Special moments

Following yesterday's good news, today has been busy, busy, busy ~ I have made a list of the lists that I need make (well it's a start!).

Two deliveries have arrived (oh it's like Christmas again at the unit ~ lots of boxes to unpack, items to check and then rewrap) and Dave and I have been working on our much awaited catalogue.

Some days, the time just flies past and it's suddenly almost six o'clock and I still haven't acheived all that I wanted to. Funnily though, it's on days like this that I get a really nice feeling of satisfaction in what we have acheived ~ it feels a bit like I've just eaten a Green and Black's Easter egg... hmm, why is Easter egg chocolate so much yummier than just a bar of chocolate?

Oh I digress again; so we have come home and resumed our usual post work positions, Dave in the dining room doing website development (interspersed with playing his favourite computer game) and I'm in the drawing room in the company of Robbie Williams (Live at Knebworth DVD), with a pile of this month's house-y magazines to leaf through in between answering emails and listing items on our website.

My lifelong best friend as just telephoned me for a chat. We only speak about once a fortnight and I see her even less (it was just before Christmas when I last saw her); but we have laughed until we were crying at something sillly she said, we have shared our affection for each other's families, talked about how work has been, plans for the immediate future (at work and at home) and re-cemented our very special bond. What's really nice about our relationship is that because she has known me my entire life, lots of things need no words spoken between us; they are just understood. We share our joys and our woes and support each other whenever we need it. She is an inspiration to me. She is my sister, J.

Have to dash ~ Dave is calling me and it's my turn to make tea... chat soon, Liz

Exhibitionists!

Large white wall mirror £39.00 plus p&p

Some days are good and some days are great, but this one has been fantasmagorical!

Today we have agreed to create a couple of inspirational room sets in the Restoration Pavillion at The Homebuilding and Renovating Show at the NEC in April and I am both delighted and very excited. You will be able to find us April 10 - 13 with the Period Living magazine stand.

So this evening I am taking the night off and heading for my bath with a cuppa... chat soon, Liz

Questions

Why oh why don't I live nearer a big town? Okay, I know the answer to this one and it is purely a rhetorical question, but...

My copy of the new Cath Kidston catalogue arrived today and I have just spent half an hour drooling over some of the gorgeous fabric designs. Actually it's probably a good idea that I don't live closer to a CK shop or I would be penniless very quickly.

I love pretty fabrics and am delighted to discover a local designer of divine designs and I hope to have some of her fabrics and cushions in the shop very soon.

Dave posed a question this evening, to which I don't know the answer, so I would be grateful for any answers, comments and thoughts you have about this...

If you hoard things (in anticipation of a shortage, for example) it is said that you 'stockpile' them... so how many things make a stockpile and if you use or sell one of the stockpile, is it still a stockpile and at what point is it no longer a stockpile (and is that the same number that creates a stockpile in the first place)?

Please help us with this one, as his silly question will be wandering around in my head for days!

Chat soon, Liz

Crisp and dry and a little bit spooky!

Wasn't the weather lovely this weekend? Sunday was a perfect day for drying laundry, so I rolled my sleeves up and got stuck into our washing pile. The weather hasn't been terribly conducive to line drying for a couple of weeks now, so the mountain of items awaiting a spin in our machine was considerable.

By mid-afternoon I had got through most of it and our washing line was full of towels drying nicely in the slight and gentle breeze. I love the feel and the smell of crisp line-dried towels, so last night I wash in washer-woman heaven. Now neatly folded and stacked in a basket in my bathroom, they are ready for us to use once again.

Work today has been great; the telephone has rung almost non-stop again and Dave and I have been parcelling and packing orders between calls.

The most odd thing happened this morning ~ We were packing a large order onto a pallet ready for the delivery company to collect them and we ran out of pallet-wrap (it's like extra tough clingfilm), so I leapt into the car to see if any of our friends had any at their work. On my third stop, (I was going to our local building suppliers to see if they might be able to help) I pulled into their courtyard to see M standing there talking to a customer. Hooray, just the man I wanted to ask about any spare pallet-wrap and would you believe it? Tucked under his arm was a roll of pallet-wrap! It was amazing to be able to say to him 'Oh just the man I wanted to see and just the thing I wanted to see you about!'. It was an incredible coincidence (and just a little bit spooky!), but with thanks to M, we were able to finish packing the pallet and it has now gone on it's way to our customer. Some things are just meant to be.

