christmas in the cotswolds: it's moving week!

It's Wednesday afternoon and it is moving week this week which is so incredibly exciting. I know that everybody says that of sort of the normal things that happen to all of us moving is one of the most stressful but I honestly think I'm just so well practiced because I've moved so much that to me I'm feeling good. I'm actually feeling really really good about it. My mum and I were actually calculating in the car earlier just how many houses I've lived in so far in my life and in my adult life alone, so that's since I left for university, I have lived in 11 different houses so this house that I'm about to move to will be the 11th house that I've lived in just since I went to university. A large part of that is because when I was at Bath at uni, my university course, we did lots of different placements and somehow in four years I managed to live in seven houses at uni so obviously that's massively contributed to it and then meeting Kenny and the nature of his job that we were sort of always moving. Yeah somehow this will be my 11th house and then as we all know I also moved around a lot when I was growing up all within the Cotswolds but we lived in lots of different houses. Actually I filmed a video back in I think it was sort of spring, summer of this year with my mum where we basically revisited all of my childhood homes that I lived in when I was growing up in the Cotswolds so if you saw that video you have a good idea that I have done the moving process so many times that actually all I feel this week is really really excited and really just ready to get the keys and get in there. It's going to be a really really exciting week but more on the house later because what I thought we could do this evening is when I get back to the room I might even pop a sort of question box on Instagram or something quickly now but either way I'm just going to sit down and really have a proper chat with you about the new house because I haven't really had a chance to properly talk about it and share more detail on it and just explain the whole situation, explain the future plans and yeah just give you all the detail on the new place. We haven't had a chance to do that yet and we won't quite get into the new house this week in this week's vlog. I'm actually getting the keys this week but it just won't quite make it into this video so I'm really hoping if everything goes smoothly, if everything goes to plan then I'm hoping that next Sunday's video will be in the new house which I am so truly excited about. I just cannot, I just cannot wait. My real goal with this place was to be in before Christmas so that I have the joy of buying a Christmas tree and taking it to my new home. You know what's just occurred to me as I was speaking that's actually such a lovely, it feels really special and it feels, it feels almost, it's like a sort of a full circle kind of feeling. So I am almost a Christmas baby, I was born a week before Christmas and my mum always talks about, and my dad actually, about the experience of having her first baby that close to Christmas and coming home from the hospital and my dad had got a Christmas tree and set it all up so it was really Christmassy and obviously she had this newborn and isn't it funny that all these years later I am now moving back home and it's the same time of year and it'll be just before my birthday and I'll get to have the experience of bringing home my own Christmas tree. There's something about that that just feels really special, it feels like it makes sense that I'm moving this close to Christmas although I feel like that's quite uncommon, I think people tend to avoid moving in the Christmas period and I do feel I'm very likely to host Christmas this year just because obviously my parents are, it's pretty much a building site, their place and my sister lives in an apartment so I feel like I am very likely to be hosting Christmas this year. Obviously everyone will just sort of get stuck in and we'll all help but it might start feeling slightly more stressful the closer we get to Christmas because it's just in my nature, obviously my family would not care less and that's not what Christmas is about but I obviously want the house to feel somewhat ready to have guests and somewhat Christmassy and that sort of thing but anyway I did say we'd talk more about the house later so I'm going to stop talking about the house now but when we get home later we will have a proper sit down, cup of tea and really get into the detail about the new house but for now let's focus on the present moment. So I am staying this evening in a really gorgeous hotel and actually a hotel that I would say this seems to be one of the most popular places that people stay when they come to visit the Cotswolds so I've always wanted to stay here first and foremost because it looks so cosy and so lovely and Cotswoldy but also all of my friends are always asking me, actually probably one of the questions I get asked the most is where to stay in the Cotswolds, it's always good to have a few places up my sleeve that I can recommend, this was always on my list and then the team here actually really really kindly invited me to stay so I thought I would take the opportunity before I move to come and stay and I will of course show you around so that's where I currently am but we actually have a really really really special really gorgeous couple of days down here which is what I've come down for because we're actually going to Le Manoir tomorrow which I will talk more about then because I've been talking for a really long time. It is actually getting on, I don't know where my phone is but it's actually getting on in the afternoon now I think it must be three o'clock-ish. I'm going to head over to my parents house now or what's left of their house because as I said it's very much a building site but I'm having dinner there this evening so I thought I'd just go over and see what my mum's up to, see what her plans are for the afternoon, see if there's anything that she wants to do with what's left of the day. We might go to the pub, I don't know. I'm going to leave it in mum's hands but obviously I'll take you along for anything that we do do and then like I said I'm going to come back here maybe even get myself a glass of wine from the bar and