest of us.

cricket court

Cricket Court is the quirky, bohemian country estate of British fashion designer Alice Temperley- complete with two pet llamas no less. Located in Somerset, in close proximity to the cider farm which is her childhood home, this is where she escapes the big city to spend weekends with her husband and their young son Fox. 

The whimsical interior emphasizes the houses' classic period features and reflects her love of all things British whilst also incorporating ornate ethnic elements and influences from her world travels. I love the fact that this home has so much character and reflects the personalities and passions of its occupants so charmingly. There's nothing better than a home which tells a story. Oh and of course the elevated free standing Victorian bath which is the centre piece of the master bedroom had me at hello.

  

Via Vanity Fair. Photographs by Francois Halard.

roots

I wonder if it's possible to grow roots that anchor you to a place? Seeds that were sown long ago. Maybe your childhood tears that once fell into the soil. Maybe your beads of sweat that germinated and grew as you toiled over a project on the lawn. Roots that carry on getting longer. An invisible, unbreakable tether that will continue grow with you wherever you go but ensure that you are always connected. That you always belong there. Ties that you are unaware of until much later on. 

At the farm the air always feels purer and fresher, more invigorating. The second after I close the heavy wooden farmhouse door behind me I take a deep breath to inhale the smell of home. I've often wondered if it's the washing powder my mother uses, maybe the smell of the antique furniture or the overalls, wellies and outdoor clothes in the boot room.

I've concluded it is unidentifiable. None of and yet all of these things combined. Unchanging as the years pass, comforting and unique. The morning chorus of the birds here sounds more melodic than anything I've ever heard on the radio. The familiar cold tiles beneath my bare feet as I cross the still kitchen in the early morning to put the kettle on and make breakfast.

It's both the past and the future, full of memories but also a place to conjure up dreams not yet realised. The people who inhabit it, their familiar routines and the way things are always done. The way they know you so well you don't need to explain or say anything at all if you don't feel like talking. Here it doesn't matter if there's a recession or even a war on. It's home and it's safe and I wish it could be like this forever. 

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It was so good to be back even for such a brief visit. I wish it wasn't so many, many unfathomable miles away but maybe that is what makes it all the sweeter when I return.

Now we are back in Australia, newly moved in to our new home, all ours this time. It's time to put down some roots for our own little family. But know it will never replace my other home, now I just have two of them.