This evening we are planning 'an evening on the sofa', I know it's not terribly romantic and my children always laugh when they catch us doing this ~ we sit side by side, a laptop on each of our laps, typing away whilst an episode or two of some old TV series keeps us company, courtesy of DVD player. But at least we are together and we are happy and who could ask for more?

Well as usual, it's time for a cup of tea, chat soon, Liz

Signs of Spring

Spring has sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where the sunshine is!

Well perhaps I am being a little optimistic in announcing that spring has reached our corner of the world. From reading other's words of wisdom, I know that the spring bulbs are starting to pop up everywhere, but in our special little micro-climate, surrounded as we are by steep hillsides, we are not quite out of winter yet. Only 13 miles away, the snowdrops are doing their thing and daffs are starting to push through the soil... here they seem to know that we haven't quite finished with the coldest of the weather yet and are waiting for it to be safe to make an appearance.

Still, I have plenty to be sunny about at the moment. My friend, Trina, gave me this lovely hyacinth yesterday which I have put into a hurricane glass and it is now sitting proudly on a chest of drawers. It is filling the front of the shop with it's heady aroma ~ heavenly!

In our office, Dave is doing his programming thing again today, he describes it as 'website brain surgery', so I am trying very hard not to disturb him too much. He really is so clever, I keep saying 'oh, can we just have this or that on the website' and without complaining that I keep changing my mind, he makes it happen. He's worth is weight in gold (& that's a lot of worth).

This evening I have planned a long, relaxing bath (with light!) and to finish my book. Mostly I want to do this as I have found another one that I want to start and I try not to start a new book before finishing the one I am reading. As I finished the last of my bath salts the other night (in the murky bathroom fiasco) I'm going to treat myself to a new bottle of lavender bath gel , make a big mug of tea and shut myself away for a couple of hours.

Hope you have a lovely weekend, chat soon, Liz

Things that go bump in the night

Last night I slunk upstairs to have a hot, soaky bath to find things were not going to go quite according to my plan. The bathroom light bulb had broken and I had forgotten to buy a spare. So the only remedy for the situation was to have a bath by candlelight... oh how romantic, I hear the cry, well yes sometimes it is romantic and sometimes not. Last night was of the 'not' variety, I had wanted to read a book for a while, I am reading The House at Riverton and really enjoying it. Despite lighting 6 candles and strategically placing half of them in front of the mirror (thus doubling their light output), it was almost too murky to read.

Can't see anything in my bathroom? no, nor could I!

So here it is with the aid of the flash.

I contemplated flashing the camera every few seconds, but obviously that wasn't a terribly sensible option, so sat in the bath with candle in one hand, book in the other and cup of tea on the chest of drawers by the bath, going cold because I didn't have enough hands! Oh well, I will pop out to the ironmongers this afternoon and get a new bulb or two.

Sometimes I think that the most interesting things happen when we are not watching. There are nights in our home when I wish we had closed circuit cameras, so that when we awake we could see what our cats have been up to during the small hours.

This morning however, we did not need video footage to know exactly what Freud had been doing in the night. I think that Freud may have minor mental health issues, he certainly does some very strange things on occasions and last night was another example of this.

It would seem that the loo roll that we were using last night (because our box of tissues had run out) and had been left on the sofa, was a dangerous enemy and needed to be dealt with in the most serious of manners. So he gave it what for!

Still, I suppose it is better that he shreds a loo roll than some poor little creature out in the fields.

Off to do some work, chat soon, Liz

P.S. It's now 9.45 pm and I have just washed my hair and got out my new hairdryer ~ a Christmas gift from my mother ~ the instructions that came with the dryer state 'do not use with bare feet'. Maybe I am just being dumb, but I use my hands to hold a hairdryer!

French style furniture

Whilst out and about at the weekend, sourcing new lovelies for the shop and website, I found this gorgeous range of furniture and I'm very excited about it. Although it looks white in the picture, it is actually a gentle creamy winter white with a beautifully smooth paint finish ~ just lovely!
I am working from home this afternoon because the cold that Dave kindly gave me at the weekend has taken hold in a spectacular manner and I can't get through more than about 3 minutes without blowing my nose or sneezing and I feel just a touch lightheaded from all the air pressure changes going on in my head... grizzle now over.

