Calamity Custard... and a giveaway.

Well.. so much for not blogging as often this year...sorry... but the bright lights and lure of the laptop are too great to resist and I am taking this opportunity to join the dance whilst there is a lull in my work..
I was in full production mode yesterday until I ran out of one essential ingredient for my card making... cards!
So today I am flicking a duster (well possibly) and have a hot date with the washing machine whilst I wait for the courier to arrive with my fresh batch of card blanks..
This was yesterday's scene of carnage on the kitchen table...carefully orchestrated chaos!All was going well until I heard the 2 o'clock news announce that John Martyn the legendary musician had died that morning... What a sad and tragic loss to the music industry ..His music defined my youthful years of loves and heartbreaks...I was fortunate to see him play on four occasions from 1979 to 2001 ...and he really was a giant of a man in many respects.. his music will live on in my heart and memories..To console myself I decided to eat something.. isn't that always the way..? Instant medicine came in the form of a cinnamon and raisin bagel.. which first had to be defrosted before I could toast and butter it and introduce it to my cup of afternoon tea.
Put bagel in oven to thaw out and went off to deal with the cat that had also been moved by the tragic news on the radio and had promptly thrown up on the rug in the study! Oh joy..
It was fairly evident that something was quietly smouldering in the kitchen.. and then 'ping' I remembered my long lost bagel and retrieved it in all it's glory from the oven...
Just a little well done.. don't you think!?
I don't know about you but I am a real klutz at times and do the silliest things..
For example..
When we recently had the Siberian snap .. I decided it would be a good idea to wash down our front path as it was pretty grubby and I was getting fed up with the daily tidal wave of leaves and mud that entered the house..
SO.. in my infinite stupidity.. I doused the path with two buckets of hot soapy water to scrub it clean..

Five minutes later on opening the front door to visit the recycling bin.. I am starring in a 'Torville and Dean' production on my very own doorstep ..Yes... pretty obvious really.. Arctic air and water = ice! The entire 12 ft stretch of path is a frozen lake .. in short..lethal..and I can neither leave the house nor can anyone enter ..at the risk of breaking their neck. So.. panic sets in and I start to raid all sources of salt from the larder whilst I fantasise about the number of law suits that are going to be filed against me for breaking various limbs of innocent passers by.. as not only have I frozen our front path but a large tract of pavement where the water drained away...
Tra la la!! Only me .. only me!
Or do you have similar homemade calamities....? I would love to hear them as I suspect that I am not entirely alone with these skills!
Best homemade calamity story will win a small gift...
Don't know what and don't know when.. but I promise it will be posted in time for Valentine's Day...♥
Cards have just arrived.. so it's back to the grindstone..
Have a great weekend one and all..XX

Just a note...

Just a quick note to say thank you for your lovely warm 'welcome back' wishes..
They really iced my cake !
This week I only have one thing on my mind and that is 'luuuurve'... Valentines are in full production and here are some I made earlier...

For that handsome hunk in your life...
Some bunny loves you...

Up close and personal..
Kiss me quick....Bon mots...
And saving the best till last..for my gorgeous man..Now if you will excuse me again... I have work to do!

T.T.F.N xxx

Back in the saddle again.... yeeha!

