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Right now, I’m feeling refreshed after two nights away with my hubby Paul and no children (that’s right no kids......  we bribed my Mum into having them for the whole weekend).  Over the course of the weekend I was struck by what it meant to be kid free, here’s just a few of the highlights:

• No constant background bickering
• No standing on the sidelines of a football pitch, trying to keep upright while the wind comes straight for you at 50 mph
• No need to spend 8 hours in a hall watching table tennis and worrying about how big my bottom is becoming and what I could be doing if I wasn’t there.
• TV remote freedom (goodbye Harry Hill, I do not have to watch you this weekend, in fact better still no TV)
• Travelling in the car without a single “Are we there yet”
• Eating with no one moaning about the vegetables on the plate.
• Not being compared to all those allusive (they are never named, in fact may not exist) parents who let their children do exactly what they want, when they want.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point; don’t get me wrong I love them to bits but a break from their demands once in a while is a real pleasure.  Needless to say we had a really relaxing time; it’s not often that we have no real agenda.  We walked, we ate and we slept, absolute bliss.

The weekend was near perfect, I can highly recommend “The Lugger Hotel” at Portloe.  It is rare that everything goes just the way you want and for the most part it did.  Sure enough though it was the start of getting back to reality on the last night, when the waitress knocked a freshly filled glass of red wine all over me.  Amongst the commotion we became the focus of every single person in the restaurant, as they watched to see how events would un-fold, looking down at the state of my dress we decided a quick exit was the only course of action we could take.  Back to the safety of our room we retired early to dream about our missed puds.

The weekend away came at the perfect time, as we have been really busy the last few months, literally working around the clock trying to get our latest project up and running.  Paul and I have now been running our stores for 13 years and over the last few years we have worked with lots of talented designer makers to bring more handmade elements to our stores.  We have also launched our own handmade ranges; Paul makes some amazing wooden letters and I make a small range of hand thrown pottery and of course our very successful fragranced soya wax melts.

Both of us have a real passion for art and design and are currently working towards launching our own range of cards (at last we are putting our Art School days to full use!)  Here’s one of our designs, it really is great to get our teeth into a project like this.

I am finding the London Marathon training really tough now, I didn’t really realise how much of a time commitment it would be.  This time of the year the weather can be pretty rough and my last 3 long runs have all involved hail (it hurts a lot).  As soon as I finish this post I’m going to have to change into my trainers and do a mere 20 mile run.  I spent last night planning the run and for those who know the area this is what I have planned.  Running from my house to the Burrator reservoir, to complete 3 circuits, then on to Meavy and using the back lanes run to Yelverton, from there I will join the cycle path and run into Tavistock.  I say run I’ll probably be dragging my feet at the end.  If you see me yell something encouraging, I need all the support I can get.  Bloody typical the heavy rain has just started.   A lovely surprise when I crawl back in through the front door later, would be to be a little bit closer to my fund raising target, so if you can please give generously!  Here’s the link to my fundraising page.  Bye for now.

After what feels like weeks of rain, I opened the curtains to sun, immediately my mood lightened and the thought of today’s training run changed from dread to excitement.  I love being outdoors especially when its dry and you can feel the sun heating your skin.  I’m feeling very lucky that I also have a walk planned with friends later today. 

We have had lots of fun in the shops in the last few weeks as we have received loads of new stock from my trade show orders earlier in the year.  It’s a great feeling when we get new ranges in, 13 years into running shops I still feel like a young child opening a present when new things arrive.  I’m super pleased with my finds this year, we are now stocking a new range of jewellery, that is absolutely beautiful, we also have a range of ceramics by an artist called Jimbobart whom I have made personal purchases from in the past.  His work is so clever featuring caricatures of animals with great slogans.  We have a total of 4 of his plates on our wall and they are supposed to represent each one of my family members.  I’ll let you guess whose is whose!?!

Training for the marathon is so much harder than I expected.  The commitment is at times totally overpowering both physically and mentally.   I’ve got a busy life anyway and I really have been finding it hard to squeeze my training in.  This week I managed 16 miles and believe it or not I ran the whole way, I didn’t walk once, not once (although I did have a very brief pause for a wild wee!)

I find myself focussing on fractions on my long runs. So the conversation in my strange mind goes a little like this; Great 1/16 of the way only 1/15 to go, 2/8 of the way this is easy....  you can do it.....  You’ve only got to run this another 5.5 times.... OMG 5.5 more times, what am I doing, why, it will be worth it in the long run, stupid girl thinking this would be easy.  Oh look there’s a walker, say hello and smile.  Your nearly  ¼ of the way now,  come one keep focused, gosh your ½ way you’ve got this, keep on going.  Think of your form (bugger that just run) and the second half in reverse, I won’t bore you with more fractions.  Then I reach the last mile and if I have any energy left I think I might just smile.  

