Heading upstairs again youll find the "loft room" large, light and bright this serves as the perfect guest accommodation. As time opens up for all of us to spend more time in the garden, Alan Titchmarsh offers his tips on how to make sure you do it right. When you potter, there’s no where to get to. Nothing to achieve. The aim of the game is to slow down and enjoy doing one activity at a time. Author Anna McGovern writes with charm about the joy and practicality of living in the meandering moment, not asking too much of yourself and yet still getting things done in the gentlest of ways.

This book talks us through how to Potter while making a cup of tea and also how to return to a more analogue life. If you have an idle hour to while away, you might like this book, especially if you are an Anglophile like I am. When you set aside time to potter, your time is entirely your own. When someone asks you what you are doing for the weekend and you reply, ‘Oh, I don’t know, really. Just pottering’, what you’re saying is you haven’t decided yet, you don’t want to commit – in fact, you could do with a bit of time to yourself. Whil e pottering results in a constructive, physical outcome (you may have given a bag of clothes to charity or there may be a cake on the table), it’s the “mental rumination” that occurs during pottering that McGovern believes is beneficial to wellbeing. The effect for her was a change in mindset that enabled her to move on from the impasse she had reached in her career.Keep it digital free. What you do when you potter is often so inconsequential that it’s not worth a picture or post on social media. Switch off and distance yourself from your devices for a while. So much satisfaction can be derived from writing a letter, making a photo album or flipping through a magazine. Pottering is the British phrase for puttering around in the US. It is doing something small and inconsequential. This book is something like it because it is small and not deep. It does have beautiful illustrations and as an American I loved reading the British phrases in the book.

While many books offer trendy cures to the bustle and stress of modern life that involve going to far-off places or making drastic life shifts, this book’s approach is, with intention, much closer to home. Pottering—“to occupy oneself in a pleasant way but without a definite plan or purpose”—is akin to fixing a squeaky hinge or making a cup of tea, and McGovern explores the freedom and comfort inherent in such basic human tendencies, though they’ve been crowded out of contemporary definitions of success and happiness. All that being said, it’s also totally fine to plonk yourself down in a cosy chair and enjoy a cup of tea. Pottering is not about pressure, it's not supposed to be stressful, it's a productive calming activity. Recommended if you want a fast, light read to shake you out of a rut - but don't read it too fast or you’ll miss the message. Seeing this book for the first time did cause some concern for this reader. Is it another self help thing? Will it be embarassing?I found myself nodding away in agreement as it's pottering in a nutshell but so is the point that not all elements are of equal importance and the emphasis on each will vary person to person and task to task. I find I'm happiest and more relaxed when I've spent a day pottering around the house so I guess my take away from reading this book is I need to switch off the electronics a little more often and just potter! I'd be happier and more content for doing so. It’s time to dial down the noise in your life and brain. Keeping away from your phone, Netflix and social media will help. As McGovern states: You get to go with the flow. Let’s say you’re putting away an item and you stumble across something else that needs attending to (e.g. a drawer that need rearranging), you can change course. Remember, you don’t have to be efficient or productive when you potter.

ignoring digital devices and limiting your access to them also means that you are not constantly bombarded with messages, information, unrealistic images of perfection and pictures of social occasions that you haven’t been invited to.” South Wood Farm gardens, Devon. Photographed for Country Life. Credit: Val Corbett/Country Life Picture Library Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. The author explains the difference between doing things that bring you joy and inner peace, as opposed to those things we do that cause us stress.. It also has some lovely soft and dreamy illustrations, which showcase the chapters perfectly and fit in well with the world of "pottering" The key principles of pottering include making “do with what you’ve got,” not trying too hard, movement, staying local, and keeping it digital-free. Such techniques foster contentment and effortless living, focused on single tasks that embrace experimentation over excellence and are often, but not always, solitary pursuits. One chapter includes seasonal ideas to prime one’s mind for living at a slower pace year round, including spring cleaning, making popsicles in the summer, planting bulbs in the fall, and snuggling in the winter.Some or all information pertaining to this property may have been provided solely by the vendor, and although we always make every effort to verify the information provided to us, we strongly advise you to make further enquiries before continuing.

In the book Pottering: A cure for modern life author Anna McGovern describes pottering in the following way: The Master Bedroom is ahead of you looking over the garden and has the en suite off while another double bedroom adjacent enjoys exclusive use of the family bathroom! A full utility room occupies the right hand space beside the front door making it invisible to the working of the house!

Pottering is a charming little book about the pastime (or shall we call it art?) of pottering. It follows the self-help style, and encourages readers to slow it down a little and enjoy some everyday tasks and moments without the hassle of being productive and most importantly digital-free. In many ways, the principles are similar to the popular "being present" meditative propositions. Even though not much new is being revealed, it's a lovely guide and an important reminder of dropping down that "to-do list" and take it one spontaneous step at a time. I also enjoyed the author's personal experience at the end, where she shares how she became preoccupied with pottering. At first I did struggle with some of the very detailed descriptions of pottering activities. This topped itself when I read about the author's passion for dishwashing by hand. I almost stopped reading there and then. But then, finally the message of the book got to me. Making do with what you’ve got inevitably anchors pottering to the home. That said, pottering is not the same as carrying out household chores. “The distinguishing feature of pottering as opposed to ‘jobs around the house’ is the slow pace at which you do it,” claims McGovern. There is also a lot to be said for the satisfaction you gain from pottering. (Compare hoovering the carpet, say, to hoovering the crumbs out of a cutlery drawer and you’ll begin to see the distinction.) There are, according to McGovern, five fundamentals of pottering. First, pottering is about “making the best of your circumstances and the resources you have to hand”. Improvisation and compromise are key here. In fact, there is an element of make do and mend. The purpose of a human being is not to have an opinion on absolutely everything, whatever you might feel from your social media feeds. We are not experts on very much at all, so why do we act as though we are as we argue with people we haven’t even met about subjects that do not impact our daily lives?