So here I am; curled up on the sofa, laptop on, an episode of X files gently unfolding on the telly in the corner of the room, cup of tea at my side, box of tissues within reach and guess what ~ I feel a bit better.

Well, had better go and do some work, chat later, Liz

New Quilts

Yeah ~ part of our new quilt collection has arrived with us and they are fab!

These lovely quilts are made from Indian cotton, are hand quilted and beautifully made. From the top they are Ohio Star (tea dyed to give it the rich vintage colouring), a country applique quilt (with lots of folk art designs appliqued onto the quilt), a pure white Amish style quilt and the one on the bottom is Solid Magic (tea dyed).
I have displayed them in this stack on the day bed in the shop and they look lovely.

Dave is busy 'doing something' with our new website today ~ I haven't asked what he is doing as each time I glance over at his computer screen it is covered with numbers and letters and coding that I don't understand (nor do I feel the need to learn about it). It's nice that our skills complement each other and there is no guilt about not learning how to do each other's work.

Friends often ask if we fall out and argue much, given that we work 5 feet away from each other, but this rarely happens and I can't remember the last time we had cross words together (it must be about 6 years ago). Although we sit next to each other all day, we don't speak much during our working day, because we are both focussing on different things. Usually we talk about a particular something that one of us is working on, but there is very little chit-chat as we save that for the end of the working day.

Our usual routine when we get home, is to have a cup of tea together (what a surprise! regular visitors will know that we drink way too much tea, but it keeps us happy) and then we go into separate rooms for a couple of hours to do our own things and unwind. Probably the opposite of what most couples do, but it works for us.

Gosh, I've just noticed the time... I need to go and find some lunch, chat soon, Liz

Tired but happy

Phew, what a tiring day yesterday was! Dave and I left home after a gentle start to the day and drove, seemingly forever, to a trade fair (Dave's birthday treat!?!). After 5 hours of trapsing around and around in ever decreasing circles, we slunk back to the car for the journey home.

Fortune however was smiling on us, the journey back was easy and straightforward and despite the torrential rain that followed us for the last 50 or so miles, we made it back in time to watch Lark rise to Candleford (hooray, that was what I really cared about).

So today, I have spent much of the day preparing the orders that have been placed over the weekend and mulling over everything that we saw yesterday.

I love the furniture that we already have at Pretty Practicals, but I want a range that is exclusive to us, so have been working hard to find 'just the right thing'.

I think that I have finally found a supplier of the exact furniture that I want to sell. It has been a long hard road to decide exactly what I want to stock because I want it to be beautiful to look at, beautifully made, environmentally kind and positive and a great price... finding the combination of all four factors has been harder than I thought it would, but it looks like I am finally there. All that is left is to visit the workshops of the company that I have found and see for myself how their (absolutely gorgeous) furniture is made and talk about creating a range of furniture for Pretty Practicals. As soon as I know more, I will tell all.

Anyway, after Dave and I had packed items for a few hours today, I left him to finish the last few orders and popped to a local supermarket to restock our cupboards at home. Our kitchen cupboards would have given Mother Hubbard a run for her money, our choice when we got home last night was a tin of prunes or cat food! We did have lots of pulses, pasta and food that requires me to be a bit more creative than staring in the cupboard and mumbling 'what've we got that's instant?', but after 6 hours of driving yesterday, my body and mind had waved a little white flag and well and truely given up.

Well that was yesterday! Tonight we have a postive feast in every cupboard, the fridge, the freezer, the table, the shelves, the oven... you get the picture... I did a major food shop. It's such a cosy feeling to have larder (and tummy) full of food.

I've had a lovely evening reading all my favourite blogs and think it's about time to head upstairs for a bath.
Ooh, before I go ~ a message to Cecily who has a job interview ~ Good Luck Sweetie, just be yourself and you'll do fine!
Chat soon, Liz

Spider alert 2

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Way back in the autumn I spent some considerable time venting my horror of the impending onslaught of our home by the silent eight-legger army and promised to be a big brave girl and not be too hysterical about them. Well, I got through most of the autumn and winter without too much screaming and jumping around on the sofa, skirts raised and calling to be rescued, but...

they are back!
I think that the particularly high rainfall has caused all the really, really big spiders to seek refuge and they have all received a message that our house is the place to which they should retreat. To say that they are crawling out of the wood work is of course a gross exaggeration, but ours is a Victorian house, with cellars and airbricks and chimneybreasts and sash windows and lots and lots of places for them to live.

