At home
“The home should be the treasure chest of living.” — Le Corbusier.
Home has so many meanings for me, and those meanings have also changed over the years.
When I was starting out many years ago, I just wanted to own a property and get on the ladder. My first flat was bought during the late 1980s recession and as interest rates rocketed to 15 per cent I had to fight to hold onto my home. It taught me the power of determination and persistence.
My next home was a mill cottage in Wales with ten acres of gardens and woods and several mill ponds. A rural idyll, I lived there for 13 years and acquired my deep love of nature and the seasons. It was there that we filmed my first ever lifestyle series Home In The Country. The hamlet where I lived was a lovely community and had an old village hall with a corrugated iron roof where we held barn dances. Sometimes I’d get up at 5am to start gardening in the summer, or walk in the forest in winter and watch the deer feeding. It was an incredibly special house and a place I hold very dear. I have kept in touch with subsequent owners and visited recently. To my great joy I was reunited with a tree I planted as a sapling in the early 1990s, now a 30 foot giant. It was like greeting a long lost child.
When I left Wales I began my property life in London, moving from one property to another in an endless cycle of renovations, to add value and move up the ladder. From a one bedroom flat in Hampstead we finally made it to a family house in central London, where we have lived for the past 18 years. This house was my dream family home and where we brought up our two sons. Here I indulged my love of colour and experimentation, creating a home of theatrical fun. Nothing represented this more than the life size bronze stag who stood in the front garden, whom I named Henry, and who inspired many items in my interior range on QVC.
Which brings me to the present and the next chapter. Now at 61, and with my sons leaving home, we are looking towards the future. In keeping with the exciting plans I have for the Alison Cork lifestyle brand going forward, we shall be moving house again. I won’t say too much at this stage, but my content will all be about lifestyle and quality of life - how to make the most of the years ahead of you, and all the tips and knowledge i have gained along my own journey.
Ultimately, our aim should be to live well, and as Corbusier so rightly said, that journey starts and ends at home.