Before I confirmed my charity place with Back Care, I needed to know more about the charity, so I phoned to ask my list of questions, I’m one of those people who have to be passionate about something to give it my all.  I was super pleased to get a call back from Brian Hammond the charities Chairman.  It’s always a good sign when someone takes time out to explain things.  From speaking with Brian I learnt that the charities core focus is on education and fact sheets to help prevent back pain/problems.  Over the years they have ploughed lots of funding into research and have had a positive impact on treatments.  They have a help line and have when funding has allowed, paid for individuals who could not access treatment to get help.  What really amazed me is how reliant they are on the funds raised by their small team of London Marathon runners, without us Brian does not think they would be able to continue their work.  So by supporting me you are helping this great small charity continue their amazing work. Sponsor link just click here

At this very moment in time I ache like bloody mad, my legs and my butt in particular.  I definitely feel as if I have overestimated my ability to run a marathon, I won’t give up but I am getting worried.  I’ve not long come back from my long run for this week,  a mere 14 miles, I say mere lightly, it’s a massive achievement for me and one I would be really happy with, if it wasn’t for the pressure of training for London.  I need to run an additional 12.2 miles on the day, which right now I really can’t imagine doing. 

Today’s run was the furthest I have EVER ran and I must add if it wasn’t for my commitment to the marathon it would be the most I’ll ever do.  I’m not good at repetition so today I ran a new route,  the cycle route from Yelverton to Plymouth, this meant that until the half way mark I was running a gentle downhill slope, so when I turned around all I could think was “Bugger” I should have thought that one through a bit more before setting off.

When I finished the run I had to nip to the local shops for a few essentials, I got out the car and started to sway on my feet, as if I’d just left the pub after way to many units of alcohol, I did a quick recky to make sure no one had noticed and then hobbled around the shops before heading home, where I planned to jump into a steamy hot bath.  As soon as I walked through the door the doorbell went and I had the sinking realization that I had a meeting with a rep to place some orders for the stores.  Oh well life goes on, a little stiffer than normal.

Last week was half term for my kids and my eldest was off skiing.  I was so pleased for him (even though I will admit to being very jealous).  It was certainly strange for the rest of us, who had to carry on as normal, knowing one of our clan was having the time of their life.  The week was spent juggling work with occupying FFion our youngest.  I’ve got to say I’m glad they are back at school today and the juggling can stop, anyone else feeling the same way?

So this week its back to normal ish, we have an exciting new project on the go, which I’ll share with you all soon.  In the meantime I’m really looking forwards to getting some time on my pottery wheel, as I have been working on some new decoration styles that have worked really well on the testers and I want to get more done as soon as I can.  So I’ll leave you with a photo of my new jugs and a link to my fundraising page!

I feel like my feet haven’t touched the ground since my last blog post, I have been a very busy bunny.   Marathon training, another tradeshow, pot throwing, lots of visual merchandising in the stores, training a new team member, lino cutting and of course the dreaded admin (I really couldn’t ignore the pile on my desk any longer, I’m hoping to see the wood again by the end of next week!)

The days don’t seem to have enough hours to get everything done, I have noticed that day light  appears to be lasting longer at last, I think it was nearly 6pm when darkness over took last night, Yippee, I for one am so much happier with more daylight in my life.  Things are so much easier when we have longer days; it seems there is more time to do all those things we need to do on top of work.

Last week I returned to my lino cutting classes, something I am particularly enjoying.  I love the way lino print challenges the way in which I tackle an image; you have to think in terms of colour blocks rather than gradients. I had been working on a drawing of my local town over the Christmas period.  This image is going to form my first reduction lino print (I’ve heard this method appropriately called suicide lino, if you make a mistake there is no going back).  I’ll try to explain further, Lino printing is a form of printmaking, where the printing plate is cut into lino. Yes your right, lino as in linoleum, the stuff that also is used for floor covering. Once cut, a piece of paper is placed over it, and then run through a printing press or pressure applied by hand to transfer the ink to the paper. The result is a linocut print.  For a reduction print run, used when working with more than one colour, after the first colour print, normally the lightest colour the lino is then cut into again, re-inked, first print paper re-applied and then ran through the press again, are you still with me?  I hope so.  Anyway at my first session I managed to get 20 prints of my first colour done, I was literally running to complete the job.  Here’s a picture of my first colour, I’m hoping to complete the rest of the cutting before returning next week, so my next blog may well include images of the final piece.  Fingers crossed it works. 