I have now discovered their latest tactic ~ to jump out from their hiding place, sit in the middle of the floor and stare at me in defiance, knowing that I am unlikely to respond with a size 9 shoe, but will instead flee with all the courage of a wilting lettuce. Good grief, I am a grown woman and yet I still cannot get to grip with my dislike of these little creatures!

It is my beloved husband's birthday this week and today I have bought him a 'thingy'. This is the technical term that I use for a piece of electrical equipment that I don't understand (and care little about), but he is elated and that is the important thing.

Apparently, it does something like recording the music he creates on his electric guitar. He loves this new piece of kit, especially he tells me, because it has loads of buttons to twiddle. If it had more flashing lights, it would, I gather, be the perfect gift.

I have scored highly on the 'wonderful woman' scale today and so have been able to break the news to Dave that the special treat I have planned for his birthday is to accompany me to a trade fair for work (still on top of the world about his birthday present, I don't think the news has registered with him yet!).

Well, I'm off to make a cuppa (spiders permitting), chat soon, Liz

Now Shipping to USA

After an increased number of requests for us to ship to USA and Canada, we have now organised the additional insurance needed to enable us to ship to North America. Hooray!

We will not be able to deliver all items to USA and Canada, but I am busy adding the appropriate shipping costs to all items that we feel that we can parcel well enough for it to survive the journey across the Atlantic.

We look forward to working stateside!

Chat soon, Liz

All that glitters...

I am delighted that we have finished the bookwork, for this month at least. I know it's an important thing to do, but it's one of my least favourite tasks at work, so I have treated myself to a yummy flapjack to go with this morning's cup of tea.

I am thrilled that our new gilt range of furniture is starting to arrive with us. When I visited our supplier's showrooms last month, I was really impressed with the quality of these pieces and was pleased to learn that the mahogany used to make them comes from forests which are part of regeneration programmes. This range are all reproductions of antique originals and have a gold leaf finish to the woodwork and use silk and a very pretty damask fabric on the upholstered areas. I rather fancy one of the nursing chairs for our bedroom at home ~ it would be lovely to drape my clothes on one each night and add it little touch of opulence to the room. Our bedroom is decorated with toile de Jouy wallpaper of charcoal colour cherubs on a muted yellow background (not the best description I realise, but it does look nice - honestly!). Dave was a bit hesitant about having cherub covered walls when I first suggested it to him a few years ago, but once he had seen the wallpaper on the walls and realised that it wouldn't be going all around the bedroom, he warmed to the idea. So we now have these heavenly beings on the chimney breast and on two walls above the dado rail and below the picture rail ~ on the grounds that often less is more. One day, when we have hidden the socks, books etc away, I will take some pics of our bedroom to show you how it all goes together.

Ooh, I have just had pics arrive of some new quilts that we will be getting in shortly and I just need to share this one because it is fab. All I have to do now is work out if there is a room I can pop it into! Well, I'm off to do some packing and parcelling... chat later, Liz

A taxing time

I have spent the last couple of days with my head full of numbers, preparing our VAT return which was actually much more straight forward that I imagined it would be ~ hooray! I have never really thought of myself as much of an administrator, although I am pretty organised about filing paperwork away in the right place. The ease with which I have accessed all the information needed by our brilliant book-keeper has surprised even me.

Today would have been my father's birthday and last night I put a few words together in his memory...

Still missing you.

To the man

• who was so dedicated to his work that he visited his patients on Christmas day, but also found time to take his children and grandchildren on great days out


• who was a stickler for being properly dressed so always wore a tie, but wore a red Acapulco sun hat in the operating theatre


• who kept the biscuit tin high up on a shelf so the children couldn't help themselves, but treated his dogs to KitKats every Saturday morning


• who continued to study and learn about medicine his whole life and introduced me to The little Grey Rabbit, Ant and Bee and Dr Suess


• who hated own label products in the supermarket and loved Callard & Bowser Nougat (shame they stopped making it) and Gentlemen's Relish (though not together!)


