Something for the hound fans..

I know that there are a few of you out there who like the odd update on my deerhounds, so I thought you might like this photo of them in the bluebells the other day ....

Tired but happy ....

So, I've just come to the end of our two day Preview Sale, held here at home. The idea was two fold - firstly to give local customers a chance to see everything 'in the flesh' and secondly, to put new products in front of people and see how they went. I have to say that it has been a great success from my point of view - many thanks to everyone who came and many thanks to everyone that helped me (Jackie, Paul and James especially).

I was really pleased with the reactions to alot of the new things I've sourced and developed. Log baskets were a great hit and will be available on the website soon and then in the next catalogue. The new range of china that I developed with Susan Kemp looked absolutely wonderful and people loved it. I'm too tired now to run through many things individually, but it was a really worthwhile couple of days for me and Twice on all fronts. I think I'll definitely repeat it for Christmas, probably in late October, early November.

We also managed to raise nearly £80 in donations for the MS Society which is great.

Workshops start next week, so preparing for that now.

Following on from my last blog about the Lord Robert's Workshops I just thought I'd mention that any email/postal support from anyone about this would be great - I have just emailed Alex Salmond at FirstMinister@scotland.gsi.gov.uk to ask for his support for the workshops. Obviously the more people he hears from, the better.

We have a really useful boot stand which my mother gave me a while ago - but there are only pegs for four pairs of wellies and we are five, and often many more, so I thought I'd buy another one to go alongside. Happily there was a sticker on the base of the stand telling me it had been made by the Lord Robert's workshops, so I Googled them and ..... wow! What a find! It turns out that they are based just outside Edinburgh and not only do they make welly stands but a wondrous range of beautiful TRADITIONALLY MADE brooms and brushes of every sort imaginable. What could be better for Twice!

I shot off down to the factory to meet Chris Denny who runs it. What I found was both fantastic and depresssing. The workshops were founded in the 1890s to give employment and training to disabled ex-servicemen. At one time there were 11 such workshops but this is now the last one. They men make brushes in the traditional way - which, of course, means first class quality. Everything from clothes brushes to library brushes to yard brushes. Really beautiful stuff. As a business, it runs as a significant loss and so the charity that runs it - SSAFA Forces Help - have decided that it must close at the end of June this year. So, in the same moment, I had found a source for some of the best products that I've come across for Twice and lost them too.

All is not quite lost for the 11 disabled servicemen currently working there - the Scottish Government is aware of their plight and things are being done behind the scenes to try and save the workshop - but at this stage it doesn't look too good.

I went down again on Monday to order brooms and brushes and, walking around the workshops, it seemed really senseless that the workshops are closing. The cost to the state of having to pick up financially where the workshops leave off will be very close to the shortfall that they are currently have each year. Plus, because there has been the Sword of Damocles hanging over them, there has been very little marketing or selling going on which only increases the shortfall. The thought of losing not only employment and purpose for the men working there - all of whom have more than done their bit for us - but also losing the knowledge and skills that go into making these beautiful brushes - is really awful. Once it's gone, it's gone.

I'm not sure what I, or anyone else, can do to help, but if there is anything I will be doing it and I'll post on this blog so that you can keep up with it if you're interested. I am pretty sure that there is a good market out there for what they produce, with some decent marketing.

Aside from that, I have recently put together a series of workshops in May and June and sent out invitations for a two day sale here on 12th and 13th May and I am now panicking big time about how much has to be done....

The office reborn!

Slightly later than anticipated (isn't it always?) I am now back in my office and couldn't be happier. It's like a completely different space. Before it felt ramshackle and inefficient and I could never find anything. Now, I've got this wonderful workspace with room to display some of the Twice products, a huge table for designing and working on fabrics, a wooden floor rather than carpet, which as you might imagine, was a nightmare when you're working with fabrics. All the packing has moved into another room next door where there's ample space to keep all the packing materials together, which has freed up loads of space in the main room. The loo, which used to double as storage for alot of the packing materials is now just a loo again. I can't tell you what it all feels like - mostly it feels like a totally new office - it's just as therapeutic as a total move.
As you can see, I've got a crackling log fire going right by my desk - what a joy! There's a fabulous view through the two big sash windows out into the garden - which is about to be a sea of daffodils - and every so often I see our two deerhounds, Flint and Romy, trotting past the window. There was a very good article on our daffodils in yesterday's Scotsman Weekend Magazine - and that's what I'm about to look out on while I work. Next year we're going to be opening the gardens for the National Gardens Scheme at daffodil time. I'll try and remember to put something on the blog about it as a reminder early next year for anyone local who might like to visit.


