Wipe your feet and come on in

I am in fierce competition with our nextdoor-but-one neighbour when it comes to window displays. Here is my autumn sill. I expect she will top it with an enormous display of dried fennel heads and elegant foliage. Mine always look a bit on the... hm, rustic side. But I prefer to think of them as 'cute'.

PS. Our cottage was built pre-1800, and the Planning officers "prefer us to fix, not replace" the windows. So yes, you are looking at draughty, peeling, rotting, cracked old windows, but at least their history is intact. Be glad you don't get our heating bills.

Welcome to my kitchen. Charlie rules the roost in this house, and she likes to remind us. She especially likes to climb anywhere that she can look down on us. She is doubtless planning a surprise attack of some sort. See how she is sharpening her claws on the ancient wooden beams?

The walls are a fetching swamp-monster green. That's what my husband called it when I painted splodges from trial pots. But now he loves it. Further proof, if needed, that I am virtually always right.

Indulge me. This is my cooker. I often stand in the doorway and gaze lovingly at it. I saved up for this darling and it makes my cooking better in every way. (I am not crying. yet.) And can you say that about a race bike that lives in the shed for 300 days of the year? No. You cannot. Do you think those tins are real antiques? I don't know either. I don't mind, anyway. In case my husband reads this, especially the bike part, I should also point out his lovely white silicone around the worktops and tiles. Beautiful work, yes?

You may be getting the sense that this is a slightly censored kitchen tour. That perhaps I chose a good moment to take pictures... to prove otherwise, here is the sink, complete with dirty dishwater and undried plates.

This dresser was especially sawn up, I mean adapted, for my kitchen. It is loaded with jars and things I have no other place for. But that's what it's for, yes? Charming mess.

Just in case you didn't get a good look at the card in front of the tea caddy: yes, it really does say that. There is no low to which the woman will not stoop to secure her first grandchild. I plan to make her wait a LOT longer, or at least that's my story.