Time 'Flu!

My world of late has mainly consisted of work: sewing, cutting out, packaging of orders, website maintenance.... I am not writing this to impress merely to make myself understand why I am so very tired. Oh, and I forgot to mention three weeks of 'flu and I mean real 'flu which renders you weepy & pathetic. Well, it did me anyway. Yep,I have been a delight to behold with eyes sunken in deep pits of grey, a particular shade matching my general pallor BUT I am finally over it! Hurrah! Now I can catch up on the world and work with a zest missing for a long while.

Though the weather in 'sunny' Cornwall has mostly been gloomy there have been some beautiful sunrises which Isabella and I watch from the front door step before the mad morning mania is truly underway. The criss-cross of lines quite please me here for some reason.

Yesterday I collected the ornamental (pah!) crab apples in from the garden to dry out for decorations in the weeks to come. Did you know Christmas is almost here? Oh yes, even ill I am ahead of the game and at the forefront of news. I only wish I were also at the forefront of tidying the garden and clearing the leaf litter!

I have left plenty of these little golden apples scattered around as I am sure there must be some creatures who make use of them. Our garden is full of wildlife from toads and frogs, newts and shrews to slow worms and many varieties of birds. My love of all this is shared by little Isabella who often tells me she 'loves the nature Mum'.

But for now I must end this short post and attend to business which is wonderfully, fantastically busy, a fact I am so grateful for and humbled by. The idea that in these very straitened times people choose to part with their precious funds on something I have designed and created makes me feel very proud.

And I know Babbit agrees.

Have a lovely day x

The Handmade Tale.

It has been rather a long time since I visited my poor blog, but the Notonthehighstreet Christmas catalogue 2011 is out

and look what is tucked away within the glossy pages: my Personalised Garden Journal! As ever once half-term has been and gone the orders start flooding in as we all turn our thoughts toward the festive season; the arrival of the Noths catalogue just gives the whole process an enormous push and I find myself inundated which I love.

Piles of cut out journal covers and Christmas hearts, stockings and thickly padded tea cosies lie neatly (!!!) stacked all over the sewing room and house in readiness for a session of embroidering to be fitted in whenever the chance arises.

Such good timing then that I have some hideous lurgy which means I bark fit to rival the most aggressive seal, my poor chest - not generally a topic for blog discussion but indulge me - now so sore that I quake at the thought of another coughing fit and actually suck on lozenges where I am usually unable to stop myself chomping like a horse on Polos. Such is my suffering. Feeling a tad sorry for myself? Me? well, yes now you come to mention it.







Still, the good thing is that a day in bed on Sunday meant I worked steadily through the aforementioned cut out pile and actually achieved much in my poorliness. Today has been mostly spent hacking away yet again but still I work on and award myself martyr status in the doing. I think I shall write a sermon on the benefits to one's self-esteem on being under the weather. Or maybe I'll just keep taking the meds.

So, now we've done with Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes...

We turn to this

once more. Manic times are here again...hurrah!

Bye for now x

Such Fun!

Look what arrived in the post.

Lucky me was the winner of the lovely Pomona of Little Cottage Comforts fame's giveaway and, in typical Pip fashion, have finally got around to putting up a post about it. Such a gorgeous gift and so sadly remiss of me to take so long - my apologies Pomona.

This lovely book is so perfect for someone like me (or indeed, Mr Davey) and is full of the kind of projects we really enjoy undertaking. The difficulty is deciding which one to start with... scrumptious yoghurts could be first maybe

Or perhaps we'll try some of the cured meats. Dave makes pancetta for Christmas every year so he can now extend his repertoire. Ah the thought of these delicious cuts served with homemade pickles, chutneys and breads.

Talking of which...how I wish we had a walk in larder like the one we had when I was little (the very same one I got shut in when sneaking in to scoff some of my Mum's lovely cooking only to let the darned door close behind me. I then faced the utter mortification of having to shout to be let out and endure the right royal telling off that ensued!).

Thank you so much lovely Pomona x

Other good things this weekend have included a little garden clearance with my trusty pal Isabella to hand. Nothing quite beats a roaring bonfire with ducks quacking and hens panicking - er, I mean clucking - in the background.

Well, not to my pyromaniac soul anyhow.

Bliss.

