Stoned

There is a wonderful hush hanging over the faux-country (oh OK, suburbia) as I type – the kind of hush where you can hear the blackbirds singing & the purring of the KC as she finally sleeps deeply with her ears down. The kind of hush that can only be fully appreciated at the end of 3 weeks of drilling, hammering, banging & cement mixing. It’s all done. Finito. No more making 8 cups of tea a day, no more running out of sugar (how these guys aren’t diabetic is beyond me – 3 sugars??) Yes, today the patio was finally finished & so we had a “let’s go with a bang” day as the people next door carried on with their extension (drilling thru’ breezeblock) and to add to the chaos we finally had the oaks “trimmed" by men climbing all over them with chainsaws and all the bark & twigs got chipped mechanically in the front garden. It was so loud the KC even sat next to me on the sofa for an hour (obviously in the hope my bulk would buffer her from the din) and I had to put the subtitles on when watching Neighbours. Quite. But we now have a stunningly beautiful York stone patio (complete with fossil bits – see our lovely leaf fossil!) & 2 very smart trees. Yes all that is lovely. However as a result of 3 weeks of having everything piled onto it & bearing the brunt of boots & rain & cement mixers, the front half of the lawn of course is destroyed ... in fact it's best described as a mud flat. .... next?

Holiday? Celebrate!

A miracle. We have just been away and all went well! Well there was drama back at home but more of that later – yes we went on a holiday that broke neither me nor the bank. The hotel was perfect; the rooms were exactly as described: huge & silent with, great views, designer bathroom accessories & Frette sheets on the bed. The bar had a great wine list & was funky & cause for much amusement (you don’t expect Shane Warne style hair worn with skin-tight silk shirts & shiny pointy boots in the middle of Dorset. And that was just the men!) The food in the restaurant was amazing! Dinner was sublime & the breakfast delicious. I am still in shock.... But what a fiasco back at home. The KC was left (grudgingly – her not us!) with a cat sitter who she knows well. Not her usual but there we are. Waking at 8ish Sunday morning I switched my phone on to get 3 texts – first text sent at half past midnight. From cat sitter to tell me all the electric was off ... 2nd text sent at 12.45AM to let me know she’d run out in her PJ’s to get help from a neighbour who had been coming home from a night out & they’d sorted it. 3rd text was telling me that fixing electrics must be a “boy thing” & that all’s well, not to worry! Now this is not the first time we have had problems when leaving the KC with sitters. Virtually every time we've gone off on jolly hols we’ve received calls telling us variously that the heating had gone off, the burglar alarm was broken & needed silencing at a cost of £200 or that there was no hot water as the boiler was broken .... Once we even got a call telling us that the sitter had been admitted to hospital! Hmm .. only one common denominator here. The KC looks far too innocent to me... where does she hide her toolkit??

The webs we weave

Have just created a lot of work for myself. Having realised that my little company will soon turn 10 (Heavens TEN years of making my own money! That’s amazing....) anyway, having realised a big anniversary was on its way I decided I should sort some interesting marketing out. And as we know good marketing can take time. So I took a look at my website to get ideas on where to start. Unfortunately my first thought as I opened the front page was not “Oh yes! Great!” it was ‘Oh. Dear. God’. Now don’t get me wrong, when I launched, close to the beginning of this new millennium, the look & feel of it was absolutely completely right. Corporate. Big Business. Serious. But now ... hmm not so sure. Especially as not so long ago an old friend (with impeccable taste & marketing skills) commented that it looked like a front for an illegal arms dealing ring! So – clearly one of the first things I need is a website redesign. But it’s harder than you think. I am neither technically / web literate nor arty in the least (I was asked to tidy the shelves during art classes at school. Seriously. And I have to say as a result my tidying skills are second to none. Hubby would say anal; I’d say always ready for a House & Garden shoot) Anyway, I digress, not artistic. But I know what I like & sort of what I want. So I have sent a heap of “ideas” to my web geniuses & am now waiting to see what comes back. And not only do I need to revamp the look, the content needs major updating as again, whilst 10 years ago what was on there was super relevant, now it’s yesterday’s news. So I am now obsessed with checking back through old work files for “insights” to pepper my new website with, and looking hard at every website that may be my "competition" (and to be honest even some that have nothing at all to do with what I do!) Meanwhile the KC is being left to choose between hiding upstairs all day or risking a coronary as we are having our patio re-laid. Which means – god forbid – strangers at close quarters. Standing about & making noises in HER garden. Every time she sees a workman she panics & launches herself back into the safety of the house, slam dunk style through the cat flap, sliding across the Amtico till she hits something solid! Oy Oy...