Post Comment Love 8 - 10 September

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week, posts which are older will be removed from the linky. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

You’ll also have spotted that I’ve updated my blog! I’ve linked the post which explains more and welcomes you to my refreshed space, thank you for continuing to be here.

Well September has had a treat in store for us here after a pretty dismal August. This week we’ve had temperatures in the mid-twenties with the warmest day predicted to be this weekend. It’s been quite a surprise though, even though it was forecast. Last week I was buying more autumnal food, think creamy potato dauphinoise and dark, green earthy kale, but this week it’s the very last thing we’ve wanted to eat!

We also got out on our bikes again on Wednesday, cycling off to see the Tour of Britain on the Sherwood to Newark stage. We took a less direct route there and back, clocking up a twenty mile cycle in the process - my longest cycle for quite a while. The thing is though, the peloton was past us in about 10 seconds!!

It was good fun though, and it was great to see people out on the streets supporting the event. We had a bit of a close shave with one of the team cars on the way home though, or rather MOH did. We’d left the disused railway line (the one that we went searching for the previous week) and were cycling along the country roads; there were cars passing us sensibly, and the road undulated a fair bit (or a fair bit for me, anyway). With more gears and more practice at cycling MOH had gone ahead, which was fine, and I was down in first (or granny gear) plodding along. I sensed a car behind me waiting for the opportunity to overtake, and all was fine.

Next thing I knew, one of the team cars had overtaken the car behind me, sped past me and bombed on to overtake MOH too. The female driver behind me did overtake after a little while, and I was thankful for the space she’d given me. Even more so when I caught up with MOH who immediately asked how close the team car had come to me. I was lucky that the female driver was shielding me, as MOH said it had passed him at an uncomfortably close distance, and the closest any car had come to him since we’ve been up here.

I am sure the team cars are used to driving past cyclists and other people as part of their role in the races, but I’m not so sure they should be doing it in that way outside of a race environment. Thankfully though no harm was done. If I’d have noted the team name I would definitely be contacting the tour organisers, as I’m sure that’s not the reputation they want either.

A paper Tour of Britain flag in my bike's wicker basket along with my cycling helmet as we stand on the roadside waiting for the race to go past

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Welcome to Bosworth Life

Well hello there.

If you’re reading this then it’s all gone to plan (or as to plan as it could have gone) and I’ve refreshed my blog to reflect our recent house move.

I’d been Life at 139a for ten years, which is a long time and although I’d never felt the need to change before now, now feels right.

When we first started to look to move house people were quick to ask if I’d change my blog name - back then I was ‘no, why would I, 139a can be a virtual space for wherever we go’. And in some ways that’s true, it has been a big part of our life for the twenty one years we lived there, but we were also so, so ready to move. It wasn’t until we got to Nottinghamshire, that I realised I was also ready to move my blog on too.

So why Bosworth Life?

I was always going to keep the life element of my blog name, as the things I cover are more wide reaching than just house and garden, and I didn’t want to feel constrained by a name. Bosworth is part of our address here, and so it was a fairly obvious choice.

Our new house is a new build barn, which is quite an unusual concept, and I toyed with variations about life at the barn, life at the new build barn and many more. But none felt right, and some felt quite similar to names that were already in use. That was a disappointing find, as when I wrote the post sharing that I was mulling over a blog name change, that was where I thought I’d go.

But it didn’t turn out that way.

I checked various names with Bosworth, and I was sold when I realised the .life suffix worked with it. It may not be as normal as a .co.uk or a .com suffix, but it is a lot cleaner and it makes me smile.

A cleaner look and feel

Now I like stuff, and I like my stuff - but something strange has happened as part of our house move. Like many people moving we’ve gone through years and years of ‘essential’ items pruning as we go, recalling memories and finding plenty of things we’d long forgotten about.

I thought we’d been pretty ruthless, but as we unpacked in our new house with its bright, white spaces we had a rethink, and have got rid of a load more stuff. We’ve been here two months and are only just getting some pictures on the walls. And we know that all we had before won’t all make it onto the walls here, which is another surprise to us both.

And so it makes sense for me to refresh the look and feel here too. The old logo was pretty minimalist, but this one feels cleaner and brighter - though I realise some may say dull (and that’s ok just please keep it to yourself!).

So what’s next?

Now I’ve got this new space set up I’ll also be changing my social channels (wish me luck!), but I’m also hoping that the refresh will inspire me to share more about our move, and our new house. For some reason I’ve held back as it didn’t feel a good fit under the Life at 139a banner, which given what I said before about it being a virtual 139a is odd, and that cemented the idea of a new blog name.

We’ve also got a whole new area to explore, so that’s exciting too. The countryside is right on our doorstep, as is the local history - the last battle of the War of the Roses, the Battle of Stoke Field took place close by in 1487. Newark is less than four miles away, Nottingham about seventeen miles - and there’s plenty more to explore in between and beyond.

I’ve also - finally - got a dedicated craft room here, so no more having craft supplies scattered between rooms, and it seems I’ve been collecting a fair amount of stuff, so I’ll be aiming to use some of that too as well as finish the projects I have on the go, and start some of those that I’ve planned. Though be warned, that list has grown!

So exciting times, and I can’t wait to get started - thanks for being here to see how it goes!

The Garden Year: September 2023

Well last month was challenging, dry spells, wet spells and often windy too. In the past month I’ve lost my rosemary bush, which is frustrating as we’d moved it with us here. It was a relatively old plant, which had lived in a pot for many a year, so I don’t think it liked the changed conditions. I think it was the wind it mostly didn’t like, which is probably a good pointer for me to actually move the pots from where they were dumped (placed carefully!) when we arrived.

August was also a good month for visiting gardens as part of the National Garden Scheme, and I was excited to discover there’s actually gardens we can visit close to our new house. We got to one, didn’t get to another - but I’m continuing to look at what’s on offer now every time the newsletter drops into my inbox. If you want to know more, there’s details on how to find garens near you on the post I’ve linked this month.

Advice, inspiration and places to visit

“TheGardenYear

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