Happy Dance Time... and an award

I've been trying very hard to contain "happy dance" behaviour. I've not always been successful...

You may recall that a short while ago I posted about wanting to buy a particular plot of land and being thwarted. Well, never one to be put off if I really want something, I let it go and took the Taoist approach of "do nothing doing". And what do you know? The estate agents concerned sorted out their differences, I made an offer and after some negotiation, I am delighted to say, I own a piece of mountainside, and will, in due course, start building a house. How exciting is that?!

Okay, Happy Dance, Happy Dance, Happy Dance!!!

There are some who assure me that I'm totally insane. But I take the view that you should always do things in life that you've never done before - it keeps life interesting and keeps you young and adventurous. I'm mildly amused by those who insist I'm crazy (look, you really don't have to tell me) and who insist on relating their own horror stories. I am, however, far more pleased to hear others say, "That is so exciting!" I mean, really, what's not to get excited about? You get to dream and plan your space exactly the way you want it. You get, effectively, to build your own nest from scratch. How much more natural can it be? What's more special is that D's father is an architect and will be designing the house for us. He trained way back in the 50s as a student of the Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture, which is my favourite forerunner of modern architectural design. Does it get any better than that? D will have a lasting legacy, a tribute to his father, I will have a house that I know I will love. I have to say, I feel blessed out of my little cotton socks.

I'm half tempted to start a blog - "This is the House that Nick Built" - but I suspect that may be one more displacement activity than I actually need. It will be quite enough working on the novel (and another in the pipeline) and seeing to the building, without needing to add to the load - given my already tardy approach with this blog...

For now, I leave you with the view - not from the plot, but from the top of the mountain. It gives you the same general idea. (Yes, I know, I should have taken the tripod up with me...)

(click image to enlarge)

And then, on another note. I recently received The Honest Scrap Award from Kim at Dragonfly Scrolls! Thanks Kim!

The Honest Scrap Award is about bloggers who post from their heart, who oftentimes put their heart on display as they write from the depths of their soul.

The Rules of this Award are to pass it on to 7 bloggers you admire and follow and then to share 10 honest things about yourself.

So firstly in the merits of Paying it Forward, here are the 7 bloggers I admire for always sharing their hearts on the written page (online and paper):

My lovely friend, Mandy, from FireByrd

Wonderful, beautiful and vibrant Tessa, from Aerial Armadillo

The inimitable Baino from Baino's Banter

Beautiful Kathryn from Crystal Jigsaw

Wise Rosaria from SixtyFive, What Now

Big hearted Geli from Letters from Usedom

Lovely Val, my Scrabble pal, from Monkeys on the Roof

and because I can never be doing with rules, No 8, Janet, the intrepid life adventurer, from Under a Blood Red Sky


So, ten honest things about myself... Hmmm...


1. I don't make it easy for you to get to know me.

2. What you see, is not always what you get, there is inevitably far more.

3. I love to cook (and I do it pretty well...)

4. Most days start with my special chocolately brew - and yet, I'm not actually a chocolate fiend, despite appearances.

5. Vanilla really is my favourite flavour of ice cream.

6. When I was young, I first wanted to be a ballet or jazz dancer, then an interior designer.

7. I wrote my first play when I was nine.

8. I love to make people laugh.

9. I believe the glass is always half full - even when it may appear half empty.

10. Courage and persistence, together with compassion and wisdom, are the cornerstones of my life. Humour makes up the roof.

Mr and Mrs Smith, and it’s such a shame he doesn’t even look like Brad…

or... The Dream Breakers


So, here’s how it goes. Ever since I returned to South Africa in 1995, I’ve wanted to leave. Hey, what can I say, I’m just contrary that way. I guess I felt safer in the UK, I felt more at home – my mongrel heritage is, after all, entirely European (north, east central and west). But I realised, having returned to South Africa, that I wasn’t going to get back to Europe that fast. I was, though, willing to work with a longer term plan.

When I discovered I wanted to write full time, I also realised that in order for me to have a more even chance of getting published, I really did need to be somewhere closer to the main centres of publishing - and for me that once more meant the UK. I started to set my plans in motion, including networking intensively with fellow children’s writers in the UK. I soon realised that pretty much all my friends lived there, not here – writers and others, including old uni pals and ex colleagues who’d made the Great Departure. Yep, I thought, I needed to move. I had to move. I was determined to move. I would make the dream a reality.

And then the global economic crisis hit and Lovely Husband ran scared. “Not a chance am I going anywhere in this economic climate,” he announced. Fair enough. I could get that. But as time elapsed and things settled a little, I also came to realise, and reluctantly accept, that the reality was that Lovely Husband didn’t want to leave South Africa at all. That was my dream, not his – but like women the world over, I’d figured I could change his mind. A word from the increasingly wise (yep, that’s me) – never try to change someone and never try to change their mind (oh would that I listened to my own good advice…). The universe gave us free will and it’s a hard nut to crack when it’s someone else’s.

