A mini home from home

Wow, thanks for all the lovely comments - it's true, I think, that books furnish a room. My husband had his 40th birthday recently and one of the presents I bought for him was a book I've been eyeing up for myself for years - Living with Books by Alan Powers. Full of gorgeous book-lined interiors!

It's been a while, mainly because of the summer holidays. We've been away (to the same gite in northern France as last year) and the kids have kept me extremely busy. It was fantastic coming home from our holiday to the Worst House this year - it couldn't have been more different. Last year we came home to find the place half demolished and the staircase boxed in with hardboard to try and keep some of the dust away from our mini flatlette upstairs. I hardly knew myself this year - able to unpack and have a shower and cook supper and everything! It's telling that our gite seemed quaint and rickety this year, in a charming but rather Heath Robinsonish sort of way, whereas last year I found the hot running water and constant electrical supply overwhelmingly swish.

We've just got back from a fantastic weekend at the End of the Road festival at the Larmer Tree Gardens in Dorset. First festival for the kids, and the first one I've been to since 2000. I'm not a camping kind of a gal ( although my tolerance for it has vastly increased since our eight months upstairs!) so we hired a vintage Volkswagon camper complete with Cath Kidston-style upholstery from South Coast Campers in Bournemouth. It was fabulous, and I was v reluctant to give up the festival lifestyle and come home, even to the rejuvenated Worst House. After the storms and torrential downpours of Friday the sun shone for the rest of the weekend. I even bumped into a friend I hadn't seen for eight years, there with her two children as well. Definitely going again next year. My top tip: Klorane Dry Shampoo!