Where I Live

I live in Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan. We have been in the Vale in 3 different houses since 1967. Our first house was a Wesleyan Chapel situated in a small village. It was being lived in at the time by the Welsh/Italian artist Andrew Vicari. We bought it and finished converting it to a family home where we lived for nearly 20 years.

After the children had left home we decided to build our own home (husband is Architect) and planned to move into a smaller house in Cardiff to enable us to do this. We had a small plot in Heredfordshire, but without planning permission. Our plans did not work out. The recession caught up with us and we lost a lot of money so we sold the land and stayed put in Cardiff for 13 years where we were, in fact, rather content.

During the year 2000 we got back on our feet again and could afford to move to Cowbridge where a good deal of our social life already took place (Drama, Bridge etc).

Our present house is one of two attached Edwardian villas on the main street. They were built in 1906 on the site of a larger, much older house.

View into the dining room showing prints on walls
and costume on dummy. Conservatory beyond.
























Without altering the character too much we made a few structural alterations – an en-suite bathroom/dressing room, knocked the two reception rooms into one, added a conservatory, new kitchen and finally converted the attic into an office.
I am particularly proud of my hand stenciled paper in the living room and our collection of prints and water colours done by Jim.
Jim's prints of Vale of Glamorgan and my
stencilled wallpaper (gold oak leaves)
























In various places of the house are some of my costumes on dressmakers dummies.
The bust in the picture above was used in a shop display to model bras - it is now a lamp.
The punk head is called Sam and we bought him at Winchester Art College's Graduation Show.
On one wall in our bedroom is what I call ‘my Wedding wall’ – photos of family weddings throughout the decades and in the conservatory a similar ‘Baby Wall’ – our grandchildren.

My mother, self and my two sisters

But which one is me? Clue I smocked the dress.

Left - a view down the garden and below - Algy's
Garden (where Staffie is buried)















We are fortunate to have a reasonable sized garden which I redesigned and developed almost from scratch – only the old Bramley apple tree and a heather bed are left from the original. It is divided loosely into ‘rooms’ which include a gravel garden, a pond etc. We love it and think that we are privileged to be able to live here.

Cowbridge is generally thought of as an expensive place to live and is regarded as one of the ‘gems’ of the Vale.
Cowbridge has a webcam: www.cowbridge.co.uk/shopping/cowbridge-web-camera if you want to see a view of the High Street.
We know a lot of people here and are well settled into the community. I belong to two bridge clubs, U3A, (University of the 3rd Age) , and am on the committee for ‘Cowbridge in Bloom’.

The courtyard of 'The Bear' for 'Cowbridge in Bloom' competition
Jim has recently joined Rotary and we both belong to the Town Twinning Group and our local Amateur Dramatic Society – this since 1972. I am the wardrobe mistress and Jim the set builder/scene painter/stage manager. He was also Chairman for ten years. Our lives are not dull and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cast and set from Arms and the Man by Bernard Shaw - directed by Jim and costumes by me