After an enforced bout of blogging celibacy due to a poorly 'pooter' I am now able to pick up the reins again and try and catch up with the blogging community..
Isn't is both amazing and alarming at how our life lines are seemingly cut.. when we are suddenly without our technical links to the outside world....
On the evening that the lights went out on my beloved laptop.... my little world ceased to exist..
All that I had taken for granted ... emails to friends, family and customers were no longer possible nor were other forms of communication as all my contacts and addresses were carried off on a stretcher with my laptop to the Applemac surgery down the road..
I frequently found myself wandering in to our study and standing absentmindedly in the middle of the room wondering why I was there in the first place.. It was a natural instinctive habit to gravitate towards that room where once upon a time my daily habits of surfing and browsing had taken place...
What was a girl to do sans her laptop....??? Quelle horreur!!
Well... this girl (read middle aged woman) took it in her stride and began to pick up the threads of a life that once existed before computers took over large swathes of my time..
I started to bake more, read more.. finally finishing Revolutionary Road... just in time for the film's release next week...
I couldn't continue my card production despite a few orders rolling in .. as all my graphics and artwork were also carted off on that fateful day..
So I got out the glue, buttons and beads, charms and an old Victorian Valentine card and I made two box frames.. one a Valentine commission and one for my shop page at Not on the High Street...
I cleaned the house in places that I had not discovered before..
I ventured out in to the garden to survey the neglect of several months.. only to retreat in haste when I realised it would probably take a bulldozer to fix the jungle element that has crept in..
I phoned people I had not spoken to for an age..
I took photos of the beautiful trees in our neighbourhood..Wintry landscapes ...and the creatures that inhabit them..at our local NT estate.. Dyrham Park..
I started a daily dose of exercise... contorting myself in to unreasonable shapes in a vain attempt at toning up for the summer...
So.. the moral of this story is... life ain't so bad without my box of techy wizadry....but I sure am glad to have it back again and guess what I did yesterday.... a little bit of blogging and a lot of surfing!!!!

Oh it's good to be back... I have missed you all!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland...

We saw the New Year in, with a heated game of Trivial Pursuit.. chasing the last piece of elusive 'pie' well in to the early hours of January 1st whilst sipping some bubbles and raiding the remnants of the 'Roses' tin ( my willpower has yet to kick in)
A certain frenzied competitiveness drove me on until I plucked from the dark recesses of my memory some obscure bit of trivia and became the champion of the board winning my Arts & Literature piece of 'pie' with triumph and great relief..as it meant that we could finally stagger off to bed at 2 a.m.. way past my usual bedtime.
New Year's Day found me somewhat floppy and my only real desire was to hug the roaring fire that had been thoughtfully made by our hosts long before I had managed to prise my eyes open..
We were staying with Mr Custard's family up in the darkest depths of Cheshire and had settled in to a lovely routine of dining on fine homemade fayre and perfecting the art of flopping and lounging around in the large squashy sofas, giving me a chance to catch up with my book 'Revolutionary Road'.. as I am keen to finish it before the film comes out..
Our hosts own three Labradors that require a certain amount of exercise (unlike me of course) so we were finally wrenched from our cosy nest and set off .. clothed in every imaginable style of hats and scarves.. to walk in the wintry wonderland that lay outside..I soon remembered what my legs were for and tromped happily around the frozen fields using my new camera to snap at the beautiful landscapes and particularly these magnificent forests of Hog weed..So delicate ... and hard to believe that they can inflict a very nasty rash if one touches the sap of these giant plants. As they were just the skeletons of the plant .. I found them un-menacing and beautifully sculptural..Our brief flirtation with some exercise in the great outdoors.. found us with rumbling stomachs and it was home again to eat large dishes of homemade fish pie with lashings of mashed potato..stick to the ribs fodder... and all part of the detox diet you understand!
On arriving back in Bath at the weekend.. I was greeted with 52 emails! How could this be?
I don't even know 52 people so my immediate thought was.. goodness... could this be work coming in... or is it just tin loads of Spam! No... it was much more agreeable...32 of these emails were comments from my lovely blogging comrades.
I am ashamed to say that I have only replied to a handful of these friendly visits and it has really given me some concern that I find I have less and less time to return your kind words..
I have been considering for a while now.. about having a blogging break..or simply switching off my comments option.. but this troubles me .. as it seems churlish and unkind to keep you at arms length..so to speak.
The reality is .. I have to knuckle down this year and really make my way in the world with my Cowboys & Custard business ..it is a sink or swim situation.. so I fear.. somethings gotta give!
I simply don't have enough hours in the day to sit down and visit all the blogs that are so precious to me and have given me new purpose over the last year ... so I will have to compromise which means .. less blogging and more lurking!
I value every one of your comments and love to read your thoughts and digest them and I hope you continue to visit me on the sporadic occasions that I update my blog...
I shall sign off now .. but wish you all well and will look forward to visiting you all.. as and when I can...
Wishing you all a truly Happy New Year....
A bientot
Michele xx