Three and half days of intensive product photography has just come to an end, and I think we are all breathing a sigh of relief ... "never work with children or animals" is the old adage, but in our case we couldn't have asked for a more perfect performance from "Sponge Bob" who took to sleeping on her Magniwool cushion with great aplomb and never even stirred!
Deciding on a "look" is always hard for a business, but these things evolve over time and we felt it was time for a complete refresh- the photos that have recently been taken will shortly appear on our website and will also form the basis of our new look brochure. We are fortunate to live in a rural and unspoilt corner of Gloucestershire and it provided the perfect backdrop- the weather could not have been better.

Our last blog mentioned a Fund Raising Curry Lunch for the Army Benevolent Fund and this is an utterly delicious recipe for Lime Mousse - just the thing with Spring in the air! It is a strange method, but stick with it, as it does work and hopefully, as in our family, it will become a firm favourite ...

Put 1/2 cup cold water in a small saucepan and sprinkle over 4 tsp gelatine
Leave for a few minutes to swell. Heat gelatine and water, stirring until dissolved.
Add 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, 1/4 cup white rum (we use Malibu), and 1 cup plain yoghurt.
Using a clean beater, whip 3 egg whites with 1/2 cup sugar until it forms a thick meringue.
Whip 1 cup of cream until soft peaks form.
Fold the cool gelatine mix through the cream, then fold in egg white mixture.
Pour into a large serving dish and garnish with lime zest.
Serves 6-8

Easter Holidays!

The White Cloud blog has fallen even further behind, but I'm going to put it down to the gorgeous Spring weather... it seems to have come to an end now, but for the past week or so we have had toads and frogs all over our drive as they emerge for the breeding season. We have had to resort to walking ahead of cars at night with a torch to avoid driving over them all - one evening there were at least 60 making their way towards the pond ...
The Easter weekend was an excuse to take the family on Eurostar to Ghent for three nights- a great success for everyone, even if it did mean taking three endlessly hungry teenage boys to MacDonalds at regular intervals. Interspersed with delicious Belgian chocolate Easter eggs, it was teenage heaven. We all really loved cycling everywhere; how or why we have let cars dominate our towns and cities in the UK is difficult to understand ....

Back to work with renewed vigour; almost our first enquiry on our return was from a customer whose friend had purchased a wool duvet elsewhere and found it contained twigs and all sorts of other impurities. Sadly there are lots of cheap products on the market that just don't bear closer inspection and do nothing whatsoever to advance the wool industry. While I'm on the subject, shall we even mention a well known Australian brand that now sells duvets with a synthetic lining because the cheaper/coarse wool finds it way out of the covering fabric??

This week is finishing off with a fundraising Curry Lunch for the Army Benevolent Fund- a charity close to our hearts and the second time we have tackled something like this. The only proviso is that it has to have a curry theme and it has to be held in April. There's nothing like school holidays to rope in teenage boys to help make Fish Curry and Lime Mousse! Cookery lessons and fund raising all in one- "Job Done" as they might say!