A Lesson in Twitter, Lizzie's Shepherd's Hut and Siamese Cats, The Big Curry

Today's blog is all about the importance of supporting local business ...  By the greatest stroke of good fortune we have finally found what we have spent 7 years searching for and only 30 minutes away!   From now on Ian and Will at ClearWeb will be helping us with all of our website requirements.  Not only are they friendly, helpful and immensely capable, but they are pretty much on our doorstep.   Yesterday morning I had a crash-course with Will in the art of Twitter;  once we have our Twitter account up and running, tweeting will be the order of the day, although I have been warned it can be addictive.   If it's good enough for Clarence House to use to announce the engagement of William and Kate, it's good enough for me!

Discussions are continuing about The Spirit of Summer Show in Olympia in May - Lizzie's Shepherd's Hut in Sussex is a really exciting project that, we hope, is going to provide a central theme and the more we all talk about it, the better it gets.  Lizzie and I have a shared affection for Siamese cats which is perfect really as yesterday I agreed with Will that my first "tweet" would be about pets....

Tomorrow night is our Fundraising Big Curry for the Army Benevolent Fund - slightly nerve wracking as there are now 60 people booked!   The ABF do a simply amazing job of providing literature, balloons, placemats and all sorts to support The Big Curry.  With a national target of £450,000 to raise this year, we will do what we can in Cliffords Mesne tomorrow night.  Without the help of friends donating puddings, seedlings from their gardens and gifts of raffle prizes it would have been much harder work.  Sebastian and Jack:  I am really impressed with the fiendish Quiz you have devised!  Here's hoping we can reach our target of £1000 and for anyone who would like to make a donation, here is a link to the main site:   http://www.soldierscharity.org/

Beestations for the Garden, Janey Lee Grace and a very rewarding Mother's Day

The last episode of the most recent "Human Planet" series on BBC was just remarkable, it made me realise just how essential the preservation of bees are to our continued existence.  The aerial views of New York with literally hundreds of bee hives on roof terraces was just wonderful.  The whole movement to keep bees was attributable to just one amazing man and it has made me want to keep bees myself.  In yesterday's Observer newspaper was an article about Jamie Hutchinson who has produced a little Bee Station which can sit in flower beds and provide "a bee re-fuelling and nest site", so here is his website:
http://www.beestation.com/buy.html

Magniwool has been given its own website and brochure now; this unique underblanket incorporating magnetic technology is gaining quite a following and it has just had a little boost after an endorsement by Janey Lee Grace.  Again, a link to her website follows and it has details of an offer relating to Magniwool...
http://www.imperfectlynatural.com/Janey_Loves/bio_protection.htm

This year Mothering Sunday was really rewarding- although it entailed driving all the way to Kent and back, to see my mother have so much enjoyment seeing her eldest grandson was an absolute pleasure.  Now that he is away at university these occasions are few and far between but we all helped her apply for some tickets for next year's Olympics.  Quite how the older generation can be expected to wade their way through these websites remains one of my bugbears.  Never mind, with lots of youngsters to hand, we all egged each other on and got very excited planning tickets for Diving, Athletics, Mountain Biking and Dressage.... 

April "in like a lion, out like a lamb", Cologne and Cotton and another container delivery

"In like a lion, out like a lamb" is the traditional saying for April, I rather like the wool connection, so thought it could be the opener for today's blog. 

We have all been beavering to get a large order of the new Junior Range prepared for Cologne and Cotton, I was hoping to get all of it sent out by the end of this week but, as is the way with these things, discovered yesterday that the print colour on the new boxes is not quite right.  Back to the drawing board and a week's delay....

Yesterday we had our latest container- this time we shared with some local friends who ship vintage/classic cars from New Zealand back to the UK.  It was a first for both of us and quite amazing to see the container opened up and 3 cars suspended from the ceiling!  A very good example of Kiwi ingenuity at its best.  No doubt it would be banned leaving from the UK like that, but it seems to work perfectly.  Even better all the pillows were put inside the cars which helped protect the leather upholstery!  A strange combination, but it all worked. 

To end on a circular note; in yesterday's container was a wonderful load of lovely lambskins, which always prove popular and however many we order, we always seem to run out.  The lovely thing about them is that everyone looks and feels different, which makes them really special gifts.  Speaking of gifts, I wonder if any of my boys will think about "Mother's Day" on Sunday.....

