Okay, we’ve had unborn babies and re-united twins on 10,000 Birds in the last few weeks - and now we’re doing houses…yes, it’s another non-birdy post, but I hope readers will forgive me because I woke up in a Wiltshire paradise today, and after the stresses of moving (box after box after box after box in the hottest, most humid weather we’ve had here in the UK for years) it was so utterly wonderful that I thought I’d share.

For about ten years I (and for seven years and three years respectively, Jo and Evie) have lived in a small, rented house on an ordinary but respectable “Mr Woody” housing estate in Chippenham, in north Wiltshire. As houses go it was fine - nothing hugely special - but it was clean, fairly quiet, and convenient for the motorway and my drive to Heathrow. Jo, however, a country girl and cottage-gardener at heart, never really felt settled and craved something ‘in the back of beyond’. A month or so ago she suddenly announced that a cottage was newly available for rent in the grounds of a place called Great Chalfield - just ten miles from Chippenham, but somewhere I’d never visited before. Let’s go have a look, she said, you’ll love it…

Me, the Great Cynico, the spawn of Mr Grumpy and Mrs Couldn’t Care, love somewhere? Why? All I ever need is somewhere to hide my suitcase and an internet connection…that’s not ‘love’ that’s just - you know, living…

But of course we went to look anyway, and it turned out that Great Chalfield is actually a ‘Charming 15th-century manor house’ which is now owned by the National Trust! To quote the official website Great Chalfield is -

A fine example of a medieval manor, complete with an upper moat, gatehouse and small parish church. Beautiful oriel windows and rooftop soldiers (c.1480) adorn the house, restored between 1905 and 1911 by Major R. Fuller – whose family still live here and manage the property on behalf of the Trust. The delightful gardens were designed by Alfred Parsons and feature terraces, gazebo and lily pond. Grass paths offer visitors romantic views across the spring-fed fishpond. The house and gardens have featured in many tv and film productions, including ‘Persuasion’ and ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’…

…and is absolutely stunning! Genuinely, truly, really, completely stunning.

The cottage we went to look round was literally at the bottom of the garden of the Manor, behind a wall with an old, wooden door set in it that opens up to the most incredible view across a manicured lawn to the main Hall, an orchard, an ‘apple-drying house’, and a lake stocked with whopping fish (and attendant Grey Heron, Coots, and Moorhens).

It was small(-ish), two-bedrooms, on four floors, and one of three ‘cottages’ in a sub-divided building (which used to be a water-mill!) and Jo wanted it so badly she was lit up like a huge neon sign. What could I say but ‘okay’…

Well, move on a few weeks and we’re now moved in, most of the boxes are unpacked, the internet is up and running (sporadically at the moment), the TV is re-tuned to the local transmitter, and I woke up this morning to the sounds of sheep and a rooster, Jackdaws on the roof, Blackbirds, Goldfinches, Chaffinches, and Wood Pigeons callling from the trees, and not a drunken teenager or sputtering transit van within earshot. Jo even saw a Common Kingfisher from our bedroom window while she sat on the window-ledge with a cup of tea gazing over ‘our’ corner of the manor gardens this morning!

I’ve not had much time to have a good look around yet, but our landlord and landlady, Robert and Patsy, have welcomed us with open arms. Robert is an ex-Chair of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust (and current Sheriff of Wiltshire), and says that we can walk where we want when we want - as long as I tell him what birds, dragonflies, butterflies, and moths we see! We’ve not really seen much yet of course, but what I have seen so far though is so beautiful, peaceful, and so far removed from anywhere I ever imagined living that I’m still slightly in shock. It’s like living in a perfect holiday cottage. I can only imagine how enchanting it will be for Evie to grow up here (hopefully, anyway - the rent’s not cheap!)

Anyway, enough blathering - here are a few photos I took this morning…

Our back garden (the plants in the foreground are a species of Mint and are moth magnets…)

The wall between us and the Manor, the roof of the ‘apple-drying house’ and a HUGE fir tree…

Looking from our front door to the old wooden door I mentioned above…

…and the view through the door

…the lawns and the Manor

…the back of the Manor, and the orchard, lake, and gardens.

The ‘apple-drying house’ and lake. Our bedroom window is on the right…

Not bad eh? So far I’ve also seen - amongst other species - Buzzard, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Bullfinch, and Goldcrest, and can hear Yellowhammers singing in the nearby fields when I’m in our garden. Butterflies are everywhere and since yesterday I’ve seen Painted Lady, Small Tortoiseshell, Comma, Marbled, Large, and Green-veined Whites, Red Admiral, Meadow Brown, and Ringlet in our garden (!), and I’ve a feeling that once I get ‘mothing’ again the list will be very impressive (a Lilac Beauty on the front door last night was rather nice). There are towering Elms, Beeches, and Oaks that must be many hundreds of years old, and there are small streams hidden away under shaded banks, and miles and miles of fields and hedgerows.

So, do I love it? I’m a birder, am fascinated with butterflies and moths, and am privileged to be living on a National Trust property with an organic farm - I think it’s safe to say I’m one very happy bunny right now…and, as usual, I owe rather a lot to the softly-spoken woman who has stood beside me through thick and thin these last seven years, who first suggested adoption, who has seen me through a year-long ‘burn-out’, and who knew all too well that as soon as I got here and started to relax I was going to feel like one of the luckiest guys alive…

All photographs copyright Charlie Moores 2009