then come sit in here and have a good chat with you about the house situation and then we've got a busy but really really gorgeous day tomorrow as well. Before I head over to my parents house I'm going to really quickly show you around the room and then we'll actually go out and I'll show you a little bit of the hotel because it's so cosy, Cotswoldy, it's really really really gorgeous here. They've got the fire on and all of that sort of thing so let me show you around. Okay I'll start by showing you this view of the room because one of the things that I love most is this freestanding, gorgeous freestanding bath in the middle of the room and then obviously the Cotswold stone interior walls of the room are so beautiful and what I also love is there's a book, what is it called? A Cotswold Ordeal by Rebecca Taupe left on the bath which I love and then over this way, so this is one of the riverside rooms and you will see why out of the window which I just think is so beautiful you overlook this little river and then you have a cosy reading corner, you have your desk and then obviously the bed, again just love, I love an exposed stone wall and then over here I don't want the fan to turn on in the bathroom so I won't turn the lights on but we have a lovely little bathroom in here as well, it's such a gorgeous room. Okay super quick outfit of the day before I run out of the door, my coat is Sandro, it is old but they usually bring out a very similar silhouette every year so I'll see if I can find anything similar online. These coats are just such gorgeous quality, I'm a big fan of a Sandro coat and then I've got on which you can't see very well because it's a little bit dark in here but I have on really really big Me&M jumper, again this is old season and it's actually a size extra large but it's like my comfiest just best jumper, I love it. I've got my denim shirt from With Underneath, again worn this to death, leggings and then I'm actually giving my first outing to my Penelope Shilvers boots that I showed you last week and then again another very very well loved item of mine, my Bottega bag and then just to talk about jewellery because I feel like we never do that, obviously this one I have Kenny to thank for and then the trinity ring is actually a vintage trinity ring that was a gift from my parents, this is my parents first, well my mum's first wedding band, she now has an upgraded wedding band so I wear this one every day and these are really really special to me and then on this hand, these again I wear these pretty much every day, these are my Monica Vinegar rings, I can link these for you, these are new but I wear them every day and then featuring my gorgeous scarf but my necklace is again a very very generous gift from Kenny, it is a Cartier trinity necklace and I adore it. So yeah all very well loved items today, all things that I've had and worn for years or that I've got recently but I've already worn to death. Okay we're back in the hope of tea, I've got my current favourite pyjamas on, I am obsessed with these, I'd wear them in the day if I could, I will link them but I do know that I think they're currently sold out which is so understandable because they're honestly beautiful. I'll also write down what size I'm wearing because I always think it's really helpful in pyjamas to know whether you need to size up for the comfort or whether they've done that for you because in the white company for example I feel like they do the sizing up for you but not everywhere so I'll let you know and hopefully, I know there's a couple of colours so hopefully they're in stock. Also I might look slightly like I've been dragged through a hedge because it's very very rainy outside but we're all friends here so I did put a quick story up on Instagram just for the house related questions, it's only been up for a couple of hours but there's lots to get through. I think the main thing that we need to talk about is the fact that we haven't actually bought this house so we don't own the house that I'm about to move to so where to start with this? Let's get into that side of things a little bit and the whole buying house process and what's sort of happened with that. I will try and keep this really really short and sweet so top line, just in case you haven't heard any of this before, we started looking for a house to buy in the Cotswolds I think in the summer which it feels like we've been looking for much longer than that but I think in the summer of this year we started looking for a place in the Cotswolds because this is where I'm from, it's where I grew up, this is where my family is and obviously I know most of you will know that Kenny, my fiancee, is currently working overseas. It just felt like the right and natural time to make the move back to the Cotswolds which is something I'd always planned to do one day, maybe not as soon as this but it's just it's the way that life, it's just the way that life has gone and I honestly could not be happier or more excited about that decision but anyway I'm already going off on a tangent. So we started looking for a place to buy, we looked for a little bit and then we found a house that we put an offering on, had the offer accepted, actually got quite far sort of down that process with that house and then that fell through for just a number of reasons. So then after that fell through I just wanted to keep looking, keep looking and just nothing quite right was coming up and it got to a point where I kind of thought maybe we need to or I need to, it was only me putting pressure on it, maybe I need to take the pressure off this a little bit and just relax about the process and just trust that the right house will come at the right time and I know that's the advice that lots of you gave to me and you were so right about that and we also had a bit of a change of heart in terms of the direction for the house that we want to buy because you might remember that originally the plan was that we were just going to buy a cottage, so a really small, really gorgeous but you know small place just for me, just in the meantime while Kenny's away and then we'd look at buying another place sort of when he comes back and doing our whole big renovation and all of that to make that into our family home. But I think when things started to not work out and when the house fell through and we couldn't find anything, I kind of took that as a sign that maybe, maybe we should be holding out for actually the family home, the more sort of, for want of a better phrase, the more sort of forever home that I could really see us starting a family in, obviously living in together and growing into and a house that has lots of potential and the things that I've always really wanted like, you know, enough land to have some animals and that sort of thing. So basically the direction of what we're looking for to buy has completely changed from when we started and I think that was just a natural evolution, that is something that's still sort of going on in the background but so low-key I'm just kind of, I know that the right thing is out there and I know that the right thing will come at the right time for us. With all of that going on, I still in the background really wanted to make the move back down to the Cotswolds as soon as I possibly could for all of the reasons I said, it just makes so much sense while Kenny's away to be nearer to family and I love it down here and this really feels like my home and just all of the reasons that you already know. Then sort of at the perfect moment, the opportunity to take the place that I have taken and that I'm moving into imminently came up and it all just kind of fell into place and felt right. It felt like the perfect opportunity to get myself down here, to be living down here, have a base down here, have a place that's mine rather than you know sort of staying with my parents or staying with my sister or anything and also a really lovely base that as and when we do find sort of our house that we want to buy, I'll have somewhere so I'm really nearby for when we're doing any renovations because I know from doing our house in Cheshire that's so important. So anyway, did not keep that short and sweet but that's the situation with this house so we don't own this house so obviously I won't be renovating this house. It's not furnished so I will be bringing some of the pieces from Cheshire, actually a lot of the pieces from Cheshire to begin with just because things like safers have 10 week wait times and this all came about quite quickly but then yeah I'll be buying some new pieces because it's a cottage and I'm really excited to really make it feel like my home. Oh good, the first thing I just read here is please give a short summary, I've missed all of it so I feel like I've just done that which hopefully that's helpful. Are there plenty of walks for Roux nearby and is it rural? So this is really what sold me on this house, this is the reason why when I saw it and went to go and see it I just completely knew it was the right one because it is in a totally unspoilt village, it's really really rural which I love, sort of the more rural the better for me. If I walk out of my front door and take Roux across fields then that is my door of heaven and that's exactly this house which I just I cannot tell you how excited I am. The cottage itself is so lovely but because it's not my own it's not, you know you just have your own ways of doing things, obviously in Cheshire we put in the whole kitchen ourselves and that sort of thing so it's really really lovely but definitely what sold it to me was the village, it's just it has a sense of community but it's so rural and like I said I can, it's the sort of house where Roux doesn't even have to go on the lead because you can just walk out of the front door, there are no cars and you're just and there's just fields and I just, but I do have neighbours so I'm perfectly safe because I know I saw another question that said do you not feel scared living alone? I would only feel scared living alone if I was isolated but I'm not isolated at all as much as it's very rural, there's you know there's neighbours and there's people around and it's very very safe there so which is good. Are you selling your house in Cheshire? I know I've touched on this very briefly but no we have no plans to sell or do anything with the house in Cheshire and I'm really glad that it will still be for our use, at least for now anyway and also for both of our family's use and our close friends and our family friends and things like that. There's some questions on things like specifics like how many bedrooms and does it have a garden, does it have a garage and that sort of thing but I feel like we're going to see it so soon there's almost no point in me going into that but it's a cottage, I'm not about to move into some sort of rambling eight bedroom beautiful Cotswold home, maybe one day we can keep our fingers crossed but it's very much a cottage because it's just for me as I said just for now and it's obviously temporary and then there's also questions about decorating and renovating which obviously I won't be decorating and renovating, we'll be doing our usual bits like you know putting the furniture in and styling the house and definitely decorating for Christmas, I am bursting with excitement to do that. Will you be staying in the Cotswolds long term? I think probably from everything that I've already said it's probably quite obvious that definitely the plan for now and the plan that the plan that I've actually kind of always had my whole life, I always thought I would start my own family in the Cotswolds because I just loved my childhood so much and I really really know how that makes me, it's one of the things that I'm most grateful for in life is what a great and privileged and lucky and happy childhood I really had and I've always envisaged from very young that I would love to try and give my children a similar countryside kind of childhood to that so I think the next sort of five years will just be so special. I'm not pregnant, I think you know I'm not pregnant that would be fairly impossible but that kind of made it sound like I was but I'm definitely not pregnant. Okay how often will you be living in it? I think I've said this in previous or recent videos but I will definitely sort of live between the two it's just that the balance will now shift so whereas at the moment it might not seem it because I tend to film more when I'm down in the Cotswolds because as I've said when I'm up in Cheshire at the moment I'm just doing my laundry, doing my emails, I'm not doing the fun things but at the