Spring finally comes to Avon Beach

After a morning of sitting inside and marking, I needed a lunchtime walk as much as Hamish.

I still can't quite believe that the beach is on my doorstep - especially today, with the sun shining and the sky not completely shrouded in cloud. It actually feels as if Spring might, finally, have arrived.

The view from behind the houses on the other side of Stanpit

When you leave our house on Stanpit, you can dip off the main road, and walk behind the houses opposite ours for a short stretch. I feel incredibly happy to be living in our simple little cottage, so I can't believe that the people who live in these houses can EVER have a bad day!

Their back gardens not only back onto water, but look over it to Hengistbury Head, and the beach huts on Mudeford sandbanks. The buildings insurers must get a migraine just thinking of the flood risk, but I would happily pay any premium to wake up to that view, and be able to wander down the garden and pop a kayak in the water. In fact I stood, enviously, for a minute or two, watching as a girl did exactly that. Simon and I HAVE to get some sea kayaks soon! (If anyone wants to recommend some particularly stable designs, I'd be grateful..)

As Hamish sniffed around the boats, I breathed in the fresh salty air, the bright nodding daffodils, and the birds soaring on the breeze, and just SMILED!

We had all our new neighbours around for drinks on Sunday, and they generously let me pick their brains for new local walks and places to see. I now can't wait for the weekend, to get out and explore a bit more. Maybe I'll even remember to take out my camera and be able to post something better than an iphone snap!

Avon Beach this afternoon - is that blue sky??!!

Exploring our new local pubs in Christchurch

What is it exactly that makes a pub 'good'? Pubs live or die by their reputations, but what are the key ingredients for a pub's success? For me it needs to be simply decorated (more spit and sawdust than fancy wallpaper), to have a friendly buzz, a spare table or bar stool, and to feel intimate, welcoming and cosy. Oh, and maybe some live music now and then.  Is that such an unusual wish list?

Having spent the past five years living in suburbia where even the nearest gastropub was a car drive away, Simon and I were quite excited about moving to an area with not one, but three pubs within a ten minute walk. One of them, The Ship in Distress, is almost outside our front door, and has an intriguing history as a bit of a smugglers' den, so I was especially keen to check it out, but no one locally seemed to share my enthusiasm.

"The Ship in Distress? Mmm, it's in distress," said our Czech dog walker, Magda. Admittedly, she is employed to work in the Nelson down the road on a Monday night, so maybe she was going to be a little bit biased, but a couple of others seemed to agree with her.

So on Friday night, I suggest instead that we start at the Nelson, which is renowned for its Thai food (I'm not sure Horatio had much of a taste for a green curry and chicken satay, but I could be wrong.) Encouragingly there was a bloke with a beard and a guitar setting up in the corner when we arrived and the place was absolutely buzzing, but after just a few minutes of queuing at the bar and then fighting through the crowd to find a table (opposite a row of flashing games machines) we realised that everyone there was already plastered. And not just quietly inebriated, but staggering, hugging, shouting, swearing drunk. Something to do with it being Good Friday and the first day of the local beer festival apparently, but after an hour of watching the guitarist battling with an unappreciative audience, we'd had enough.

From the bluster of the Nelson, heading into The Ship in Distress was like finding a calm port after the storm. It may have lacked a fancy wine list, but it wrapped us up in a cosy, spit and sawdust welcome. Before we'd even ordered our drinks, we were invited to join some locals at the table, and didn't re-emerge again until midnight, after being invited out onto their fishing boat, and for more drinks the next night too. Now that's what I call a good pub!

The Ship in Distress on Stanpit, near Christchurch has a sea food restaurant and features in Alistair Sawday's good pub guide. 01202 984966.

We've done it - we've moved to Dorset!

Hurrah! We've escaped the smoke of the city and escaped to our new little nest by the sea.

For years Simon and I have dreamt and schemed about doing this - about somehow finding jobs out of London, selling our big house and downsizing to the good life - and, finally, we've done it. Well, sort of.

True, last week we did move into a gorgeous little Edwardian cottage, just a pebble's throw from the Dorset coast. But, ummmm, we also still seem to own a 5-bedroom detached house in the city. And have a son who is still in school 40 minutes away......

So rather than downsizing to a more simple life, we actually seem to have created a far more complicated one, encompassing nightmare-inducingly large mortgages, a family of American tenants, and a whole new set of landlord type of responsibilities, plus a school run that requires me to cross the entire New Forest. But hey, one step at a time I guess!

Inevitably I've had a few wobbles about the whole thing. Such as on Tuesday, when Glam Pam from Texas - our new tenant - called at 8pm to say she couldn't get the radiator in the bedroom to work and could we just 'pop' over. And then there was last Saturday, when all our friends and neighbours gathered for a final dinner and a game of utensil tennis in our very spacious city kitchen and I realised just how much I would miss them. But if at any time I need any reminding as to why we have done this, all I have to do is cross the road in front of the house, breathe in the coastal air and look across the water to the pretty beach huts flanking Hengistbury Head, or pull on my wellies and walk down to Avon Beach with the dog.

So, if you too dream of escaping to the coast and what to find out what doing so is REALLY like, or just want to join us as we discover the best - and worst -  of living in East Dorset, then follow this blog... and do get in touch to let us know what we should be seeing and doing.

How could we resist moving to Stanpit, when this view is just a stone's throw away?