A dogs life

Afternoon!  George here, Mum is busy getting ready for tomorrow's market so I'm taking over the keyboard.

Guess where I've been?

Back to Devon, I do like it there especially on the beaches.  I played frisbee on this beach, even went in the sea just a little bit.

Played with someone elses frisbee that we found on the rocks on this beach, we left the frisbee there incase it's owner came back again.

Mum was busy eating a great big portion of fish and chips when she took this picture!

When we weren't eating out, we (that is the royal 'we') had a go at cooking on this - it was stinking hot but did make lovely bread!!

I played on this beach in the rock pools

I'm not interested in sheep, apparently I should be but they just smell funny and look very odd to me.

Now, this I was interested in.

Fish.

Not the sort Mum had in batter, although I do rather like those too.  These move underneath the shiney wet stuff and are all different colours.  When they disappeared then I met ducks too, not seen them before, well I don't remember them if I have.

Another one of Mum's culinary treats!  We didn't eat at our home much this week!  I mostly slept when we were at home because we walked and walked and walked out in the sunshine and the rain too all day every day!  It was a lovely holiday and I hope I get to go away again soon.

Think Mum might be back next week when she has finished putting all the stuff away that she has to get out when she goes to markets.

Love from

George xx

Lavenders Blue

Yesterday evening we went over to Hitchin Lavender for a tour around their lavender fields.  We, being the Crafty Night In crowd that meet up at my house once a month for a catch up and a bit of a craft.

We set off up the field, gathering stems from the different varieties as we went.

You can see the rows on the right of the photo have been harvested.  Sadly some of the crop has been lost this year to the drought and late frosts.

Nick, our guide showed us the different varieties of flower, insects and wildlife that thrive in the fields and the oils with their different fragrances that are produced from some of the varieties grown here.

When there is such a large amount of lavender all together the colours are amazing and so clearly different from variety to variety.  I particularly liked the colour of the Ice Blue (I think that was it's name) so fresh and cool along the edge of the paddock.

As the sun moved, mainly behind the very threatening big black cloud above, the colour of the lavender changed with each photograph.



We finished up our tour in the grand barn, filled with the heady scent of lavender with plenty of lavender products to choose from to take away just a little of the scent and colour we had just been walking through.

I don't know about the rest of the ladies, but I slept very well last night, all that lavender and fresh air!!

Take care all

Sarah x

Too-in and Fro-in

Going this way and

that way!

Been an odd time of late in my little world, lots going on in my head which has rather stunted all other activity!  Hence the lack of blogging recently.  Strangly though, I do still have plenty to catch you up on, nothing major but just stuff!

The birds have flown now.  The two surviving Blue Tits took off a couple of weeks ago on a delightfully sunny afternoon.  It was so wonderful to watch them fly off in to the big tree at the bottom of the garden where they busied themselves for a few hours getting used to the big new world!  It was the same tree which they were born in, well where the nest box was but I don't expect they knew that!

Haven't seen either one of them since that afternoon!  I do keep and ear out for the little blue tit call and maybe one day I'll get to see them out and about.  They will be easily recognisable as one of them only stood on its right leg, the other only stood on it's left one!!  They could still use the other legs but just didn't seem to want to!

Anyway, I better go and find food, nothing changes really!

Take care all

Sarah xx

All boxed up

Very exciting news today.  My treasure boxes have been selected to be in the We Make London Summer Boutique Pop Up Shop next month in Hampstead.

The shop is going to be held in Oak Studios which is a well established shop and gallery which regularly hosts workshops.

Throughout the week we are there, there will be more workshops available and late night shopping.  It is promising to be a great week for shopping in Hampstead!  And I am so thrilled that my humble treasure boxes will be there too.

This is a treasure box I was commissioned to make a few weeks ago.  It has the blue dotty fabric lid and has been whitewashed and varnished.

And then inside I have made a lift out tray to maximise the amount of 'stuff' that can be kept in there!

This was made specifically to be a sewing box to hold a lot of cotton reels

I am very very pleased with how it has turned out, quite proud of myself to be honest!  Nothing like singing your own praises is there!

Well I must go and make lots more boxes now and maybe try out a few new ideas I have.

Take care all, til tomorrow

Sarah x

That was the weekend

I had a good old busy weekend this week, just putting things back to where they should be, tidying up and getting ready for the next week now.

