Home is where our heart is

I live in a small village called Forest Row, East Sussex, UK and have lived here for 26 years, since I was born. Forest Row is a warm, community-focused village known to be quaint and eccentric with lots of history. In the 18^th Century it was a smuggling village and in June 1963 we received a visit from John F. Kennedy.

A lot of people in the village believe in a holistic biodynamic approach to life. We have a congregation of Hippies, Steiner’s, Scientologists, Mormons and druids. There are often workshops and retreats held in the forest that involve chanting, yoga, storytelling and healing techniques, tree hugging and many more. A lot of people believe it gives off an energy and most people are happy to do favours in return for some homemade jam.

I live in an apartment that was once a prison reformatory. The prison was built in 1910 and was a Progressive-Era prison with a working farm and several factories. One of the factories produced bricks, and there were 13 kilns constructed nearby. The bricks used in the complex I live in came from that exact brick factory. Another memorable part of the prison’s history is that many women suffragists were held in the jail cells after they picketed the White House in 1917.

The developers decided to keep up many of the original signs, including one that says 'unauthorized visiting in dormitories is prohibited'.

It is also a dog friendly place. There is a network of trails that runs along one side of my neighbourhood and the former baseball field has been turned into a playing field, with the original bleachers still in place. Other parts of the prison complex have also been revitalized for other purposes – there is an arts center, as well as a park that houses a memorial for the suffragists.

I have long dreamed of living in a log home in the woods. A little over a year ago, I decided to make that dream a reality. I purchased over two acres of land in a small town in New Hampshire surrounded by lakes, mountains, and ski areas, and began the process of selecting a design and securing a builder. Like most new construction, the process has been difficult and often frustrating. Building a home is not for the faint of heart, but is at the same time very rewarding. 

From the first log to the completion of the exterior of the home took less than a month, however, the excavation was a different story. I learned that New Hampshire comes by its nickname 'the Granite State' honestly. My log home was a kit from a New Hampshire based company (my home state), and all the logs in the kit were sourced from New Hampshire as well. My home was born and raised in the state of New Hampshire, just like me.

The house sits on over two acres of land, and is bordered on one side by a wildlife conservation area, and on another side by privately held conservation land. It’s surrounded by nature and wildlife, and the peace and quiet is incredible. As you can imagine, I frequently have wildlife in my yard, primarily deer, turkeys, and bobcats. My dog and I are very excited to move in soon. It’s been a long road, but we’re in the 'home' stretch, and looking forward to our new adventure in the woods of New Hampshire.

Our house is a big contrast to where we previously lived in the busy outskirts of Oxford. It is in a very rural area and surrounded by working farms and a stud farm for Irish Connemara ponies.  We are surrounded on three sides by fields. At the end of our garden live 16 ponies (who are very mischievous and eat our plants).

The best bit about living here is the tranquility and wild landscape around us. It attracts a lot of incredible wildlife. Wild rabbits nest in our flowerbeds each year and have tiny fluffy kittens who sit on our patio. There are ‘resident’ pheasants in our garden, my children once brought home three ‘lost’ baby pheasants who spent the night in a box of hay in our kitchen. We have also had deer in the garden and we get a lot of interesting garden birds. Every year we have nesting blue tits in a hollowed out tree and we can get close enough to see the little blue chicks.

We also get some epic weather. We have had huge snow drifts, giant thunder storms with fork lightening right over us, gale force winds beating on the house and so much rain that the lane became a river. We are at the highest altitude of the Cotswolds and have our own little micro climate. We can be 15cm deep in snow when 4 miles away in the nearest town there is none. When we came here a local told me it is a ‘coat colder’ and I had no idea what he meant. Now I have learned; it can be super cold.

Living here brings you into touch with the seasons; the colours of Autumn are dazzling with changing leaves, bramble hedges and stunning sunsets. Winter can be freezing, muddy and rather grim but it is amazing when it snows. Spring bursts out with trees in bud, bluebell woods and young animals. Summer is hazy with fields of golden wheat. It is fun watching the farmers harvest non-stop day and night, leaving rows of hay bales and driving back and forth with loaded tractors full of wheat. 

Last but not least, the community is very close and pulls together to help each other. It can be very inconvenient being out on a limb and at times things go wrong. On my very first day at Elsevier, my car did not want to start but thankfully my amazing neighbour took me to work.

Our closest neighbour has lived here for over 60 years and remembers when there was no electricity, no paved road and that everybody travelled by horse and cart. The nearby clay mine and woollen mills were the main employer for the villagers. At one point Roddy Llwellyn, sweetheart of Queen Elizabeth’s sister Princess Margaret, lived near our house. The Princess is reputed to have been a regular walker up and down our lane, sporting headscarf, sunglasses and a cigar. Another nearby house in the village belonged to the Captain of the Titanic.