And then we've put in storage for lots of the vintage fabrics so that I can see them while I'm thinking up new products and designs - I could see them before, but somehow through the chaos of everything else that was in the room (I wish I'd done proper before photos so you can see just what an improvement it all is) I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Time will tell as to whether my new environment has a positive effect on my work, but I can't help but feel that it will.

A Spring face lift .... for my workroom!

Because of the way that Twice has grown, I have taken over spaces in our basement in a very piecemeal way. The room I now work in used to be the au pair's bedroom - which I then took over a couple of years ago. Since then I've spread to the next door bedroom (packing room), to the kitchen next door (warehouse) and into the bathroom (storage). I suppose because there wasn't a particular moment when Twice changed from a hobby into a business I carried on working in this room just as it had been as a bedroom. Infact, I seem to remember that for quite a while it still had the beds in it. It was pretty scruffy and certainly didn't look very businesslike - and I have found myself using any excuse in the book as to why people can't visit me at work.

Sometimes you just need a shove to get on with things and mine came in the form of a feature that has been commissioned by a big magazine on me and Twice. That focused my mind! I couldn't bear the thought that photos of me working in my room as it was might find their way into print. A couple of weeks ago I opened up the fireplace and started to use it - it's really gorgeous working with a log fire crackling away nearby. Then, last week, we took down the very old and shabby curtains and pelmets - and what a difference! Suddenly the room seemed so much lighter with it's big shuttered sash windows. Then at the beginning of this week we did something I've been longing to do for ages - ripped up the carpet. I can't tell you how boring it is having carpet on the floor if you work with fabrics to the extent that I do. I was slightly nervous about what we'd find underneath - but I needn't have been - it's a wonderful wooden floor in really good condition - and best of all, there are no gaps between the boards, so the room shouldn't be any colder. The floors have been sanded and then waxed and polished (thank you Paul!) and I'm thrilled with them. Couldn't be better.


The final thing is new paint - and that's what I've been doing today. Out with the primrose yellow (just too bedroomy) and in with an old white. The place already feels much more 'me'. It's funny just how much of an effect easy changes like this can have on a place and the people in them - it already feels much more work-like and I'm sure I will be more organised and productive in it.

I'll post some photos when it's finished and I've moved back in - hopefully sometime later this week.

The mother of all vinegars!

There are several reasons that we stock vinaigriers at Twice. They are very traditional, having been made in France, by the same potteries, for centuries, particularly the lovely salt-glazed ones that we have. I first came across them at my mother in law's house. She has had one for years sitting in the larder and any leftover red wine is popped in the top and then from time to time we would all be given jars of vinegar to take home. A few years ago, she very kindly gave us the one pictured above one for Christmas. A few weeks later a jar arrived here filled with something horribly gloopy - this turned out to be the vinegar 'mother'. This is the starter that is one way of making your vinegar - you can look it all up on Google, but essentially it is a form of acetic acid bacteria that causes alcohol to turn into acid. So, we plopped it into our vinagrier and then started to add bits of red wine from time to time - if there was any left in the bottle! It takes several weeks to start to smell anything like proper vinager and we would often forget about ours entirely for weeks at a time. But then, after a while, whenever I needed any red wine vinager I would just take it directly from the tap.

About this time, I started trying to source the vinaigriers for Twice. It's quite a thing because French companies don't really seem to want to do business with anyone! I searched and searched and found companies but no contact details. Then I finally did find contact details and sent emails. Many just didn't reply and those that did weren't very helpful. Finally, I discovered the Renault pottery that makes our lovely rustic jars have an agent in the UK - at last, someone who actually wanted to sell something to me! Once I'd got them in stock I started to research the actual vinegar making in more detail because someone was bound to ask me how to do it.