Farewell Traditional Shop Displays, Opposition to Local Supermarket, Sheep Shearing Competitions in Ireland and A Shepherd's Hut in Sussex

It was something of a surprise to find our local butcher's shop window was suddenly full of pre-packed meat in plastic cartons.  No longer was there a traditional mouth-watering display.  Depressingly, he said he felt he had to go down that route in order to compete with supermarkets and that youngsters no longer know how to buy meat, or even what to do with it.   Do we really want our wonderful independent shops to start becoming clones of supermarkets?  Surely supermarkets should be taking their lead from shops like Andy's? I am sure I am not alone in deliberately avoiding buying meat in supermarkets, but to find a top class butcher is now the purveyor of plastic is insanity.  The relentless march of the supermarket is something of an issue round here at the moment with an obscure planning application for a "food store" on the edge of town.  Inevitably precise details are somewhat hard to come by, how strange...

We are on the verge of having our new Pillow boxes; these bespoke boxes are being designed to complement the new duvet boxes.  Originally designed for the Junior Range, they will have a multitude of uses and we feel confident they will look really striking on shop shelves.  Quite where we are going to house 500 boxes is another matter entirely!

We have been asked whether we would like to be at the Irish Wool/Shearing Show at Kilkenny in June- sadly I think it is unlikely, but here is a link for further information, or for those planning on visiting the Emerald Isle....
http://www.sheepshearing2011.ie/welcome.html

For The Spirit of Summer show at Olympia in May, Lizzie and I have had a truly inspirational idea regarding her Shepherd's Hut in Sussex ... the link up with The Campaign for Wool + Shepherds + White Cloud is too good to resist,  more details to be revealed nearer the time!

Spirit of Summer Fair, Olympia, Junior Range featured in Saturday Telegraph and a Little Bit of Local Good News!

With all the effort of printing and sending out our new brochures for both White Cloud and Magniwool now behind us, we are putting together our plans for the year. We will be taking part at The Spirit of Summer Fair in Olympia on 11th May - a link is attached. This is a high-class act and we are pleased to have survived the vetting proceedure and been given some space. I'm planning on taking lots of lambskins, we have more arriving from New Zealand this week and they always prove popular. We are also about to take on some little lamb soaps, mostly with Easter in mind as gifts for customers, but to have along with the lambskins is even better .... http://www.spiritofsummerfair.co.uk/ It was really good to have a mention of our new Junior Range in Saturday's Telegraph. Daisy Bridgewater always writes a really good column with children in mind and this week's article had good sleep as its theme. It was fortunate timing- more Junior Duvets have just arrived and the Junior Underblankets are in a container that gets delivered on Thursday, so a big sigh of relief all round! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/8406632/Getting-children-off-to-sleep.html Last but not least, when we lost one of our Jack Russells we joined DogLost which is a wonderful website that not only posts up details of missing dogs, but also those that get reunited with owners. We were lucky and Bertie was found safe and well, but last night my cousin's Patterdale Terrier got stolen from the Birds of Prey Centre outside Newent. He was last seen in the carpark late in the afternoon .... anyway, frantic phone calls and frantic activity on local blogs etc had the desired result; he was handed in to the Dog Pound Cardiff at 2.30 this morning by a family claiming not to have realised he was in their car (!). We all suspect he just became too hot to handle and it was easier to hand him in... hurray, we all like some good news.

Wool in Compost, Shady Poor Soil = Wonderful Hellebores in the Garden

"Sustainable wool compost is a great alternative to peat" - this comment was made in an article in Gardening World and it goes on to say:
"The moisture retaining qualities of wool make this compost ideal for those spots where water retention is important. It is also kinder to the environment than peat as it is made using sustainable resources".

Which leads me on to a blog with a bit of a gardening theme now that the weather is so glorious and the days are so much longer. Like every gardener, we have one flower bed which is a bit uninspiring, slightly shady, poor soil and full of stones and it is always the last bed that I feel I want to weed. However, the hellebores seem to thrive, so at this particular moment in time it is looking gorgeous. I spotted in a local plant nursery last weekend a really divine speckled yellow hellebore, but I dithered too long and didn't buy it. Serves me right, because I came home and there in the Saturday Telegraph was an article specifically about Hugh Nunn and his hellebores, featuring, guess what? a speckled yellow- the very same one and of course when I went back, it had been sold. The moral of the story is, of course, that we hardly ever regret what we do buy, it's what we don't buy that niggles away at us...

Going back to the compost theme, it is always something of a miracle that household scraps, chicken pooh, old newspaper, loo rolls and even scraps of wool can go in the top of a compost bin and, about a year later, out of the bottom comes all this lovely rich dark crumbly compost. The most perfect form of recycling. It's not only me that enjoys a trip to the compost bins, the dogs are just as keen, but their motivation is a mouse that has taken up residence and tantalises them, probably knowing full well it is next to impossible for them to catch it!

Little Black Sheep, The Saturday Telegraph and a definite "NO" to local Supermarket development

We love the sheep soaps so much that we have decided to add to the collection- some gorgeous little black sheep soaps are now available. They are so appealing that we have put together a little pack of 2 white and 1 black sheep, all for the same price as normal (£12) and added them to the White Cloud range. I have my eye on some little lamb soaps next, just in time for Easter....

It has been pleasing to find that our forthcoming Junior Range for younger customers is attracting interest in the press and next weekend (26th March) we hope to have some or all of it mentioned on Daisy Bridgewater's page in the Saturday Telegraph. We have been working on this Junior Range for quite some time as we have found that parents are increasingly aware themselves of the benefits of wool and want the same for their children. We have included details in our new Price List and will be publishing a special introductory price within the next few days.

It's not often that smaller companies can say "thanks" to bigger companies, but Boots and other high street stockists have decided, for some bizarre reason, to no longer stock lanolin based creams. Hurray we say, because we have noticed sales of our wonderful Lanolin Intensive Cream rise dramatically!

Mind you, one always has to keep a wary eye open; in our local town of Newent last week there was the start of a petition against the development of a supermarket on the outskirts of town. Up until now we have been fortunate to escape the relentless march of the supermarket, but as we all know, they never ever give up. Newent still has a remarkably intact town centre with lots of independent shops, and long may it continue to flourish; we have 2 butchers, a baker, an ironmongers, a greengrocers, a pet shop, a wonderful 2nd hand exchange clothes shop, a sports shop, a quilting shop, a couple of cafes, 2 banks, a chemist, an antique clock shop, 2 florists, a health food shop, a sweet shop and more hairdressers per capita than anywhere else I know! Combined with a Library, a Post Office, a Doctors Surgery and easy parking we are incredibly fortunate. Some might suggest we live in a time warp, but I for one really love it and the most important thing of all is feeling that we, as individuals, really do matter to these businesses. Oh, I nearly forgot the fish and chip shop and the best Indian takeaway in Gloucestershire ....

Rise in birch pollen anticipated in April and a natural solution for children suffering from allergies

Demand for allergy bedding could rise earlier than normal this year, and hayfever predicted to be particularly bad from mid-April.
Jean Emberlin, Professor at the National Pollen & Aerobiology Research Unit at Worcester University was interviewed by the Daily Express earlier this year and said "we are expecting a high production of birch pollen this year due to natural biological rhythms. Birch pollen levels are not always high, so many people may not realise they are suffering from hayfever, and think they have a cold".
Recent research by Mintel has shown that one in 20 people in the UK use special allergy bedding, with an astonishing 44% suffering from one or more allergy.

Here at White Cloud we have been busy working on and developing a Junior range because not only have we found that parents want to buy quality bedding for their youngsters, but also because there is a discernible rise in incidences of children with allergies. Many allergies are attributable to the presence of the Dust Mite, more specifically the presence of its excretions.
Wool does not provide the damp humid conditions that allow the Dust Mite to flourish, which means that sleeping with wool filled bedding provides not only a natural solution, but an eco-friendly solution.

A Spring Green Blog - Magniwool brochure, soft warm Green Wool Blankets and an irresistible Lime Mousse recipe

Work is continuing apace with a new mini brochure for Magniwool- this unique underblanket is going to have a lot more focus this year, starting with some adverts in magazines such as Saga. It seems a good idea to separate Magniwool from the rest of the White Cloud products, because it needs a little more explanation and it is a brand name of its own. Thank goodness for email- there has been much sent backwards and forwards between us and the designer and to be able to adjust details on screen is even better. We are hoping to have the finished brochure towards the end of this week and then there will be an almighty effort to send both new brochures out to our existing customers.

Today's blog has something of a colour green theme, not only does Magniwool have a particular Pantone Green, but we have decided to focus on a small number of lovely Spring Green blankets as the current Special Offer for Spring. Sadly these are now no longer being made so will not be available in the future. Soft, warm, lovely and colourful these are available in Throw size and Single - gorgeous for sofas and bedrooms, all at a huge 30% discount.

