It’s been a dull, drizzly, cold day today in Cornwall (and I gather elsewhere in the UK) and despite setting off on an adventure to photograph our lovely Ewan on his surf board at Perran Sands, we ended up aborting our trip after sitting in ‘changeover day’ traffic on route for more than an hour. (Changeover day in Cornwall…well, in all holiday destinations, is the day that most of the holiday cottages disgorge one lot of enthusiastic holiday makers and a new lot arrives.)

Ewan asked us to go and photograph him and his best mate surfing because he’d loved DMs surfer girl shot so much recently. The light was so poor though that we realised that it’d take us a couple of hours to get there and we’d not get a decent shot so we turned around and headed for home.

Our lives are so frenetic at the moment and so full of anxiety that after doing a few chores we came back into the cottage, flumped on the new (and still very thrilling) sofas and snoozed while watching James Bond on the telly – first a George Lazenby then a Sean Connory, cool! I love James Bond, however formulaic and clichéd it is. It’s brilliant escapism.

When I woke from my sleep, I found Rosie tucked in the bend of my knees, with her head propped on my legs, equally comfy and happy. I love that.

As I looked up, I noticed how beautiful the light was through the glass of our 180 year old door, with sparkling from the electric light behind it. We don’t know if the glass is original but we certainly believe the door to be. Somehow the Lensbaby was calling out my name and so it was duly attached to the camera and this shot taken.

It’s such a good representation of our dreamy afternoon, thinking of a distant time when this cottage was owned by one of the local mines and was used to house miners. The cottage was sold by the mine for the princely sum of £20 some years after the mine closed and we have the deeds from that transaction in our possession. We spent a sunny afternoon last summer wandering around the local grave yards looking for evidence of the previous owners of the cottage but our efforts were in vain. We found nothing.

Our time here has been spent recovering the house from years of poor maintenance and neglect. It’s been a long haul and we’re still not finished though the work moves a step closer over the next couple of weeks when the new kitchen will be installed. We’ve loved and cherished this house much more than many of its previous occupants, even though we cannot claim ‘history’ here. Our history is in the making. Hopefully in the future, the forward thinkers will recognise that it might have gradually crumbled to dust without our efforts. I hope so.

Two years ago, I discovered a magic place and last year DM and I were deeply relieved to have alibis and out having a truly splendid evening in the glorious company of my lovely Sarah and Bondy.