Angus and pet beds, snow, ice and car damage, Inglish as she is spoke, new brochure discussion

This handsome fellow is Angus - he is one of our canine customers, but not content with his own pet bed, he has sneaked upstairs to his "Mum's" bedroom, and as she says, he has even closed his eyes because he knows he shouldn't be on their lovely wool underblanket; by pretending to be asleep he was hoping he wouldn't get spotted...

Freezing cold weather, what seems like perma-frost and such short days- thank goodness we only have 21 days to go before it is the shortest day of the year. Everything is so dark and cold, no wonder so many people get affected by SAD in the far northern hemisphere.

Our own cause for mild depression this morning was caused by a minor but inevitable slide, in the car, straight into the metal cattlegrid gatepost! It was all in the cause of trying to get our youngest son to school, and our middle son off to work, but it didn't go quite to plan. Although our drive looks innocuous for most of the year, it always catches folks out as it becomes a skating rink in ice and snow and has enough tricky bends/hills/corners to please Colin Macrae ... we are planning on leaving the bigger car at the end of the drive tonight and walking on foot between it and the house. Once again it looks like the ante-diluvian Landrover might come out of its annual mothballs and be put back into service.

Having mentioned our youngest son, he came home from school last week with a wonderful anecdote from his tutor, who had overheard this in a shop in Gloucester: (teenage girl speaking to dad) "it's not uuhh, it's wot" !! It has kept us smiling for days ...

Finally, off tomorrow on a trip north of Ludlow to have a rendezvous with Marisa from Tadpole PR - planning on meeting at the Food Centre, ostensibly to discuss our new brochure, but really to sneak in a nice coffee together and then go shopping in the very upmarket "Farm Shop". It is much grander than any other farm shops I know, but once in a while it makes for a very nice visit.

Next blog- a recipe for absolutely delicious Christmas mincemeat muffins ....

Another visit to the vets, pet bed for guinea pigs and Hus & Hem in Ledbury

Well, Monday morning got off to a bad start with an emergency dash to the vets with Bella who is rapidly gaining a bit of a local reputation for badger encounters! Bella is an extremely typical example of a Jack Russell who thinks she is a Great Dane. She is tiny but incredibly wilful and thoroughly disobedient. If she could go off hunting all day, she would and despite having to have her jaw wired up after a badger exploit a year ago, as of today she is now minus an eye tooth and looking a bit less beautiful. This is one of the consequences of having a pair of Jack Russells together- don't ever do it, would be my advice, if asked!

We can now add guinea pigs to our list of happy customers- I don't think we have ever sold anything to guinea pigs before, but a little red pet bed is on its way to a pair of them living up in Scotland and we are looking forward to some family photos ...

Sally and I packed up our wares and had a stall at a local charity event in Ledbury last Thursday. We had a spare half hour before it all started so we mooched around Ledbury and visited a gorgeous Scandanavian shop called Hus & Hem , full of lovely stylish things (Jill, I want that orange blanket, but I have been told by my co-director I can't have it!) and I bought a really endearing little sheep to grace our stall. We had at least two people asking if they could buy him at the Charity Event and I had say absolutely not, I have only just got him myself. Made in Germany, he has a cute quizzical expression and he has now found a special little spot in the office. Perhaps we should consider having some for sale ourselves ....

Pet Plan Magazine, Blanket Stitch machine and Period Living Competition Winner

We have been absolutely delighted with the response to a mention in the recent Pet Plan magazine offering subscribers 15% discount on our wool pet beds. Even better, some customers have come back and ordered more which all helps keep Sue in gainful employment and goes to show that the British really do love their cats and dogs.

Great excitement at the end of last week- after some considerable searching we have found ourselves a Blanket Stitch sewing machine. After looking near and far, by amazing good luck we found one just outside Ledbury and only 20 minutes away! (Always best to shop locally!) It was delivered on Friday afternoon and has now got a new home. It means we can now do special sizes in the Contemporary Classic blanket range, and also the striped Dream range. Even I, the worst needleworker in the world, am inclined to teach myself as it looks so much fun .. All we have to do now is track down the correct wool yarn to go with the existing natural stitch colour and we can do whatever might be required.