• who made the world's best tasting fudge and kept a pot of jelly babies on the shelves in the dining room


• who hated injustice, fought for the less privileged, worked to improve medical knowlegde in developing countries and here in UK


• who always hated roller coasters, but took my daughter on one because it was her birthday


• who, despite being dreadfully ill for years, rang me daily when I was poorly, to make sure I was okay


• who knew to turn the radio off when they played Leo Sayer's 'when I need you', the day my first serious boyfriend dumped me


• who taught me to drive and to find my own inner drive.

To the man who is no longer with us, but is in my mind each and every day. Happy Birthday Dad.

Period Drama

Wow, what a great weekend I've had! I've spent lots of time at home, with my laptop in situ, entering data to the both Pretty Practicals website and our new (as yet unlaunched) website. Okay, that doesn't sound like so much fun, but I did get a chance to put on some DVDs and watched old dramatisations of Jane Austen to my heart's content. Then just as I had run out of DVDs to watch the BBC did themselves proud with an evening of period drama on the telly. I still have a pile of videos of earlier productions of Jane Austen novels and other period dramas but that will have to wait for another weekend.

Dave, who isn't such an Austen fan has been hidden away in the dining room working on the websites. I am so lucky to have a partner who seem to be able to turn his hand to anything I ask him to do ~ I mention that I would like something or other done on the website and without complaining, he does it. What a star!

So how do I thank my wonderful husband for his unstinting dedication to our work? Easy ~ make him a cup of tea and suggest some more ideas for changes and improvements!

Dave thinks that by the end of the week we will be ready to introduce our new website to the world, I'm really excited by it because we have put so much effort into creating it (another new baby for Pretty Practicals ~ yeah!).

As always, I am heading off towards the kitchen once more, chat soon, Liz

My baby girls

Bella and Shard

Dave has just found this pic on his computer and sent it to me as a reminder of how cute our two little girl cats were when they first arrived with us. Rescued from not far away, they were in desperate need of a home. How could I resist them? Perhaps I should have edited out the red eye issue on this pic but you can still get an impression of the cutie-pie factor!

Raindrops on roses...

Today's blog is just a few pictures of some of my favourite things in our shop today ~ tomorrow it may be something else that catches my eye...

A pure cotton Christening robe with layers of ruffles
A very pretty carrier bag holder that I made using vintage Laura Ashley fabrics with lots of frills

Two little cushions made from a lovely piece of vintage linen union
Tooth Fairy boxes (for storing little teeth in until the fairy comes to collect them)

This tall glass jar is a new arrival this week and I think it's just lovely, it reminds me of chemist shops of my youth (now I'm sounding old!)
Remember Fred? This little cruet set has been so popular, this is our last one left in the shop and I will be a bit sad to see him leave when someone buys him.

Well that's it, I need to go and wrap some parcels, have a good weekend, chat soon, Liz

The big tidy

I ventured to Cecily's room today, hmm... teenagers have a certain special way of tidying up their rooms that only they seem to understand. My plan is to tackle the decorating task this weekend, but first I need to create a safe space in which to apply paste to paper. My dilema is 'do I move her things around, thus invading her privacy or do I leave her stuff where it is and risk getting paste or paint on it'? For now, I will leave the decorating until I have talked to her, then she can decide which option she would like me to do.
Cecily's partner called in to see me at work today, bringing with him a birthday present from the two of them ~ this is great, my birthday has lasted over a week! Anyway, they are absolute sweeties, they have given me the second series of 4400 on DVD. I am delighted and rushed home a little early to start watching it. I set the telephone so that calls come through to me at home and have merrily been working at home for the last couple of hours whilst the telly has been chattering away in the corner of the room.

This evening I am going to sort through a bit of my old magazine collection, I have squillions of them and have decided that it would be nice to spend a little bit of time flicking through back issues, deciding which ones I want to keep and which ones can be recycled (I take them to our local doctor's surgery for patients to look at whilst waiting to see the GP). Obviously I'll keep all the ones that have our items featured in them (storing them in one of these fab file units) and there are a few that I just can't bear to part with (like a Country Homes & Interiors from March 1993), some that have friends' houses featured in them... and so the list goes on. But for all the ones that I just 'have' to keep, there are more that can have a new home and someone else can enjoy them instead.

Ooh, an episode has just ended, that's my cue to put the kettle on and to check to see how Dave (& his cold) is doing, chat soon, Liz

Floriforous gift

I just wanted to share this picture of the beautiful flowers that Dave gave me for my birthday.