Finally, I am including an irresistible recipe which always works and tastes completely delicious:
Lime Mousse

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

The method needs reading through to understand it, it is a bit peculiar, but it really does work and is one of our family's firm favourites.

The Big Curry/Army Benevolent Fund Not on The High Street and Spring Sales of Lambskins

Every year the Army Benevolent Fund runs a national fund raising campaign called "The Big Curry" - you can host whatever event you like, but it must be held in April and it must have a curry theme. When all the fund raising literature arrived on the doorstep last week, I instantly forgot all the downsides of trying to extract money from kind friends and started to think much bigger and much bolder. Spurred on by a friend, we have decided we will hire our local village hall and host a Curry Supper on 8th April. Last year we had a "Chilli Challenge" - and this year we are going to include a Quiz as well. If you fancy hosting something yourself: http://www.soldierscharity.org/events-and-campaigns/events/lord-mayors-big-curry-2011

gives an idea of what the event is all about. Our own modest efforts can't really be compared with the Lord Mayor's, but a little corner of West Gloucestershire is aiming high and we are hoping to raise over £1000.

This week we were delighted to have our very first order via Not on the High Street: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/
This is a really good online store with a huge variety of retailers and products, all of which have passed a careful selection process. Beautifully presented, this is a site we are really pleased to be involved with. They are currently inviting partner retailers to make gift suggestions for the Royal Wedding and our "Romance Pillow" would be our immediate choice- a lovely soft natural wool pillow infused with a fragrance of damask rose.

Spring must indeed be in the air- we are noticing an increase in sales of lambskins for new babies! It is always a great pleasure to wrap these and send them off to customers, because we know that they will be loved and snuggled up to for years to come.

Superb Garden Nursery, Winner of £100 Voucher, Junior White Cloud Range

Every few weeks I receive a delightful email from Michael Loftus who not only runs a wonderful nursery in Suffolk, but also happens to be a customer of ours. His gorgeous nursery is a specialist, old fashioned, plantsman's nursery and the catalogue is out of this world. Michael's latest email contains details of a Delphinium Offer and now that we have Spring (if only we had blue skies as well!) it makes me aspire to spend more time in the garden. Take a look at his lovely website and I recommend signing up for the email newsletter:

http://www.woottensplants.co.uk/contact.html

Congratulations to Freda in Kent who has won £100 White Cloud Voucher with Daisy Green Magazine, an online green magazine, full of offers, competitions and eco advice.

All of the work that has gone on in the past few months has, at last come to fruition- the White Cloud website now shows the new box packaging, of which we are hugely proud. Existing customers have been encouraging us for some time to consider developing a Junior Range so that little ones can have their very own "White Cloud".... this, combined with the new "mini brochure" coming off the press this week, makes us feel very positive about the future and we will continue to do our best to defy the gloom and doom frenzy that the British media is so fond of. We are, after all, a nation of small shopkeepers and I think it can often be forgotten that privately owned businesses form the backbone of the British economy.

Signs of Spring - Wild Daffodils, Eggs and a new Mini Brochure

How wonderfully encouraging to think that we have, officially almost reached the end of Winter, and are about to enter Spring. Newent is famous for its wild daffodils and, at last, they are beginning to come into flower in all the local woods. Much smaller than the conventional garden daffodil, these delicate little symbols of Spring used to be a common sight around the edges of local fields and trains used to take handpicked daffodils to Covent Garden flower market. Ledbury/Newent/Dymock forms a triangle on the Gloucestershire/Herefordshire border where these little flowers still flourish.

Another heartening sign of Spring is that our hens have finally decided they might start laying again. I love my little Appenzellers and their little white bantam sized eggs make the the most perfect of boiled eggs. Bantams are real characters- rightly or wrongly I have kept the most handsome of the cockerels, but he is flighty and can easily get his girls skittering about, for no reason at all. Never mind, I shall forgive him because I am hoping for lots of chicks this year. I still haven't managed to find a replacement Friesan bantam after last year's catastrophic fox attack, so, fingers crossed, we shall have some broody hens in a few months time. Hens are so rewarding- they are always busy, always industrious and eat almost everything. Left over spaghetti is their tip-top favourite, and I have to admit sometimes I just cook it for fun, because the end result is so entertaining ...

The new White Cloud "Mini Brochure" is due to be printed this week- most exciting. It looks really very different from our previous one, but it was time for a completely new look which takes into account all of the new White Cloud branding. With a big mail out due to take place later in March, it really does feel like a fresh start and we are feeling optimistic about the year ahead.

