Deborah Burke : Searching the South West

September, the time of year that is often a new beginning for many.

This month is the start of my next chapter and involves Mike and I searching for property. This is to set up our new venture: a residential arts retreat with eco credentials and teaching and connectivity at its core. With a convenient base in the centre of Frome it's been operation house hunt from our makeshift office:

North West Somerset has become our preferred region

and it's been a case of booking in as many viewings as we can for the time we're here

In between viewings we've had the great excuse of 'perusing the local area' and as we're on the hunt for new additions to our ever expanding collection of furniture/decor it's been great to keep an eye out for 'that next thing'.

Our first weekend found us at Frome's Independent Market, which had a great turn out

and was where we picked up these delightful milk bottles:

A friend then introduced us to The Walled Garden at Mells, which served a great spot of inspiration and gave us the much needed refuel of tea and cake!

a truly beautiful set up

with lovely views

it will definitely stay on our list for future revisits!

We found a great spot for lunch one day at the Oakhill Inn

and as we travelled west to Watchet we stumbled across the Contains Art gallery

An ingenious project which we think is just great!

It's also part of the very exciting Somerset Art Weeks which we're hoping to catch a look of whilst we're here.

Mike has been working super hard co-ordinating all of our appointments - even as we relocate the office on the road! A break down near Weston doesn't deter, appointments are booked in from the beach:

and the car dealership!

Yesterday we had a bit of R&R and took a trip over to Clevedon. We visited the place last year and fell for it in an awful lot of ways. We found out about the Curzon Cinema after our initial visit and the fact that this is the first and oldest cinema in the UK we just had to pay a visit to it this time: