Cold and Comfort

It is wet this morning...again. The endless rain has reduced to soft drizzle blending with the mist which blankets the garden and softens the view from my window. Lamps are lit and the heating is on as comfort is the order of the day. A mug of hot chocolate in a Christmas-pressie mug helps to cheer a little before I start filling orders, but I am beginning to long for those crisp January days we usually have here in Cornwall - you know the ones: crystal light, bright blue sky and zinging yellow gorse in the hedgerows, the sea sparkling, the river reflecting the blue above ... sighs deeply.



Instead we are kept indoors by the cold, wet weather. Dave and I have resumed our ongoing chess tournament, though we haven't played too many games as yet. I love this part of the day when time allows for it to happen: children quietly - hah! - playing, Dave just home from work, a glass of something lovely in both our hands and a match underway. Such a nice end to the work day and a calming beginning to the evening (right up until the Isabella bedtime furore that is).



Slowly, slowly the snowdrops are growing taller, the buds fattening and revealing that pure white I so love when set against the sap green of the markings withing each flower. Such a shame the dark light makes for poor photos isn't it?



A stolen moment which proves it isn't only the younger children who love their cuddles!



What do you do to chase the cold away? x

What I want.

Well, as you can see I am hard at work; orders are being packaged, bookwork is being sorted and designs for the spring range are underway. Hmm, I expect you can tell that is all one big fib. Quite honestly the dire weather is sapping any inspiration and though I actually feel quite excited about all things work (yes, even the inevitable sorting through the paper mountain), I seem to be working on slow-time just now.

What I want is to soak up the bright glow of these tete-a-tete narcissi, the light through the pale lemon petals seeming to deny the fact that there is a veritable downpour outside the window.



I want to snuggle up in the soft folds of my quilt wrapping it around me as I dip into some of my favourite books. I actually read The Long Winter while the snow fell outside and I was curled up warm in my bed. So perfect to read a book that matches the weather. I am now once again reading To Kill a Mocking Bird and remembering just why it is one of my most favourite reads ever.



I want to bury my face in this huge bunch of viburnum and let the strange-yet-pleasant scent tickle my nose and remind me there is life out there even in this wet, wet winter.



I really want to play with these gorgeous fabrics and create... anything! I do so much sewing and yet little of it these days is for us.



I look around and see the need for new cushion covers (ours are shameful in their decrepitude); we desperately need a draught excluder and I so want to recreate one like I made for our daughter Lauren with its little house and embroidered flowers scattered along the length; I really want to begin making a quilt for our bed. And then there is dressmaking. The possibilities are endless.



I have said before that I am a cat-like creature in my love of warmth and comfort. I am drawn always to fire whether of the bonfire variety - all smoke-filled breeze crackling with myriad sparks and that delicious smell of autumn - or this wonderful cosy kind which makes me want the evening to hurry up so I can sit by it once more.



I love the way it draws you closer



and closer, the scorching heat bathing me in a soporific glow, the hypnotic flames climbing up the chimney a drowse and dream the evening away.



As it is, I must get back to work however slowly, but these wants will stay in my mind and cheer the dark day a little.

What is it you want today? x

A Breath of Fresh Air.

The weekend is over and with it the fine weather of yesterday, a day where the sun shone with warmth and the sky sang with a glorious blue. We grabbed the moment and sped off to the beach. The breeze was indeed chilly, but oh that sun with its restorative rays. I could bask in them forever.



Isabella as ever filled her wellies with icy water as she waded through rockpools far too deep for her little legs.



The recent stormy weather has taken the sand from over the rocks and thrown it higher up the beach. It seems to have taken the wildlife with it as the pools seemed stangely barren where they normally teem with little creatures of all kinds.



I love this about the beach, the way one day of high winds can transform it into an almost desolate landscape of unforgiving rock only to have it restored to a sandy shoreline more typical of this south coast the next.



One our return Dave discovered this little pot of snowdrops which we bought from a stall on one of our rambles through Coombe last year. A hopeful sign of things to come.



How was your weekend? x

Another Year and Another Year Older!

Ahem, I have sorted my problem with Bloggger thanks to Sue. Ah the panic when it seems you have been cut adrift from the land of Blog. And so, once more I bid you a Happy New Year.



Like so many of you I love the beginning of a fresh shiny New Year. I love the chance to reflect on what has gone before, what went well and what not so, a chance to think about those New Year's Revolutions - a deliberate misspelling to bring my daughter Lauren to mind when some years ago in all her childishness the word 'resolution' really meant nothing to her, hence the inability to say it correctly. The word has stuck!



As I leave behind the remnants of the Christmas feast, the richness of the food making my mouth water even as I crave zingy flavours and chillies and fresh vegetables as a counterpoint to it, thoughts of the year ahead definitely seem to be coming to mind.



I have kept one of my little notebooks for myself to jot such notions into, a place to ponder and reflect and plot and plan my way forward. No doubt it will soon be full of lists of all kinds, but I love this and never feel bad anymore if these lists are not completed; why worry? If even some of the things are achieved then surely that is progress and should be cause for celebration?



The masks, by the way, are ones we all decorated for our little New Year's party where the glitter positively flowed - almost as much as the Pink Pussycat cocktails in fact!



Elias and Lucy in all their finery, and in case anyone is worried I will just point out that Elias acts as our cocktail waiter at any parties we may have - he is NOT drinking the stuff, but mixes it beautifully with a little help from Isabella.



One of the Revolutions I have written is to grow some mistletoe. I have planned to do this for years, but have never even attempted what I know is a very difficult thing to germinate. This year I will at least try and have the perfect place: a withered, gnarled old pear tree which grows in the hen pen, rarely fruiting much anymore and in desperate need for some attention. Maybe that will happen this year too.



This chilly month is also my birthday month. How typical of me to be born in the cold when I am by nature a cat, drawn to roaring fires, loving to be stroked (!) and always wanting to curl up in the sunny spot on the bed to sleep the days away... if only. Nonetheless, my birthday it is and High Tea at Charlotte's Tea Rooms in Truro was the destination.



The two littlest ones could barely contain their excitement at the silver stands festooned with pretty little sandwiches and cakes galore. And the eldest one (me of course) wasn't much better.



So here I am at the beginning of the year, my 47th year to be precise ...groan... and how am I feeling? Actually, I am excited. I had the busiest Christmas period for my business so far, almost so busy that I couldn't cope which is pretty amazing to me as I only started it just before Christmas four year's ago with tiny, demanding baby and post natal blues in tow.



To be honest, I was so tired I am not sure I really knew what I was starting, but I am so very, very glad I did it now. This year will see me moving it all forward, continuing to hopefully grow my customer base and expanding my range, being in the NOTHS spring catalogue and generally working as hard as I can to make it a continuing success.



New designs need to come to fruition, but I also am determined to keep doing the things that lie at the very heart of Pipany, the things we do here that have always been as necessary to me as breathing: tending my garden, creating whether with knitting or embroidery or machine, making wines and foraging the hedgerows, cooking with our children and building a home for them, a place where they can be safe and cosy and share special times together all gathered round our table in our far too tiny kitchen.



I know it all sounds a little twee, a little smug, but it is what we do and is how we have always lived, so perhaps my biggest New Year's Revolution is to do what we have always done - work hard and enjoy life - only more so!

What's yours? x

Help needed please!

Well, here I am late as ever to wish you all a Happy New Year and also to say HELP!! Blogger is telling me I have nomore space to upload images ... any ideas anyone??? xx

Merry Christmas x

Late as ever, but I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas full of peace and love and fun. Thank you to all the wonderful people who have made 2010 such a fantastic year for Pipany the business, and also for Pipany the person!



So many plans for next year which I can't wait to work on, but for now love and best wishes to you all,
Pipany xxx

Noticings.

Things I am noticing:

1. It is cold. This is for the terminally unobservant who may not have noticed. I felt it needed saying as I am perishing cold and trying to sew with mitts on ... and this is Cornwall!!! Obviously I am a wuss as most of you are enduring far worse than me, but there we are. Playing Christmas songs takes my mind off it for a while (and copious amounts of mulled wine helps - no, not now! I am a responsible parent!!!)



2. There was a chilli trying to ripen in our courtyard, bless it.



I rescued it and turned it into a delicious Thai dish (hmm, not sure that actually constitutes 'rescuing' does it?) with much ginger, coriander and a bunch of spring onions. I would like to say I am telling you this in a manner reminiscent of the wonderfully buxom Nigella, but frankly I am sadly lacking in this department and my shoulder blades would make a better show of it.



3. The ducks are eating as though it were their last meal. The pond has frozen solid and has to be smashed each day to allow them to swim. Why on earth one would wish to dip one's feet not to mention one's nether regions into a punishingly cold pond of mucky water is quite beyond my understanding, but then I am not a duck (though have frequently been called quackers). Groan.



4. There are still plenty of berries left in the garden for the birds and other wildlife.



From where I sew I watch the myriad antics of mice, a sweet shrew and an endlessly changing parade of birdlife including a pied wagtail who hovered outside the window for ages chirruping away that he was starving and would appreciate it if I would supplement the berries with some other stuff. I may not be a duck, but I have a Do-Little-ish understanding of other birdlife and their twitterings y'know.



5. The camera does lie. This fact was brought home to me by two pictures I took of this morning's sunrise which was in fact pink of hue. The camera took my sunrise and changed it to the golden-bathed images you see here



very lovely in a sort of early eighties Tampax commercial kind of way, but not what I was looking at which was more like this:



So, there we are. Enough of my noticings and back to cold and chilly sewing. Normal tone will be resumed next week when I may have thawed a little!

What are you noticing today? x