Two heads are better than one, Ollie the handsome office cat and Herdwick Wool

After many long hours of filing/sorting paperwork/updating the website/writing to stockists/submitting the VAT return Guy has finally made it to Heathrow on time and is now on his way to NZ. A frantic 2 weeks lies ahead with a lot of business meetings but also a small but welcome chance to catch up with our middle son, who is currently in Auckland. Needless to say, almost the minute his flight took off, us office girls had to work out how to do something on the computer ourselves. Suffice it to say, two heads were better than one and, to my utter surprise, my basic and uninspired suggestion worked! I couldn't believe it, it made it seem as if I knew what to do, when computers and technology are probably at the very bottom of my list of interests. It was literally a case of "needs must"!

Now just to balance things out, because this shouldn't all be about the many capabilities we females can offer, I thought it was time to share a photo of Ollie, our office cat. Life at White Cloud would indeed be the poorer without him. Here he is (in a rare moment of peace and calm) nicely demonstrating his particular penchant for sitting on Beverley's keyboard!! One of the printers and the mouse on my computer also enthral him, but those moments are not quite so easy to capture..

At the recent Spring Fair in Birmingham we thoroughly enjoyed meeting Spencer from Herdy and talking to him about the work that is going on in the Lake District to promote Herdwick wool- their hot water bottle knitting kits are just gorgeous... http://http://www.herdy.co.uk/index.html

Black Sheep Soaps, Art Gallery in France, New Mini Brochure rolling off the production line

A good time was had by all at The Spring Fair last week- amongst other things, we had arranged to meet the supplier of our sheep soaps, who had generously travelled from Austria with an extra box full of soaps just for us. Not only do we now have white sheep soaps, but also a little collection of black sheep soaps... the trouble is, it doesn't quite end there, because on the stand we saw some gorgeous little lamb sized soaps and now I'm thinking we should have those as well. Maybe as little Easter gifts for our customers ....

We have had a delightful correspondence this week with a customer in France, it has been really entertaining. He is a wildlife artist and his website is lovely: http://http://www.gayfordgallery.com/

Our new mini brochure is about to roll off the production line- although smaller and simpler, it has been quite a journey. We first started talking about it in the autumn, but it has been wonderful to have most of the work taken off our hands by Marisa & Kat at Tadpole PR, who have spent hours poring over photographs and text. It will be a huge relief once it is done, because the current brochure is now looking dated, and the general view is that a brochure should only have a shelf life of 2 years anyway.

With all of the duvets, underblankets and pillows now presented in our own White Cloud packaging, this is a timely moment to be acquiring the next brochure, the only trouble is now we have a pillow box under development and it's too late to include it this time round!

Recipe for a cold February afternoon and Shoppingbank.com

Sunday afternoon, a dreary February day and the perfect moment to dig out a cookery book and do something for afternoon tea. I chose to make something called "Scott's Farewell Square" from a wonderfully nostalgic book of NZ recipes called "Ladies, a plate - traditional home baking" and given to me by a dear friend called Karen. The introduction to the recipe reads:

This square contains plenty to sustain a man on a long cold journey; dates, raisins, coconut, walnuts, cocoa, butter, sugar, golden syrup, an egg and even crushed Weetabix. Take it next time you go tramping in memory of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration.

Captain Robert Scott's last expedition sailed from Port Chalmers for Antarctica on the Terra Nova on 29th November 1910. The people of Dunedin had been given a half-day's holiday and thousands turned out to say goodbye.

My grandmother's neighbour in old age was Lady Shackleton and ever since we visited a cemetry in New Zealand to find McNeish's grave with its touching sculpture of his loyal cat, I have had an interest (the family might say an obsession) for collecting books to do with the Antarctic.

Scott's Farewell Square
4oz butter
6oz brown sugar
1 dessertspoon golden syrup
1 egg
6oz flour (I use self raising)
pinch of salt
1tsp baking powder
1 tablespoon cocoa
3oz coconut
2oz walnuts
4 Weetabix crushed
4 oz dates
2 oz raisins

Icing: 1 cup icing sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa and 1 tablespoon melted butter

Preheat the oven to 375f/190c. Line a shallow tin with baking paper or lightly grease it. Soften the butter.
Cream the butter and sugar until light, then mix in golden syrup and egg, combining everything well.
Sift in the flour, salt and cocoa, mix to combine and then add remaining ingredients, stirring to combine well.
Tip into prepared tin, spread evenly and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

Make chocolate icing, adding a little hot water if necessary. Spread on the cake, sprinkle with coconut and cut into squares when set.