I’ve had a tough time accepting that a long held dream is just not going to become a reality. That time has also been compounded by my mother’s recent illness, age and the acceptance that I’m going to have to sort something out for her – because she sure as nuts won’t do it herself (I can do without lurching from one matriarchal drama to the next). Looking at the two situations and given that I have a really hard time being a glass half empty person, I set my sights on the next thing. And what I figured I would do was find my mother a really nice cottage in a retirement complex, and a piece of land for myself where I could build my dream home. It was a good goal and dream to have, I figured. I actually became quite seriously excited. (Yes, there was a lot of bouncing about.)

But I swear, the gods must be playing a rough hand of poker up there or wherever the hell it is that they are. Or it might be that the buggers are all pissed out of their skulls on mead. I don’t know. Perhaps the ethernet connection between me and them is just faulty and my mail’s not going through. Whatever.

See, I found a plot, a really, really nice plot – one with sweeping 180 degree views across the mountains, the valley and the sea. It was in an elevated position on a mountainside and, I was convinced from the moment of seeing it, that it was mine. It just had that feeling about it. Of course, whether I could actually afford to fulfill this dream was another matter. Thank goodness for calculators, prudent financial planning and bean counters etc. Yes, I finally worked out it was indeed do-able and I was even up for the nightmare of building. Shucks, I’ve dealt with enough stuff in my life; builders hold little or no fear for me.

So, new dream in hand, I set out to make an offer to purchase. And what do you know. Enter Mr. and Mrs. Smith. No, I’m not kidding, they really are called Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But unlike the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie version of the couple, these two don’t assassinate people, just their dreams. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you see are estate agents – of the unethical and unscrupulous variety, sort of like the greater striped venomous viper (yes, I know, like so many others of their species). Mr. and Mrs. Smith believed I should have made an offer on the plot through them. When Mr. and Mrs. Smith learned that I had put in an offer with another agent, Mr. and Mrs. Smith turned nasty. I have, indeed, spent the entire weekend doing battle with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I regret to say, that until or unless I can find a sneaky sort of solution, Mr. and Mrs. Smith have broken my deal and won. Exit the dream.

Frankly, I’m getting more than a little miffed with all this dream wreckage. I’m also wondering what the hell to do next. My motivation levels appear to have descended to the depths of hell where they’ve used up all the fuel in the fires so there’s none left to propel me back up and out again. The Black Dog is snuffling around, making growly noises and slavering in a most unattractive manner. I tried seeing the sod off with some choccie raisins, but he just came back for more; serves me right for trying to take a conciliatory approach with the beast. Now I’m just staring at the glass – you know, the one with the water in it (would it was champagne…), trying to figure out if it is half full or half empty. Just sitting here, staring and staring and staring…

I may be a while.

Pretty Houses

I can't go anywhere without taking pictures of pretty houses. So of course that's what I did last weekend at Sea Island. We also visited Darien, GA which is on the cover of Southern Living this month.









These houses below are from Darien, GA. The first was on the cover of the September issue of Southern Living.

Great New Build on Pawley's Island

I love this house that sits on the marsh at Pawley's Island. It looks relatively new, but combines many elements of classic low country architecture and so it fits right in. The double screen porch looks like a great place to spend time and I love the color of the green woodwork.



Here's how the conversation went when we stopped to take some pics:
"Oh no! Mom! you're not going to get out and take pictures are you? Mom! Where are you going? You can't just walk around the house and take pictures! They are going to think you're a stalker...or something. Mom - here comes a boy out of the house. He's going to think you're weird. Mom please get back in the car!"
At which point I did, so I didn't get all four sides of the house or the marsh view...the things I do to keep my kids happy....









I'm not in love with these shutters (would have done traditional louvered style or Bermuda shutters instead of board and batten), but they didn't consult me did they? The rest of the house really works - don't you think?

What makes a house a home?

In thinking about starting our interior design firm, I have been pondering what makes a house a home and not a set from a magazine shoot. What is it that gives a house warmth and personality and soul? Think about the feeling that you have when you come home to a house you love - the house evokes an emotional reaction in us, it touches us somewhere inside and we feel safe and can be refreshed.

This is the house that I, my mother and grandmother grew up in:



Just looking at the photo gives me a feeling of "home." This house is why I built a white clapboard house - it just feels like home to me. Each one of us has different things that evoke that feeling of home. The job of an interior designer is to help the client figure out what those things are and how they translate into design of the house (inside and out).

A house tells the story of a person's life, and describes the journey that one has traveled. At the beginning the house is fresh and often fairly empty, as time goes by the house develops a patina, and becomes full of the artifacts and treasures collected along the way. If you look closely, you can learn a lot about a person from his or her house - you can see what is meaningful to the homeowners and what their passions are.

In the next few posts, we will explore the things that Jane Douglas and I love about houses and interior design and we will show you some of things that we love about our own houses.