This is a pen and ink I did earlier in the year.

As I haven't time to do a new drawing today, I felt this somehow fit my mood. Looking out our lovely old leaded windows, imagining walks in the countryside in long dresses and of course dogs, dogs and more dogs.

I can now officially say we have taken our English house.

I am over the moon. My odd little party of my two dear friends and myself and Ivan the dog are a motley crew for sure. This place just suits me. In many ways it makes me smile as it is very like my little 17th century cottage on Cape Cod in America, though this is far larger. But, all the old beams and crooked doors and with the added bonus of lovely leaded windows!

As there is much I wish to share about this house I think I shall do it in stages over a few posts.

Add to that I have come down with a cold so showing bits and bobs of the house and the garden over the week seems best. Oh the GARDEN! How I love it so...but I digress, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I will share my room/studio combo.

We arrived yesterday and here is my luggage having been packed and unpacked a few times thus far.

I was so happy to bring it into my room and think how lovely it will be to start putting things away.

My room has really nice tile and the only piece of furniture currently is that little pine dresser in the corner. You can see my pile of coats and things I just couldn't manage to pack again. Behind those lovely curtains is an amazing window seat that looks out onto the High street.

Here I've used it to make a sort of make-shift studio desk to begin to do some artwork soon.

My room is sort of in two bits and it is the other side of the room that I shall use as my studio. I am lucky in having a window seat with view to the High and in the back lovely leaded french doors leading to the back garden.

The odd sort of white mound is my makeshift bed. We ordered inflatable mattresses, duvets and memory foam until I can decide on what sort of bed I want.

You can see how there is a sort of lifted area to the back of the room with the doors to the garden.

It has a door to the back kitchen, so easy to get tea and coffees, and the little room is separate enough to feel like a separate studio space.

I plan to buy a smallish desk and work table and comfy chair for the studio bit.

The view to the garden is truly lovely and despite it being Autumn and rainy, you can see a bit of the view of the walled garden here.

The other terrace off the back of the kitchen.

The garden is so lovely and really quite big for a town garden. It is all walled in lovely old brick walls with bits of flint in, as you often get in Kent. I think the garden will need at least 2 separate posts, as I am that over the moon with it.

Now back into my bedroom area, I am lucky to have a pretty good sized fireplace.

You can see over the fireplace a tiny portrait.

On one of our many antique shopping trips, even before securing a house, I bought that little painted miniature.

I also bought a wonderful set of deer horns on an oak placard that I set over my make shift desk area at present.
(

Now if we turn to my little window seat, we can see I have a lovely view of the High st.

And a view of one of our TWO public houses.

This pub being more dinner and drinks whilst next door, the Red Lion, is an amazing place where I can pop in of a morning for a good coffee. They have fires blazing and two big dogs that belong to the owners who are always up for a good scratch behind the ears; just my sort of morning routine. There is also a Farmer's Market behind the Red lion every other Saturday, and I already popped over this morning, grabbing some lovely veg and a pretty pelargonium for my studio windowsill.

What I really appreciate about our house is that the front door literally leads onto the sidewalk of the High, whilst the back walled garden is so quiet and private, you rather get the best of both worlds.

We are lucky in our little village as it is only a 10 minute easy bus ride into Canterbury center (or an easy drive as my friends bought a car as soon as we arrived, as they are lucky enough to stay here permanently)

So, I can report that thus far, being really only day one in our new home, I should be happy to put my English roots down here and happily enjoy this area half of each year. It is only an hour train journey into London as well, as I plan to spend a few days a month there hopefully if all goes well and I can kick this wretched cold.

Now our internet is an interesting predicament.

As we are currently lucky in our fast connection simply because the house is still wired for it. It might dissapear at any moment as we sort out our own connection. So, if I disappear for a day or two, that will be me sorting that out. But, one can hope there will be smooth transition.

I will close now with the changeability of the English weather.

Of course when I snapped all the shots in this post this morning, it was coming down cats and dogs. Now, sitting here writing it, out comes the sun!

I hope to share more of the house and garden in the coming week and to get back to creating art again. Let's hope this cold is short lived.

Until then, have a great day and for all of you lucky people at SF3, have a blast for all of US!

Check out my other posts, if you like, and by all means upvote, resteem and yes leave comments! I'll try to get to them once we are again on line.

My new room and studio in our new English home.