Almost all of Saturday was taken up with condensing and re-writing text for inclusion on ShoppingBank.com which is an online store with a whole host of products, based up in the Lake District. Inexplicably, we find Intensive Cream sells well through Shopping Bank, but it was time to work out why nothing else was doing quite so well. This revealed the proverbial "can of worms" as far as additional effort was required, but we got stuck into it and between us all, have managed to make some progress. Sometimes you just know it is going to have to get worse before it gets better....
http://http//www.shoppingbank.com/sb/index/

Website for lost dogs, Daisy Green Magazine, £100 Voucher and Black Sheep Soaps

Yesterday involved a whole lot of anxiety searching for one of our Jack Russells. The pair of them had done a runner in the morning, nothing particularly unusual but at about 11 am only one of them had come home. The rest of the day was spent searching and calling and getting increasingly anxious. By 6pm I had posted up his details on a truly wonderful site devoted to highlighting lost/found dogs. Started by a lady who had lost her own dog, last year these wonderful people managed to help reunite 15,000 dogs with their owners. They offer the most amazing service, you can post up details, provide a photo and anyone can then post details of sightings etc. Fortunately for us, Bertie had been found near the main road and had been scooped up by the Forest of Dean Dog Warden. We found him none the worse for wear at the Pound, paid our £32.50 and took him home, all of us mightily relieved.
I can't recommend the DogLost website enough, a really great example of the benefits of the world wide web: www.doglost.co.uk

White Cloud is offering a £100 Voucher in time for Valentine's Day with Daisy Green online magazine- just click on this link, register to enter and keep your fingers crossed. "Simples" as they say on the meerkat ads!
http://http://www.daisygreenmagazine.co.uk/category/goodies/

We will be off to The Spring Fair in Birmingham next week- amongst other things to meet the suppliers of the sheep soaps and we have decided to introduce some little black sheep soaps, quirky but fun and I have a hunch that they will be popular. Watch this space as they say ...

Not on the High Street, Bon Voyage to Chris and an update on the Brochure

At last, we now have a presence on Not on the High Street - an online shopping marketplace, jam packed full of lovely things. I have had about 3 months of technological challenges condensed into two weeks trying to understand the ins and outs of posting up information, but, finally we have succeeded and lo and behold a White Cloud shop now features. Worryingly I carefully put all my notes to one side, but now, naturally I can't find them so fingers are tightly crossed that no major changes are needed.

Yesterday we said farewell and bon voyage to our middle son- off on 4 months of travelling to New Zealand and Fiji. For all the heartache and pain of prodding and poking him to get ready there was a very real lump in my throat seeing him set off through Passport Control with a cheery, "I'm okay" sort of wave. The worst bit is knowing that he is somewhere still up in the air and still hours away from his final destination. How different travelling is now, no lovely printed ticket with tear out stubs, no reliance on letters for communication and reverse charge calls. Maybe it is a little too easy now to keep in touch? A little bit of self reliance is not a bad thing.
Anyway, he's off on his adventure and we are madly envious that he is going to lovely warm sunny weather (at least strictly speaking they are now heading for winter, whereas we have spring beckoning!).

Work continues apace to our new brochure, furious amounts of backwards and forwards with photos and texts, oh the wonders of the modern age! We hope to have this printed and ready by mid February and it will be exciting to see our new brand image become part of the brochure. Magniwool is also undergoing a revamp with the intention that each will be a stand alone brochure but able to be sent with the other.

We have decided to refine our range of Lambskins and Sheepskins and will not be reordering the large white sheepskins next time around. Part of the reason is that we never seemed to get the same thing twice, but more importantly we feel we want to concentrate on the others. We have 3 white sheepskins left, and that will then be the end of them- if you think you would like one, please get in touch as soon as possible!

Redefining the White Cloud range, Eco-Chic Competition Winner, New White Cloud Brochure, RSPB National Survey

We have been using this month to reconsider a small number of our products. One casualty is going to be the larger white/cream sheepskins. With a small stock of only four left, if you think you might like one, please let us know! We feel we want to concentrate on the Lambskins for Babies and the larger Yoga Sheepskins, both of which sell well and are beginning to gain a good reputation. We will also be rationalising the Skincare Range- the Face Creams are not being re-ordered (don't worry Natasha or Mrs Pennefather, I have put a special stock to one side for you) and the Gift Boxes will now have a lovely sheep soap instead. The soaps seem to sell well and are very appealing, so we are now also offering these as a pack of 3, wrapped and nestled in wool. Lip Balms have become more and more expensive, so these will not be available as single items any more, but we will continue to include them in the Gift Boxes. Take a look at the Skincare Range to see the latest selection ...

