Leo's duvet day!

Recent explorations into our airing cupboard (to the back where supposedly extinct dinosaurs roam), revealed a lovely old, forgotten Laura Ashley quilt from the eighties. So, here it is, freshly laundered with Leo wriggled inside it to get away from Sunday's wet and windy weather. Guess he sort of reversed in like a little hermit crab! He holds me personally responsible for the weather so it was good to see him with thoughts on other things!

Bloggy pics by Lidi ... as promised :)

The Babycham glasses and other promotional stuff continue to be popular. You can still buy the packs of four little bottles in many supermarkets and put with a pair of vintage glasses they make a great gift.

As soon as I have space there's a beautiful old cocktail cabinet to come in for sale. Will post a pic asap.

These retro styled stacking blocks and alphabet cards have been real favourites over the past month but I have a feeling that they are going as decorative items for retro minded grown -ups rather than as toys for children ... and why not?!

One of my favourite pieces of shop furniture ... the 50's cabinet is for sale but somehow I won't be sad if it's slow to sell!!

Knitted cakes made by my friend Sue. She lives in France but knits cakes for me when she visits. She even knitted one for my tom cat Leo (see earlier blogs for his stunning good looks and conical shape!) since he kept running off with the finished stock. The card is one of Lidi's photo cards and is for sale in the shop too.

As usual there's a tumble of stuff outside the shop. I suppose that its meant to show passers by what a mix of things they'll find in the shop. However, the other day I seemed to have picked all garden gifts and a passing vistor came in expecting a garden centre!

These lovely button badges are made for me by 'Sumptuosity' and are part of the growing range of cracker /stocking fillers for the 'grown - ups priced under a fiver! (£3.95 for these small ones).

Time to blog once more! Introducing Lidi :)

Sorry that I've not ben blogging lately. Not quite sure where the time goes but it's been a really busy summer and autumn at home and in the shop.

At the moment I still open for five days each week with Thursday and Sunday as closing days. My friend Lidi now takes charge of the shop for a couple of days each week. The days vary but I'm often in town on Lidi's days too, dashing around with new stock to unload and of course, having the odd cup of coffee in The Tangerine Tree!

You may have seen the apple picker in an earlier blog ... well, here it is again with Lidi! Thought I should introduce her. She's helped a lot over the years since This'n'That opened but now it's a regular arrangement and she knows just about as much about all of our lines as I do :)

Fortunately, she is a really good photographer and so we now stock some of her images as greetings cards and you will also see a lot of her work represented in the bloggy pics of the shop! When Lidi's website is finished I'll pop in a link so that you can see her work and maybe even pass it on to anyone in search of a photographer (look out for the pics which she took for Langage ... their lovely dairy cows looked even more fetching than usual!!)