A skinny flat white and a stormy night

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 1st November 2013

IMG_2352It’s exactly two months since we moved to Dorset and the chaos continues.

There are still boxes to unpack, change of address cards to send, curtains to make (not by me – I’m the most cack-handed person ever) and pictures to hang.

I’m slightly worried that if I don’t crack it all by Christmas then I never will. I’ll be so used to clambering over boxes, wearing clothes that have been strewn across the sofa and negotiating lamps, files and books on my way upstairs that I won’t even notice.

But in amongst the bedlam I’ve found a few things that have made moving to a new part of the country more fun and less stressful.

First and foremost I’ve discovered a cafe that makes a great skinny flat white (so sadly urban, I know, but thank you Chococo). Secondly,  we’ve made time every weekend to go for blustery autumn walks along the cliffs – that, after all, is why we moved to the seaside in the first place. We’ve found a fantastic brocante, a new favourite pub and a great cinema. Best of all, eight weeks after leaving Oxford, the novelty of catching the Sandbanks Ferry still hasn’t worn off. I’m such a local now that I even know the ferry timetable off by heart.

Amazingly, the ferry runs throughout the year and in all weathers. When the St Jude’s storm lashed southern England on Sunday night we were driving home from a visit to my elderly in-laws. As we drew up to the ferry at 9pm the place looked oddly deserted. Not another car in sight. “Is the ferry running tonight?” asked my husband anxiously. One of the ferrymen, clad from head to foot in a fetching yellow sou’wester and matching oilskins, beamed at him. “It would have to be a lot worse than this for us to stop,” he said.


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