Eco-Chic Organic Double Blanket Competition

Last week the winner of an on-line competition with Eco-Chic was chosen, so Simon Sims of Stourbridge now has a lovely soft organic blanket on its way to him. We had a lot of interest and are likely to run something similar again. http://www.ecochiccollection.co.uk/magazine/

Enormous amounts of work has been going on behind the scenes to replace and update some photography both for the website and for our next brochure. Brochures represent quite a challenge, as the more you have printed, the cheaper they become but, conversely, you need to avoid having them on the shelf for too long. It takes weeks if not months to redesign a brochure, so we have been working on a much reduced brochure, quite a lot less text and more photos. We still attach great importance to being able to supply a brochure, and although lots of businesses see them as a relic from the past, we find that they serve an important purpose and help give credibility to our products. From late February, we hope to have our new version printed and ready to send.

Next weekend is the RSPB National Bird Survey, a chance to take some time and observe what birds might be visiting our gardens. The desperately cold temperatures over Christmas went on for so long that it is feared huge numbers of little birds, in particular, will have perished. That said, we have had lots of Long Tailed Tits feeding in family groups, which we have never noticed before. My favourite of all is the Nuthatch, but whether we see one individual or we have two, I really don't know! To be honest, I buy the suet pellets mostly for him, he is so beautiful. I was delighted last week when one of our boys spotted a Green Woodpecker and could tell me what it was; all those years of subtle effort in trying to interest them seems to have paid off! Just as well as next weekend, our youngest son will have to take on the task of the Survey for me, as the middle one leaves to go on his travels to New Zealand- so Rupert, it's over to you to take on the task! www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch

Reasons to be cheerful, completed White Cloud packaging and working on a January/February Winter email

There's nothing like a walk to lift your spirits and today I came back from a favourite walk in the woods clutching a lovely little collection of twigs of early catkins- I can't believe it, we are beginning to see signs of new life everywhere, even the snowdrops are starting to appear. So, now I have a beautiful glass vase full of catkins sitting on my desk... even better, the days are lengthening by 2 minutes each day, yes, a whole 2 minutes, which in an entire week is almost a quarter of an hour!

At last, we have the finished labels for our Cashmere Duvets- this means that they, along with Wool Duvets and Underblankets can now be sent out in our brand new White Cloud carton. This is the culmination of months of hard work and planning, and it is an absolute joy to see something that has been a project for so long emerge into a fully fledged item that is a piece of art in its own right. We have deliberately stayed true to the wonderful Merino ram set against a backdrop of genuine South Island scenery as we feel he epitomises the quality and heritage of all our products. So, from now on we have a range of products that can be displayed side by side on shop shelves- the next thing demanding attention is the Wool Pillows, for which a box is also planned, but that is still on the drawing board as the saying goes.

The focus this week has been preparing for a January/February email newsletter which is in incubation as I write. With a focus on Winter warmth and Valentine's Day we are hoping it will be the first of our bi-monthly emails sent out with links to the facebook page and offers to our existing customers. When it arrives, we hope you really enjoy it and consider passing it on to an interested friend.

It was amusing to read in the newspaper recently of a couple who have invented "Cosy Cool" which is a duvet with the option of adding layers- I have to admit, a small part of me thought "hang on a minute, we offer something like this already" but their story is a good one ...

Happy Four Legged Customers, A Good Read and Why Everyone Should Insure With NFU

Two happy little customers, probably the smallest we ever had, enjoying their Christmas present! Minnie and Maisie live in Scotland with the Ferrell family who have written and said "the lambswool mat has been a big hit with them this winter" ...

I have just finished reading a most fantastic book, we first saw it as a film which was beautifully directed by Peter Jackson and, having now read the book, I think it is the most successful translation from book to film I have seen. Called "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold it is the story of Susie Salmon. From the very first opening line where we learn that she was murdered at 14 by someone she knew, it is captivating. At times it is difficult to follow the thread, but persistence pays off. The insight it offers into the suffering of a family following such a dreadful incident is so beautifully written that you can't help but turn the pages as you long to know the outcome. It was so good that I'm now feeling slightly lost that I have finished it.