The weekend was spent in Birmingham at Spring Fair a massive tradeshow which uses up all 20 halls at the NEC; I had an exhausting two days walking all the halls, in search of new product lines for the stores.  I love seeing the ways in which the exhibitors put their stands together, trying to entice us buyers to part with our budgets, this year I can safely say the cactus is a big thing, the bigger the better!

Somehow I did manage my long training run on Tuesday morning. I had to persuade Paul my hubby to drop me 11 miles from the house, I didn’t want to have the option of shortening my run and this way I had to get home.  It was literally the middle of nowhere, the end of a road somewhere in Dartmoor. The run was a pretty pleasant one, crisp with bright sunshine.  As I neared my home the heavens opened and throw  what felt like heavy pins down on me, hail, my god its evil stuff and when clad in lycra it hurts that little bit more.  The end result was a good one though I did manage to run the last mile in just over 8 minutes and 30 seconds quite an improvement on my 10 to 11 minute miles; motivation really does come in lots of different ways!

I had a lovely surprise sponsor this week too; the chairman of Back Care has sponsored me which has really touched my heart. It wasn’t something I thought they would do so a big thank you to Back Care and the rest of you lovely lot that have done the same, if you haven’t and would like to support me here’s the link. Please don’t forget to let me know you’ve read the blog, a comment or like would be great. More rambling soon, bye for now.

It’s amazing the influence the weather has on my life,  Its early morning and I’m beginning to feel very frustrated with the grey skies, fog and drizzle that have descended upon us for the last few days; as I’m typing this I can hear the weather becoming more and more aggressive outside my window.  I need sunlight and lots of it (preferably whilst I’m on a beach, sipping a cocktail and reading a great book).

Even though I’ve had my fill of fog and damp, (I often question my decision to live on Dartmoor), I had the most breathtaking drive to Exeter last week.   The whole area looked as if it had been dusted  with white icing like a  freshly baked cake, everything was coated with an even sprinkling of frost with pockets of white mist suspended above, the mist looked as though it had been produced by  an over worked smoke machine from a night club in the early 90’s.  What made the morning so stunning was the contrast between these pockets of white and the bright blue skies with lush green landscapes. In several places it looked like a line had been drawn in the ground between the two scenes, as the sun burnt away the frost in one area and not yet reaching the next. It is at times like this I feel the opposite to today and ever so lucky to live in an area of such outstanding natural beauty.

The week has been one full of shop displays and deliveries as the new stock ordered from Top Drawer (the first tradeshow of the year) slowly trickles into the stores.  I can often be seen in store scratching my chin whilst pondering the next theme for our window display, what I’m really doing is desperately hoping inspiration will come and stalling for time.  On this occasion I was lucky, whilst I was forcing the cogs in my head to move, a delivery of rather beautiful ceramics by a new Nordic supplier arrived.  Needless to say they are now proudly displayed in the window of our Exeter store; I do love it when things unexpectedly come together.

The week was over taken by the stores and making more of our Eco Soya Wax Melts, I had a sudden panic when I realised that I hadn’t any of the best sellers made up, so I had to get on top of my supplies. With the best sellers now back in store I can breathe a sigh of relief and focus on my pottery, which is without a doubt something I love to do. The kiln is on right now performing the final firing of jugs and bowls I made a few weeks ago.  So later this morning I’m going to slowly open the lid of my kiln and peer in, hoping to see wonderful results from a new glaze I’m trying out, I have my fingers crossed.

I actually started this blog at the suggestion of a few friends (bet they regret it now), in order to share my efforts of training for the London Marathon. The last week has been a poor one on that front, I have managed to get out there and do my long runs but I really have had to force myself, I’ve felt lack lustre and totally lacking in energy. A few weeks ago I easily ran 14 miles and this week I struggled with 10 (I have to confess to walking some of that 10 too), its amazing how different you can feel each time you run.  I’m starting to worry about the amount I have to raise for my golden bond place with Back Care, so if you fancy helping me hit my target and providing motivation please, please sponsor me, every penny is truly appreciated.  Sponsorship link here.  If you are enjoying or even just persevering with my blogs please like the social media link, or leave me a comment somewhere.  It’s good to know and keeps me motivated to carry on.