I even drew up a load of new ideas for designs which seemed to just fill my head this morning as I drank my first coffee of the day. I love it when that happens. This meant I needed to do a little fabric shopping. Poor me!

You can never have too many gratuitous shots of fabric I feel.

Such fun! x

Drifting & Calm.

Hello there. It's been a while, but in all honesty I just couldn't seem to follow the last post with anything remotely interesting. How do you follow up seals and dolphins and as for baby seals... ah well, normal service resumed I guess. So today I thought I would share the diverse colours appearing in the garden, from the soft pink of the last rose

now sitting prettily in a flowery teacup in the sitting room,

to the fast-turning fiery tones of the acers.

I so love the acer family with their delicate lacy leaves and feathery fronds which shimmer gently in the breeze.

We are lucky enough to have three different varieties of this beautiful family, each breathtakingly beautiful in its way. each adding a little something to its neighbours whether as a delicate backdrop to the wildlife pond or as a foil for the blue pot on the courtyard. And talking of shimmering...

Despite my loathing of the heavy-booted blighters racing across the carpet on an almost nightly basis, I do love the beauty of these webs. How strong they must be to withstand the Cornish mizzle weighing them down with its equally fine drops. The garden has taken on a feeling of calm with its soft colours and burnished seed-heads as it settles towards winter.

Spider-like seeds spin lazily on the breeze landing who-knows-where to lie waiting for the cycle to begin again.

There is colour but it is gentler, more muted in its tones; well, it is in our garden anyway.

Apologies for the poor photography on those last images; I blame the poor photographer (and the dire light I suppose)!

Bye for now x

Of Dolphins and Seals!

What a weekend - the sun blazed down and we headed off in Mermaid. We encountered the most amazing things and so for once I will keep my words short and beg forgiveness instead for this picture heavy post. St Anthony Lighthouse looking over glistening blue seas.

Tucked away coves reachable mainly by boat and therefore very quiet.

And then suddenly we were surrounded by three leaping dolphins! The squealing from people around us as they leapt and dived was just incredible. I tried to photograph them but they were everywhere. So beautiful as they played and arced through the air. I have never seen them like this before and almost fell out of the boat as I twisted around to spot them.

Such appalling photos but it was all I could get and I didn't want to miss seeing them. We were there for ages, sailing boats and yachts and our local water ferries; people all smiling at the sea and the dolphins and each other. Beautiful moments which will stay with Mr Davey, the children and me for always.

We eventually left them to play and carried on our way, the waters so blue and our hearts just full of how very lucky we are to have seen such wonderful creatures that close - so close that at one point I could have almost touched one of them as it surfaced right by our boat. Little did we know what was to come.

We wound our way along the shore deciding to opt for a completely secluded cove away from any other people. This meant going much further along the shore than we have before, passing tiny beaches tucked under tall cliffs of trees and bushes typical of our coastline.

Finally we found the perfect cove with rocks either side to hide it from passing boats and seas of jade and green to lure us in. Surrounded at the back by high cliffs, this little spot gleamed in the sun and looked so peaceful.

Pretty seaweeds of all types were collected by the girls to make a mermaid picture on the pebbly sand.

And then it happened, we realised that over the other side of the cove was this: not a rock as we had thought but a seal...

With this!

Bobbing out in the water next to our boat was Daddy seal and the three of them just ignored us as they played in the water with baby flapping along the shore.

Mum and Dad spent the bulk of the time in the sea with the mother coming in to feed baby every so often.

We felt so priviliged to witness this and watched as the baby worked its way from one teat to another as the mother stroked it - yes, I kid you not, she stroked her baby with her flipper.

In between feeds the baby played in the shallow waters as the other two lazed on their backs close by, diving every now and then and lumbering ashore for another quick feed.

So very, very beautiful.

We kept very quiet and stayed on our side. The seals didn't seem remotely bothered, but even so we shall not be returning to this particular cove until they will have left it,; after all we have plenty to choose from and their safety is paramount.

I don;t think any of us could quite believe what we had seen that day.

Isabella took it all in her stride once the initial shock of flying dolphins and baby seals was over with!

We quietly loaded Mermaid once more and set off for home, but no sign of our playmates on the way back.

Just jade and azure water

and pretty boats also sailing home in the late afternoon haze.

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What a day! How was yours? x