Well good family news all round, our youngest son did well in his mock GCSEs, our middle son has booked his flight to New Zealand and is starting to pick up the pace and get excited and our eldest son has found a replacement bike! His own bike got stolen in Newcastle by some toe-rags on the last day of term who had the cheek to cut the chain and snatch it from the car bike rack. It was a really depressing experience for him and meant he had no bike at all over the Christmas holidays. Fortunately the NFU, as usual, came to the rescue and have agreed to pay a cheque to replace it. For anyone casting around for help with insurance, I can't recommend the NFU enough- helpful, friendly, normal offices, no call centres, staff that know you by name and able to help with everything from car insurance to holidays- they even organise our business insurance for us.

Wool Pillows to France, Store Room Spring Clean, Booking for Burghley Horse Trials and Magniwool Activity

Today's photo shows 450 pillows packed and ready to make their onward journey to a customer of ours in France; this was the culmination of a manic day's work last week when our container arrived. If only we had such a huge space ourselves, but the pillows got wrapped and packed at Box Clever who are one of our packaging suppliers in the Forest of Dean.

Well, most things seem to be settling back down after the Christmas period- in some ways it is a relief to be back in a more normal routine, although driving to meet a school bus at 7.25 most mornings is definitely not one of the more pleasing aspects!

January has allowed for a spectacular tidy-up and clear up in our two store rooms. Although it entailed braving subzero and Arctic temperatures, the end result is very pleasing and we now have store spaces that look pristine and beautifully tidy; most rewarding. A most productive early Spring clean! The process unearthed all sorts of oddments and we have put them on http://www.whitecloud.co.uk/acatalog/special_offers.html . A case of first come first served ...

January is also the month when we sit and plan our activity for the forthcoming year. Burghley Horse Trials is now booked for early September- this is a good thing as we had several customers comment that they had missed us being there in 2010 and only today we had an email from a customer in Holland who bought from us at Burghley 2009 and wants to purchase more lanolin creams ... sadly for her and us we don't yet have an outlet in Holland!

Now that we have some designated help for Magniwool sales, we are working on a new brochure specifically for Magniwool and are looking at publications where it might best fit in. A recent article in The Lady discussing the benefits of magnet therapy for pets has been a good thing and one of my New Year intentions is to write with some experiences that customers of ours have related to us.

New stock, new ideas for the White Cloud range and yet another visit to the vets

A positive start to 2011- the container that got snowed in and stuck at Southampton over Christmas finally got delivered on Tuesday! A mad frenzy of unpacking and repacking went on within a short space of time which meant all our back orders could get sent out and it seems, fingers crossed, that most of the parcels have now found their owners. The majority of the container was filled with 450 pillows destined for the South of France, so not only did we have to unpack our own products in record time, but we also had to prepare and palletise an awful lot of pillows ready for shipping today. Now that we have an English friend living in the South of France able and willing to translate on our behalf it will make business transactions with the French much, much easier.

This week has entailed the inevitable January stock take and, as a result, there are a selection of really good bargains now posted on the website:- special_offers all are either ex-show, photography or discontinued items and are one-off specials. All are competitively priced, so if there is something in particular that you have had your eye on, check out the Special Offers page...

We have spent the Christmas holidays mulling over some new possibilities for the White Cloud range; by a strange but wonderful coincidence we have come across a wool co-operative in Banks Peninsula. This is a very special and historic part of New Zealand that was badly affected by the Christchurch earthquake but for us it holds a particular significance as one of my cousins lives there and, being both a New Zealander and a farmer herself, she knows most of the folks involved in the co-operative. The wool quality is gorgeous and we have seen some of the finished results, so 2011 may well see us bringing and adding some new lines to our range. Watch this space as they say ...

The festive period was not without its moments; one of our Jack Russells (or "Jack Rascals" as a friend calls them) found some lovely chocolates on the kitchen table made, lovingly, by one of my brothers and sent with great pride from Cornwall. Bella decided to help herself without anyone noticing and at about 11.30pm we got a frantic phone call from home. The long and short of it is that Bella had to be whizzed to the local vet at midnight by the boys and she was one ill little dog. It was a nasty introduction to the responsibilities of having pets for our sons, but to give them credit, they had found symptoms on the internet and acted very promptly. Thank you to our nice kind vet, who knows this particular little dog very well, having wired up her jaw 18 months ago (almost his first task on arrival at the practise), has extricated another tooth after another badger incident and has now cared for her overnight and saved her life. She is one lucky little dog- all we have to do is wait for the forthcoming vets bill!