This season’s story is a celebration of The Country Store, our imagined version of a New England general store by way of an old England aesthetic. More accurately this season’s story is a sentimental exploration of the abiding enthusiasms which Lucy and I, despite being of very different generations, share.

Imagine twin and very comprehensive collections of Martha Stewart Living magazines; an obsession with patchwork (Lucy’s practical, immaculate and handstitched); mine more cerebral (pretty pictures on a website about Gees Bend or slipshod machine stitched attempts); nostalgic memories of Little House on the Prairie (I am something of an expert on the Libertarian life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, have read the biographies and still cherish my childhood copies of the books); the late 80s heyday of the pioneering Shaker Shop in Harcourt Street (I was in my early London days eking out my entry level salary on punched tin candle boxes and split wood baskets; Lucy taken on childhood trips by a design led mother); my parents’ obsession with American Country style and our family attempts at DIY versions of classic carved and painted watermelon slices, rendered in papier mache and poster paints; my teenage bedroom wall plastered with images of iconic Ralph Lauren campaigns. These are things which now inform our shopkeeping lives.

The Hambledon’s Country Store is our heartfelt fiction, drawn from all these influences. One of the many and abiding joys of retail is being able to weave product, visual merchandising and memory into a tale. I am, notoriously, a starter and not a finisher (every doorknob at home is the resting place for bags of well intentioned but never completed craft projects). Storytelling at the shop affords us the opportunity of constant change and evolution and new beginnings. Our intention with each story is to make a place which feels entirely like The Hambledon but is always undergoing some kind of theatrical makeover.

Chapter One of The Country Store is Harvest Season: an Indian Summer of floral tablecloths, pretty crockery, beautiful printed papers, candles scented with finest botanicals: all of which moves us gently towards Autumn (this episode might be inspired by the title credits for Little House on the Prairie; all meadow grasses ready for the mowing). Chapter Two is titled Mercantile: jam jars filled with kitchen tools; hooked rag cushions; butter churners; sponge printed china; Brown Betty teapots; Bundt pans and cookie stamps. This is Ike Godsey’s General Merchandise Store (for those of you who remember The Waltons). Chapter Three is simply named Christmas and there will be more, much more to follow (as any of you who know Lucy will appreciate).

All this by way of introduction to and explanation of a story which is something of a broader trend at the moment but which, in this case, is deeply rooted, deeply felt and very much long lived.

For those who don’t know them, Lucy and Victoria are The Hambledon’s buyers, responsible for the considered and ever-evolving selection of product that fills the shop.