time for tea

A lot of what I do doesn't come from a "school," it comes from my Britishness. I like the idea of using heritage, reexamined and reapplied through my head.

We bought a tiny stone cottage and we spent a year doing the place up, without spending much money. We didn't care any more about how the house looked; in fact, we'd been so force-fed on this over-the-top room-set look that now we didn't give a toss, and we still don't. We don't do showcase homes..... We don't want to spend too much on posh furniture; a nice big Aga cooker, a big piano, good horsehair beds, quite lean on the electrical side, we're kind of reassessing the possessions we own. We want to put our money into the fabric of the building. It won't make for a very photogenic home because it's all simply done, but that can be nice. The really important things are clean (spring-fed) water, wood from our own land, food from our own garden I make my own cider. My idea of heaven is to pick my own food, cook it, eat it, sit by the fire, and then go to bed on a wonderful mattress, I mean, come on, you can't argue with that... We have cats and dogs, and I once came back to find a horse in the kitchen being given my last beer.

"I do not envy the owners of very large gardens. The garden should fit its master or his tastes, just as his clothes do; it should be neither too large nor too small, but just comfortable"