Having lived in South Somerset for most of my life, it’s rare that I venture north of the county so I was delighted to get the opportunity to go to Dunster and it felt like a proper break being somewhere totally new for me. I was taken aback by the beauty of this medieval village…
Tag: Somerset
Find your Christmas calm!
How do you maintain a sense of peace and calm at Christmas time? I must admit I usually prefer Halloween or Easter as they are much more low key celebrations. But there is no denying that Christmas is a magical time with the scent of pine needles in the air, spiced mulled wine, the kids…
Take 5 with artist Neil Whitehead
Welcome to my new feature ‘Take 5’. The idea is that you take 5 minutes out for yourself to have a read and learn about someone through 5 bits of work that represent them, it could be 5 yoga poses, 5 poems or in this case it’s 5 striking pieces of urban landscape art by…
Somerset Shines on tour!
I’m very excited to go on a tour of the UK with you, to meet three inspiring and creative women in London, Hampshire and Swansea respectively! The thing these ladies have in common… well they each have a blog or website in which they showcase their writing, photos and in Clara’s case her illustrations! Each…
What is a Smurfette?
“So what is a Smurfette? Noone wanted an answer more than Smurfette herself.” This is the opening line to the 2017 film, Smurfs the Lost Village. This is an immense film and does more for feminism than the recently unveiled Mary Wollstonecraft statue (although that isn’t hard!). The film strives to tell the story of…
Holly talks craft kits!
In this interview I talk to Holly, who was inspired to create craft kits that are good quality keepsakes that children treasure and don’t result in lots of clearing up for the parents: a win win situation! Bee and Pea’s Craft Kits is such a fabulous name for such a fabulous venture, and we all…
Somerset Shines is 1!
It’s a year since I launched my blog Somerset Shines and I wanted to share some of the things I’ve learnt along the way. I started the blog to share my joy in moving back to Somerset with my family just over two years ago. So here are a few tips on starting a blog…
Cupcakes and rainbows
Poppy and Branch are two characters from the Trolls movie. This movie offers so much insight into human nature that I just love watching it with my kids. In one exchange, Branch says to Poppy “The world isn’t all cupcakes and rainbows” Poppy replies “Hey I know it’s not all cupcakes and rainbows but I’d…
Word therapy
Is there such a thing as word therapy? Can arranging letters in a certain order be powerful enough to soothe our past, present and perception of the future? I believe that the answer to this is yes. Words can soothe, direct and heal us. In the current world climate it has to be OK to…
Looking for treasure
This post is all about unexpected joys in difficult times; looking for treasure in the dirt. Here are a couple of stand out moments of lockdown life that I’ll remember with fondness. 1. Digging for victory Very early on in the lockdown, my youngest girl decided she’d like to go digging for treasure. There was…
Best quotes about where I live
How would you describe the place you live? I have stumbled across a few quotes recently that described Somerset and specifically Yeovil. The first one evokes the mood of Somerset so beautifully and makes me think of how connected I have always felt to the countryside specifically here. 1. The prolific American writer John Steinbeck…
The grass is greener in Somerset
I moved back to Somerset in 2018 with my husband and three kids, then aged one, three and five. We had been away for a decade and over that time lived in central Southampton, Warminster, Salisbury and then a suburb between Southampton and Winchester. We finally decided to move home after discussing this on and…
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