Last Friday I went over to an exhibition being held at St Neots Museum in Cambridgshire.  It is an exhibition of Textile and Mixed media Art by my friend Sharon.  More of her work can be seen on her website

Sharon's work is so full of colour and I am really pleased for her that the private viewing evening went so very well and wish her all the best for the rest of the month, the exhibition is on until Saturday 16th July.

Linda who I went along with arrived in style - she travelled by boat!  Ok so it was tipping it down and my little car nearly floated there instead of driving but she was on a proper boat.  How lovely to be able to moor up and be right in the town centre with the swans swimming right past your window, sorry porthole!

Also exhibiting was Elizabeth Bruning with her stained glass work.

Saturday morning dawned, not so nice and bright and I was off to Welwyn for the Craft and Farmers market.  Yes that big grey cloud above us did soak us too!

Here is Land Cuckoo all set up for the wet weather, ie, huddled in the middle/back of the gazebo with everything clamped down - just look at the table cloth blowing in the wind!  Welwyn is a windy market anyway but on days like this we all stand on the weights and hug the gazebo legs just to help keep them on the ground!

We still had a full compliment of stalls even with the inclement weather.  Karin from Kus Design was there with her pretty flower arrangements in antique china.  One of those printers trays has found it's way home with me, oops!!

And Roz and Rachel were there with their lovely furniture, this bench was so comfy - I had to use my chair to keep things off the ground after the rains so had no space for me to park myself, so I demonstrated the furniture for them!  This table and benches is from a range that they make themselves.

This picture is one I just took this morning on my way down to the workshop of one of the blue tit chicks basking in the sunshine in its aviary.  The two that have been outside for the weekend have been doing very very well and are eating enough mealworms for a small army!  Sadly Fidgit died yesterday, Hubby was there at the end and held him so he was not on his own.  Fidgit was such a pluckly little bird and I am actually very very sad even though we never expected him to pull through the first 24 hours but clearly there was too much wrong with him and he was not developing like the others.  I did what I could and he had the best little life that he could have had.

So now I have a bird free house as this morning I put the last little one out in the aviary.  Three surviving chicks from five is not at all bad and they all seem to be happy in their new home.  So once again I am off to chop up some worms although I don't think I'll be needing to do this for much longer either as they are all getting so good at fetching their own, but got to make sure they keep their strength up!!

I hope you all had lovely weekends

Take care, til tomorrow

Sarah xx

House move

We now have a little bird house

Inside a big bird house!

I converted the back of the hen enclosure so that it was safe for the blue tit chicks to go in.  It is kitted out with a little bird house (not that I think they'll use it but it may show them where they can nest when they're older!) a few branches and a couple of plants, seed and nut feeders and their bowls of worms and water.

One of the chicks found his way onto the pot plant

Shortly joined by it's mate. 

Sadly there are only two chicks that have gone into the aviary, Fidgit and one other are still indoors as they are not flying at present.  I don't know why, not sure if they have injured themselves or if it is more permanent, we'll have to see what happens over the next few days.

Hopefully the two that are in the aviary will take to it well and I'll take down the netting at the side so they can get out and about properly but I shall leave it so they can still get in!

Well I am off to market once again tomorrow, Welwyn Garden Craft market and I have a few orders just to package up ready for collection.  Then I might get onto making some new stock!  Never thought how much of my time these birds were going to take up!

Have a lovely weekend everyone

Sarah x

A hec of a weekend

The past few days have been rather testing.  Every time I have tried to do something, it has taken more than one attempt to get the job done, sometimes not achieving anything at all.  Swimming in treacle is how someone put it and they are quite right.

Sadly one of the Blue Tit chicks died at the weekend, no idea why or how but it was fine first thing in the morning when I went off to market, but by the time Hubby came to feed them next, it was already dead.  Not sure what happened on Saturday at all but the other 4 chicks managed to have a mad half hour the result of which is now that one has a poorly leg which means it has to modify the way it moves about and dear Fidgit has lost the ability to fly and is confined to the floor of the cage.

So all in all this weekend was pretty pants, market ok but yesterday's event was very cold and wet and not profitable although still enjoyable because of the lovely people there. 

Took these pictures at the end of last week when we had the first rain for months.  It greened everything up so quickly.  The cows are back in the cow field and this time they all have calves with them, so definately not venturing in there with the dog!

Well I am off to see if I can build this aviary for the remaining 3 flying chicks, Fidgit will have to stay in the kitchen until he has regained the use of his wings and can get out of the way of danger.

Take care all

Sarah x