moment I do spend most of my time in Cheshire and then been down here for sort of a couple of days of every week but the balance will very much shift I think so that I'm down here most of the time and then I just go up to Cheshire every now and then just to do the things that I need to do up there. My camera just died so I'm going to take that as a sign that I definitely did not keep this at all short and sweet and I've definitely talked for too long but I think I've kind of covered the main the main bits and pieces because as I said you're going to see the house so soon. You know this is really silly because I know my YouTube channel is just me sort of documenting my life as it happens and this is just the way that it's worked out but I have this feeling that some of you might feel disappointed that we haven't bought the house yet, that we haven't found the house yet just because there were lots of questions about sort of renovating and how was the buying process and that sort of thing and I've been so excited, I am so excited about the whole move and also about being able to share it with you and also about sort of just the whole new life down here that having my own place unlocks. I also just want to be in the moment for this house and just really appreciate how incredibly lucky and excited and everything that I am to be just even able to be living down here in any capacity at all. I feel so lucky when the day comes and the right house comes then obviously we have that whole sort of chapter to unlock as well to look forward to. So yeah anyway I just want to say that because that's how I felt when I read all my messages I thought oh no I really hope that I'm not um like truly hope that I'm not like disappointing anyone or anything like that but anyway I need to go to bed because I've got a very busy very full very fun day tomorrow and I've got an early start so I will see you in the morning. Good morning I'm gonna have to keep this short and sweet today because I'm actually running a little bit behind also I keep catching myself in the viewfinder because I dyed my eyebrows last night and it always takes me a good day or so to actually adjust to having much darker eyebrows or they take a day or two I feel like to actually just calm down a bit and not be quite so dark. Anyway as I said yesterday I have actually just pulled up at the Manoir I am so incredibly excited to be here I'm at a really gorgeous event actually with DS Cars which is why I am in a different car this morning because they sent me very kindly sent me one of their cars to drive to the event today um so I've just driven over here beautiful car it drives it makes my car all of the sort of like interface and everything on my car feels so unresponsive and slow now compared to this it's a really gorgeous car to drive actually and also even the steering wheel I just feel like with my car it's such a big car and I have to tug the steering wheel round and this is just so responsive it's a really really gorgeous car but like I said I'm running a little tiny bit late because I was driving like a grandma this morning you know when you're in a new car that you're not familiar with yet I've just been driving two hands on the steering wheel um just so focused so slow probably annoying everyone else on the roads for that reason I'm a tiny little bit late so I'd better get going but I will of course take you along for lunch and um everything else that we've got planned today I'm honestly so looking forward to it my parents said that it's I think one of the best meals that they've ever had here and just the house is beautiful the gardens are beautiful so I'm really looking forward to it light it's just hard in the winter it's also absolutely boring so if you can see this pattern that's rain from the windscreen but then the windscreen wipers will make a noise so we're just doing what we can obviously much later on in the day um I have finished up at the event that was honestly it was such a lovely afternoon what I really enjoy about going to events is I as you spend a lot of time on my own and I also think there's not that many opportunities to kind of meet new people and do you know what I really enjoy about events is it's such a diverse different kind of group of people that all come together and especially today everybody worked in slightly different sort of creative jobs so we could all just talk and learn so much from each other and that was really really fun I really think you know I do think situations like that can feel uncomfortable just in any area of life when you're sort of thrown into a room of people that you don't know and I went on my own to this event today so I didn't know anybody that was going to be there but I think it's really good just really good for anybody to be in that situation once in a while just because you have conversations that you wouldn't otherwise have and you meet people and you just hear I don't know we can all become quite insular you know within our own friendship circles and usually we're friends with people who are quite similar to us or that we know really well or that are from a similar area or a similar sort of industry or work environment as we are so yeah it can be really cool when you're just actually completely step outside of that and meet different people so it's really lovely and obviously it was at Le Manoir which was gorgeous and yeah it was a really really fun day and we did a really fun workshop and it was just a really good day anyway I'm now meeting my parents because my mum is very kindly coming back up to Cheshire with me tonight just to help me do the finishing bits of like packing and all of that sort of thing because I'm in London with my friends this weekend so I need everything done and dusted basically tomorrow ahead of the move which is crazy so I thought I'd take my parents for dinner this evening just to say thank you for how much they've helped me they help me honestly they're always helping me they're just they're the best so I thought I'd take them for dinner one of our favourites we're going to the ball for dinner but we're actually going to a different pub a really really Cotswoldy Christmas cosy pub just for a drink first and then yeah like I said we're heading over to the ball an absolute favourite of ours in Chalbury to have dinner so let's go