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 ...