Today has been amazing, despite the weather being foul, absolutely everything has gone right! Whooppee! Work has been lovely, the telephone has rung steadily, I finished all the packing that I needed to get done today and the delivery that we thought wouldn't arrive until around 6 pm arrived at 5 instead, so we were able to come home a full hour earlier than we anticipated.

Dave has been working flat out on the websites (even though he is starting to get a rotten cold) and has come home having acheived everything that he planned to do today. We both have a cosy feeling of satisfaction and are planning an evening together curled up on the sofa watching something that requires no imput from the grey matter.

Well as usual, I am off to find the kettle, chat soon, Liz

Job Satisfaction.

Chateau sideboard with upstand £645.00
What an incredibly busy day I have had, but oh so productive too. Dave has fulfilled his promise to me to get a new website underway and to that end he has created something that I think is not only rather special, but also beautiful. It will be a few days or so before I can reveal it to you, but I am now busy entering information into the database as fast as I can.

Our new furniture ranges are starting to arrive with us, so I have also been adding those to the Pretty Practicals site too. I now feel a little bit data-entried out (if that makes sense) because I have been steadily adding items for hours. We have been busy with queries and orders too, so all in all, it's been a good day.

One of the exciting parts of work for me, is unpacking the new products as they arrive with us, it's like having lots of Christmasses or birthdays! As each item arrives, I unpack and check each one (rejecting any that don't meet our quality standards i.e. is it perfect and if so, would we want to receive this item?), then Dave and I repackage them ready to send out as they are ordered. Because we have a couple of deliveries almost every week, it's like having a little treat every week too. Yippee!

Another fun part of my role at work is sourcing new items. Dave and I spend time deciding what we would like to find and then I go off in search of it. I get a huge sense of satisfaction when I manage to find just the thing we have discussed and very often I make other wonderful discoveries along the way.

I feel very lucky to do work that I enjoy so much and it's a privilege to wake up each morning excited about the day ahead. I had better go and get some shut eye, or at least the next cup of tea!

Chat soon, Liz

Labour of Love

When we first got married, Dave and I decided to create something together, that would take us some time to make and then we would be able to cherish it for the rest of our lives. To that end, we embarked on the (mammoth) task of sewing our own patchwork quilt.

Each winter we rescue it from our craftwork cupboard and every evening for a couple of weeks, we sit together sewing a bit more of it. The sides of each little hexagon is about one inch long and we quietly wish that we had made them a bit bigger, but there is no point in changing it now we have come so far with it and it does look absolutely gorgeous.

At one point, we had made it almost large enough for our double bed and then, inevitably, we got a larger bed, so it was back to the drawing board to enlarge the design to fit our new sleeping arrangements.

Most of the fabrics come from my scraps collection, many of them are pieces cut from much loved and worn out clothes, like dresses that Cecily outgrew many years ago and snippets from other creations.

It's almost time to pull out of the cupboard again and revisit the memories that it evokes for us.

Here's how it looked back in 2004, it's grown a little since then, but probably won't be finished for years to come yet!

Chat soon, Liz

Brown paper and birthdays

After taking the day off yesterday and having a half day on Saturday, we have spent the whole day so far packing parcels in preparation for the couriers and post office. I love wrapping our quilts into brown paper parcels ~ I imagine them to be like parcels I've seen old films, where the hero goes off on a train with his parcel of things wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Good grief, I must be getting nostalgic in my old age (well not so old really, but you know what I mean).
I've had my birthday this week; it's one of those times when I take stock of 'my lot' and this year I felt rather happy with things. I love my work, my family and friends ~ what more could a girl ask for (except more tea and chocolate)? Actually, I would have really liked one of these cards, they are handmade for us, by one of my super-talented friends but I suppose my family thought that I wouldn't want one that I stock in the shop (I'll drop better hints next year).

I have found time since Christmas to get my sewing machine out once again and create a few cushion covers. I love the fabric on this one, I don't know who or what the scene is supposed to be depicting, but I imagine that it could be Bodicea (I Googled the spelling and there are about 5 variations!). If you know the fabric, please drop me a line. Oh, I digress again, one of the reasons that I enjoy working with this fabric is the quality of the linen union that it is printed onto and despite the bobble trim being so fiddly to work with, it does give cushions a lovely finish! Some time ago, I was lucky enough to pop into a haberdashery shop during a sale and I picked up dozens of different colour and length zips, so now I always have the right one just when I need it. Zips in cushion covers are a must for me, I hate finding I can't remove a cover to change the inner pad or clean it, but so many fixed cover cushions seem to be sold, or even envelope back cushion covers ~ I don't know if we sit on our sofa funnily or something, but the inners never seem to stay inside the cover if it doesn't have a zipped closure. Okay ~ cushion rant over!

