Welcome to the Lea Family Website
We live in a 200 year old cottage deep in the beautiful North Shropshire countryside close to the border with Wales. We would like to share with you our thoughts and some pictures of our garden and the surrounding countryside throughout the year.
About us
My name is John and I now work part time developing software for use in hospital pharmacy. I previously worked as a hospital pharmacist but had to take early retirement after becoming sensitised to some of the biocides and cleaning agents used in my work environment. This condition, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) makes it difficult for me to lead what most would consider a normal life, especially as the chemicals which make me ill, quaternary ammonium biocides and surfactants, phenolic biocides and several artificial fragrances, are exuded from the clothing hair and skin of most people using modern detergents, cleaning products, air fresheners, hair shampoo, deodorants, after shave and perfume. I have had to cut myself off from society avoiding all physical contact with people, public buildings and transport. I count myself lucky that we were already living in a rural environment when I started to suffer from this condition.

My wife Pat works as an IT technician in the local school and is my only contact with the outside world. Both of us enjoy gardening and walking and cycling in the countryside near our home and further afield in Wales and beyond. My wife also enjoys cooking and eating the many fruits and vegetables we grow in our garden and I also like to keep myself up to date browsing for science and nature topics on the Internet

We also have two daughters, grown up, married and living elsewhere. My elder daughter Sarah lives with her husband Ian and her three boys Thomas, Cowan and Euan in Worksop in the North East Midlands. My other daughter Kirstin lives with her husband Mark near.Leamington Spa south of Birmingham. I started this site to share our photos with them, other members of our family and friends and I hope that maybe they will add photographs of their own to this site.

Our House and Garden
The house is situated on the outskirts of a small village a couple of miles North of the town of Wem. We have lived here since 1974. Parts of the house date back to the early 1800s but it has been extended many times since then by previous owners and ourselves. When we moved here it consisted of a house with a small garden on one side of a rough drive and a large paddock about one acre in size on the other side. The original garden is now used for growing fruit and vegetables and the paddock is now a large garden with a lawn shrubberies, flower beds and hedges. Parts of this garden were left to go wild during the many years I was too unwell to tend it and I am still trying to get it back into shape though I may still leave some parts to the birds and insects. I hope to add many pictures of the garden, its contents and produce throughout the coming seasons and years to come including any further changes I may make in the future