Welcome to Chris & Shell
This is where we share the plans, pivots, dreams, and adventures that make up our life together—and we’re so glad you’re here.
We married in 2019. On our second honeymoon, travelling through Hong Kong and Thailand, we had one of those moments that changes everything. We realised we didn’t just want a life that looked successful. We wanted one that felt creative, sustainable, and true. At the time, we were documenting our life aboard a narrowboat on our YouTube channel, Chris and Shell.
Making content regularly sent us down a completely different path. It pulled us back toward the artists we’d always been at heart. Shell is a Pattern Design graduate; Chris is a Fine Art graduate. But neither of us had followed that early passion. Instead, we built successful careers in accounts, marketing, retail management, and luxury car manufacturing—yet never felt truly fulfilled. So, after returning from Thailand, we decided to put real effort into regaining our artistic skills and creating again.
The last few years have held some of our best moments and some of our worst.
Chris took early retirement and began his dream job as an Ecologist. Shell poured her creative talents into becoming a successful linocut artist (@michellepickeringprints), whose work adorns the shop here.
Then came grief.
In October 2024, Chris’s Mum, Marie, sadly passed away. As life began to settle into a routine again, it became increasingly clear that Shell’s parents were struggling too. Eddie, Shell’s Dad, had to go into a nursing home in early 2025, which left us ramping up care for Shell’s Mum, Winnie. In 2025, we lost both Eddie and Winnie. Losing three parents within a 13-month window left us both on a very low ebb.
In late 2025, we decided the time had come for a new chapter. We began looking for a home on dry land.
And we found her: Rose Cottage.
We have bought a stone cottage in Wales! Built in the 1870s, with rubble walls and in need of full renovation and modernisation, she will be our focus for the next few years.
But grief was not finished with us. Early 2026 brought more heartbreak: we lost Brenda, Shell’s uncle’s partner and one of our biggest cheerleaders. Then, in April, came the devastating news that Julie, Chris’s sister, had unexpectedly passed away.
Perhaps the legacy of all this loss and grief is the urgency we now feel—a fierce need to live the life we’ve always dreamed of. We hope you’ll join us as we navigate loss and attempt to make this acre of land on a Welsh mountainside our forever home and a permaculture food forest.
For regular updates, follow us here: @fromthewatertothemountains and https://linktr.ee/chrisandshell