Our sofa at home is covered with assorted creations that I have made over the years and the wonderful thing about having learnt to sew is that if I get bored with the design of the room; I can make new blinds and cushions and hey-presto, a whole new look!

My plan for my spare time over the next couple of weeks is to redecorate Cecily-Daisy's bedroom. Now she is at uni and only at home during holidays, it seems the ideal opportunity to make it look a bit fresher in there for her. This, however, is not the easy task I thought it was going to be. Working my way around the post-holiday chaos and her walk-on wardrobe (well, that's what Dave calls the heap of clothes she leaves on her bedroom floor) will be the easy bit ~ my dilema is what do I put on the walls?

Cecily's choice I suspect would be a plain pale bamboo paint that she can put posters and momentos onto when she is home. My choice would be a vintage design wallpaper and as it is me who is doing the decorating, guess what she'll end up with? Next problem, which design? Having hoarded Laura Ashley fabrics and wallpapers for years and years, I have dozens of vintage designs to choose from and I can't decide whether to go for my favourite plum colour (we have lots of matching bedding, curtains, cushions etc. so I could create a really good 1970's room for her) or whether to use a more traditional large flowered design on a white background ~ great for making a room look larger, but it's an enormous room already, so doesn't need the help or to go for a 1930's style design and give the room a Bloomsbury look.

Better think on it for a bit longer and go and find a cup of tea instead, chat soon, Liz

Just Chilling

Yesterday we attended the marriage ceremony of two of our friends and as anticipated it was lovely. Funny how going to a wedding brings out the romantic in us, isn't it? I couldn't stay for very long at the celebration afterwards because I had to take Cecily back to Bath to get her back to uni for the new term.

So Cecily and I set off at 6ish, for the 3 hour drive to Bath, but we also stopped in at Waitrose on the way to pick up new term essential yummies for her ~ like rice cakes, quinoa and oat milk( how do you milk oats? with teeny weeny milking machines?) . Most of these foodstuffs wouldn't pass my lips, but she loves them, so who am I to argue. Well, we eventually got to Bath at around 10 and after unloading the car and making sure she had everything she needed and cups of tea and chatting, I left for the long journey home at 10 to midnight!

I crept in at around 3 this morning, so today I have been recharging my batteries, watching old films and being pampered by Dave. Bliss!
Chat soon, Liz

Wedding Daze

What a handsome couple...
... and so in love!
You know those 'oh so common' phrases that have just become part of the English language? Well I have found a great website that explains the origin of so many of the phrases and references loads of them to the works of Shakespeare. You can find it at http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/phrases-sayings-shakespeare.html

I often find that I mix my phrases together and the start of one saying gets joined to the end of another. A couple of days ago whilst chatting with my mum on the 'phone, I was telling her about something that was annoying me and explained how 'it really grates my goat'. After she had stopped laughing at me, we decided to keep using the phrase ~ so feel free to use it whenever you like, perhaps in another couple of hundred years someone will be looking up the origins of this phrase too.

Dave and I are going to a wedding tomorrow, I hope for our friends' big day that the rain, snow and wind are kind to them.
Dave and I got married in late autumn (many, many moons ago) and I was so worried that it would rain. It rained for the whole week beforehand and the entire week afterwards, but our wedding day was a gloriously sunny autumnal affair, with the leaves on the trees having turned a gorgeous chestnut brown which co-ordinated beautifully with my henna-dyed hair and the bronzey-gold of the silk on the bodice of my dress. It was almost magical and I would wish for every couple to have as lovely a day as we did.

Well, I'd better get on with some work and get the kettle on again! ~ Liz

Snow Pictures

For everyone who missed the snow fall yesterday, I thought that I would share some pictures that I took in February 2007 of snow in our back garden (and beyond).

This first picture was taken on 9th February on our third day in a row of snow fall that week. The snow was coming down so thickly that we couldn't see the hill behind our house at all!

I think that this pic is one of my favourites, the lilac tree by our back door has it's branches at just the right angle to catch any snow that comes and when the sun then shines through the tree it's looks magical.

