'Everything has a unique story and is laced with history -–a country, its culture, the people, their homes and the objects in them. Listen, learn and be enriched by them.'

This was my mother’s philosophy and passion as she travelled the globe collecting stories and artefacts.

She always dreamt of starting her own interior design shop specialising in Asian furniture and home decor, but she never took the leap of faith to turn her vision into reality.

Then, suddenly, it was too late, and she was gone.

It was following her death that HARTA – which means ‘treasure’ in Indonesian – was born.

Now my passion and her legacy, I was very pleased to be able to bring HARTA to Wallingford.

Like many female sole proprietors, I couldn’t have done this journey alone.

My own courage to launch HARTA was bolstered by an Oxford-based course called TechPixies, which helps women who’ve taken a career break upskill and return to work. Armed with new tech skills, I set out to make my mother’s dream a reality and built the harta-living.co.uk online shop.

This was only the beginning, however,

Previous experience told me that customers want to be able to touch products to get a sense of how they look and feel, so it seemed only natural to take the online shop, off-line.

Through Iain Nicholson at PRBI I was able to secure another premise in Wallingford on a pop-up basis – this time for three months.

It has been an amazing experience with the most heart-warming welcome and support from the local council, retailers and customers alike.

People’s solidarity and drive for collaboration within the Wallingford community never ceases to amaze me.

From the enthusiastic Claire Blacker of South Oxfordshire District Council, the creative Jane and Tom from The Gallery, the lovely ladies from SewVeryVintage, Ribizli’s scrumptious soups, the social media queen Lee from Bridal Reloved, the passers-by who assisted with moving furniture when there was water pouring from the ceiling...

To above all the customers with their flattering reactions, thank you.

Although the pop-up shop may now be closed, it is not the end of this adventure.

Follow us on social media for some TechPixie magic – search hartaliving to discover where the journey will next take us, see the newly found artefacts and hear the latest stories of the FlyingDutchMum.