{Peacock at David Austin Gardens, Easter Sunday 2010}

It’s been so long that some of you might not even remember me… It’s been almost 10 months since I got married and graduated to blogging here at EAD Living. But somewhere in that 10 months I got made redundant from my job, got offered a job some 200 miles away from my previous home in London, England, moved to said new location and started my new job. In between came house hunting (we …

22 and 21 years ago I had the privilege of celebrating Thanksgiving with families in California who opened the doors of their houses and welcomed an English family through them. At not even 8 years old I wasn’t fully aware of how special that was or how much those simple acts of kindness would shape my future life.

20 years later… I look back at the welcome we had with extreme fondness. Particularly on my Mother’s behalf. It is only recently …

Many years ago, my Father was transferred to California for work. He took with him his wife and three daughters who were 6, 3 & 1. We moved from our home in the Home Counties of England to just south-east of San Francisco. There were many cultural differences between the USA and the UK, not least the celebration of Halloween.

To go to school in one’s Halloween costume was not something that I had ever encountered in England. In fact, costumes …

…(whilst still remaining in London)…

This afternoon there were lots of things I should have been doing: applying for jobs, de-cluttering the flat, making the cinnamon whirls I have had the recipe for on the kitchen counter for over a week. In fact, the list is endless. But the autumnal light was too much, was too orange, too hard to resist and so I decided to take the afternoon off. To go for a walk & to find some peace and …

I am not sure whether fascinators are purely an English thing but they are often worn to weddings by guests in lieu of a more traditional hat. In addition to our own wedding we attended 3 others this summer, with another to come in December and 3 more so far next year. Apart from the usual issues relating to rotating dresses and accessories so one doesn’t appear to have one ‘wedding outfit’ for all occasions, it is also useful to …

Darling readers, so sorry for my prolonged absence from EAD Living recently. Things have been mighty busy Chez Rachel & Husband but I hope things are settling down now. Some of the things I have been busy with include but are not limited to:

* London Fashion Week. Miele (or, the washing machine people, as like to refer to them) invited me, along with a few other bloggers, to attend the Jasper Garvida show and these are some of the photographs …

My favourite six months of the year start in June and end up round about my birthday at the start of January. I love early summer and the excitement of the end of term, even though I don’t work in terms any more. I love summer drinks parties & balls & weddings. I love how it is usually hot in June and this year was no exception: a heat wave started on the day of our wedding and lasted for …

So this summer our neighbours (and good friends) went to France for a month with their kids. Husband and I therefore became the proud pseudo parents of two cats: an elderly black one we call Pushkin & a skittish, skinny ginger one we call Harry-Cat (maybe he reminds us of a certain member of the Royal family?) Pushkin came to live with us; we put food outside for Harry-Cat because his home situation is a little more complicated. Let’s just …

In our flat, we have an ongoing debate about cushions. I am a big fan of cushions, aesthetically & practically. Husband on the other hand really doesn’t like them. Prior to the arrival of our sewing machine as a wedding present, I could almost see why. When I went to university my Mum and I bought me some new cushions & covers: black velvet & deep red velvet with embroidery and mirrors. If you knew that I was a heavy …

{All images by me}

One of my favourite things to do is foraging in the hedgerows for blackberries and then turning them into pies and other delicious things. This activity is usually associated with early autumn walks. Last September we spent a wonderful weekend in the far west of Wales exploring in the wind and rain. And then on the Sunday, the sun came out and we went for a long walk along the estury, where we found hedgerows laden with …