Early morning, looking out from my bathroom window, the sun rising and lighting half of Gwystedyn Hill, this was taken on 8th February before the heavy snowfall shown in the first pic.

Well, we have had no snow yesterday or today so far (which suits me fine as I only grumble like mad about being cold when it does arrive!).

Chat later, Liz

There's no business like snow busyness

BRRR! Today's weather watch reports that it is jolly chilly here in Rhayader, so cold that Dave quietly commented that even snowmen would die of hypothermia. It almost snowed today, there were a few teeny weeny snowflakes, but they obviously decided it was too cold to stay and moved on.

Here at home, we are doing our best to keep warm, the central heating has been switched on a little earlier than usual, doors to all the rooms are closed to contain the heat and we are curled up under quilts and wearing scarves until the heating system has done its job. In another hour or so the house will be toasty warm again.

I am never sure whether it is better to leave the central heating running all day, so that the house stays warm and it only has to do a gentle top up every now and then or whether the heating should just come on mornings and evenings, but currently we do the latter. I expect that it all depends on the efficiency of the insulation, age of heating system etc etc.

It's been busy at work again this week and although I like Christmas, I am rather pleased to get back into the routine of things once it is over. Dave and I have been developing our ideas for some specialist websites to sit along side our Pretty Practicals site and to that end we hope that by the end of February we will be able to launch additional sites that concentrate on patchwork quilts, vintage chic interiors, cream French furniture and country style homes. I'll tell more when we get a bit further in our planning.
Chat soon, Liz

Ooh, chatting again sooner than I thought I would, it's now just after 11pm and our house is fantastically warm, in fact it's almost hot in here ~ hooray!

I have spent a lovely evening browsing some of my favourite blogs. I have only recently discovered that there is a whole world out there of women, who just like me run a business and home and (unlike me) also find the time to be incredibly creative and make some beautiful things, like cards, bags, gifts etc and who write great blogs about their comings and goings. When I work out how to, I will put links to their blogs on this one.

I have read through an essay that Cecily has written for university and (hopefully) tactfully pointed out a few grammatical errors; please don't read my blog for an example of good grammer. I dug out a few essays that I wrote at uni, in the hope that they may have some info that would be of use to her. Good grief, I wrote a lot of twaddle ~ I can't believe that I wrote so passionately about a Marxist-feminist view of macro-economics! Actually I am quietly impressed with the standard of work that I produced, given that I started university (as a mature student), when Alec was aged 5 and Cecily was just 6 weeks old.

Dave has wandered into the drawing room to watch a bit of Star Trek (TNG), so I will join him. Chat soon (again), Liz

... and in with the new!

Fishing lamp £48.00

Hooray! The new year has started uneventfully. No breakages, no damages, no pounding on essential pieces of equipment. In fact, Dave has fixed a light fitting that had broken just before Christmas and the lack of light just outside our downstairs loo was beginning to irritate us.

Cecily and her partner have gone off to Shrewsbury to the cinema (why they feel the need to travel quite so far is beyond me, but they are young and happy so who am I to question them?), so Dave and I have the house to ourselves again. And what did the two adults who have been craving some alone time choose to do this bank holiday evening? Dave is busy learning a programming language and I have been researching online and now am blog writing ~ romantic eh? We really know how to live the high life!

Actually I have been researching a holiday; I thought that I might abandon Dave for a week and steal away for a quick blast of sunshine. The criteria for my hoped-for break are easy ~ sunny, warm (but not necessarily hot), cheap and available, oh and not the Costa Blanca because I don't much like the stretch of Spanish coast around Benidorm. One would think that at this time of year it should be relatively easy to find what I am looking for, but it's proving harder than I thought.

The surest way of getting a good dose of sunshine and a guaranteed way of having a really lovely holiday would be to go and see my oldest friend Anna (oldest as in longest, not old in age), however she lives in Tasmania and if I am going to travel to the other side of the world, I need to go for more than one week (it takes me 3 days to get over the 24 hours on an aeroplane) and I don't want to leave our little business for too long at the moment ~ it's all much too exciting now that the shop has opened. So perhaps for now I will have to carry on looking for something a little closer to home.

Oh, duty calls, it's my turn to make a cuppa and Dave is waving an empty mug at me... got to run, chat soon, Liz