I tackled a Jamie Oliver recipe for Friday evening and came to the conclusion that it was a casualty of his early success and hadn't been "road tested"! it sounded really simple (leg of lamb slow cooked along with a mass of vegetables and a bottle of wine) but the only pan I could find that was big enough to do everything was my jam preserving pan, (but then I remembered it was too big to go in the oven!) It ended up sitting on top of the woodburner, covered with foil which seemed to work!) However, desperate measures were called for because it tasted insipid and bland; in went Puy lentils, a jar of Cranberry sauce, a jar of blackberry jam and things started to improve. Mind you it had already been quite an eventful culinary episode as Olly had to be wrestled and parted from the leg of lamb whilst it was initially defrosting! Never mind, great end result and it was really good to find that it was not in the slightest bit fatty or greasy and the meat was really tender. In essence:

Braise a leg of lamb in a large casserole. Lift it out, braise masses of cut up and cubed vegetables- swede, parsnips, carrots, onions (I also added some small potatoes).
Brown everything and then add the lamb back to the casserole. Pour over a bottle of white wine and throw in some herbs. Add a little water as time goes on, but cook for approximately 5 hours in a slow oven.

Finally, congratulations to Susan Herald who has won a King size Winter Wool Duvet after entering a competition through Period Living Magazine ....

Deco Affair Photos

Here is the link to the photos from the Deco Affair.

Hair of the Dog, Flapjacks, Period House magazine, and a happy customer in Oxford

A lovely new high class pet shop is opening soon at 4-8 Highgate High Street in London called "Hair of the Dog". Sophie, we wish you all the very best and thank you for keeping Sue in employment! All of our pet beds are made to order by Sue who remains remarkably tolerant of her house being filled with wool fluff and gingham off cuts ...

Last night I decided to make a tried and trusted Banana Cake for a meeting we held in the office today, but the moral of the story could be "don't let a 15 year old son loose on a recipe book". 2 teaspoons of baking soda mysteriously translated themselves into 2 tablespoons! I should have had my suspicions when it came to washing up the measuring jug and finding soda sediment at the bottom ... naturally it necessitated some urgent rethinking and I resorted to another favourite which always works perfectly:

Flapjack (otherwise called Whole Oat Crunchies by Delia Smith!)
Makes 12 (never enough, I always double the recipe)

4.5 oz porridge oats
3 oz demerara sugar (can use golden caster for less granular result)
4 oz butter (if doubling the recipe I only use 7 oz)

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5 or 190 degrees centigrade

Well grease a large shallow baking tin

Weigh out oats and sugar, place in a mixing bowl and mix together evenly. Gently melt the butter in a saucepan, only just melt it and do not allow to go brown.
Pour the butter into the oats mixture and mix together to blend well.
Fill the baking tin and use a knife to flatten evenly.
Bake on centre shelf of hot oven for 12-15 minutes until a pale gold colour.
Remove the tin from the oven and cut into slices while still warm. Allow to cool in the tin until cold and crisp.

Period House magazine is currently running a competition to win a King Size winter weight White Cloud duvet- part of Kat and Marisa's task in life is to help us find magazines where we fit in well. We trust their judgement 100% and it is really pleasing to find that all their hard work is now beginning to pay off. At the Cheltenham Gift Fair last weekend a number of customers came up to our stand to say they had heard of us, what a lovely name, what a great story behind the business and that they knew about wool staying warm in winter and cool in summer. Hurray, job done girls, you work really hard on our behalf and we really are indebted to you.

This leads me on nicely to a really heartfelt email we received from a special Italian customer in Oxford, for whom we have just made a huge special order pet bed, made specifically to sit along the length of her sofa. It was sent yesterday and it looked wonderful, here is part of the email she wrote at the end of last week:

"I'll tell you something, in praise of your website and company. Just before contacting you about the duvet and ordering from White Cloud, I found exactly the same was being sold for £151 from a big on-line retailer. But it has been like going to a nice shop run by a family to touch and look at the material and ask some kind assistants all the information about the product and then go off to another shop to buy it for less. It didn't seem right".