We provide instructions for making vinegar with each vinaigrier that we sell and there are several ways of starting off - 1) get some vinegar mother from a friend, 2) make your own mother or 3) start with a mixture of bought vinegar and wine. The bottom line is that is boils down to trial and error and working out what works best in your vinegar's environment. Web research has thrown up a great blog in the States where a lady called Kim Adams gives the most down to earth advice on making vinegar that I've come across. Click here for the link. She will tell you how to make vinegar from whole bottles of wine or from bits and pieces.


The way we've made our vinegar has been very hit or miss but this week we finally got to the stage where we had a full vinaigrier and it was time for bottling. I turned on the tap and emptied the whole thing slowly into jugs, waiting all the time to find the globulous mother sitting somewhere in the jar. But .... none! I don't know where it's gone but we have perfectly good vinegar and no mother. I think that what might have happened is that because we kept tipping bits of wine into the top, this can cut off the air supply to the mother and kill it and it then sinks to the bottom - not sure what happens when it gets there, but ours disappeared. So now I am embarking on making my own mother from scratch and we'll see what happens then. In the meantime, as you can see we have several litres of really good red wine vinegar and no wasted wine!

To see the vinaigrier on our website click here.

Back to normal ....

.. so, children back to school, decorations down and house nearly back to normal and time to assess the Christmas season for Twice and think about the year ahead. All in all, it was probably as good as I could have expected. Sales were slightly down on my expectations but the catalogue was a huge success so, on balance, things worked out pretty well. However, people are still very nervous about what's round the corner so for us, like most small businesses, the way ahead for 2009 has to be to cut costs, and not make any unneccessary expediture. That translates firstly into not attending the fairs that we usually do - mainly because the costs involved in travelling and moving stock are huge from Scotland. We're going to concentrate on building up the mail order side of Twice and expanding our range.

I'm not quite sure what to do about workshops - it's possible that people will feel they can't treat themselves so much this year. The workshop series are expensive and time consuming to set up so I am going to send out an email to test the water - and depending on the feedback we might just wait until the Autumn and see how people are feeling then.

Just to get myself feeling a bit less wintery and sniffly and thinking about spring, the photo shows the snowdrops here last year - should be like that again any minute - can't wait!

Home again after a month on the road ...

One of the things that stops me blogging very often is that I arrive at a computer and realise that I don't have the wherewithall (?!) to upload photos of whatever it is that I want to blog about and so I just don't do it. But I am realising that photos aren't necessarily what it's all about and so I am determined that I will post more regularly with or without photos.

I am sitting in my workshop tonight having finished my last Christmas fair yesterday afternoon. That was the culmination of the best part of a month on the road - I have got lots of photos of the month, but haven't worked out how to download them from my wonderful, life-changing iPhone yet - will do that later, but for now the thing to say is this: retail life is definitely suffering in the current climate, but being out and about and getting to meet and re-meet my customers is great. Such good feedback and lovely comments about what I'm trying to do. While I was in London, the new and much improved version of the catalogue arrived and has since been sent out to a fairly limited list of customers - about 1800 in all. I have had so many messages from people saying really lovely things about it - thank you if you were one of them. The best thing is that this is now translating into orders and that is so gratifying - all those hours and days of work putting things together were worth it and people are liking what we're offering.

The past two weeks since the first catalogues went out have been slightly mad - I've been doing Country Living in London and Glasgow and the 'pick and pack' has been left to my unbelievably supportive husband here in Perthshire. There have been a few teething problems - mainly to do with stock levels - but we seem to be getting on top of those and a day back in the office has definitely helped. But I can't tell you how exciting it is to see piles of orders going to the Post Office at the end of the day - makes it all worthwhile.

Met up again with lots of great people on the 'tour' - it feels like a bit of a family now. Had my brother up from Somerset helping me in London - so great to see him and spend some time together and such a treat to have help on the stand - I suspect I took too much advantage of being able to wander off. (And, Tim, huge congratulations on the latest news!)

Had a great treat this evening when we went to hear Sarah Raven talk at Glenalmond - can't believe how much useful information she managed to fit into a one hour talk. Inspirational. And then a delicious dinner in Perth ... feeling very happy to be home.

Will I ever get off a learning curve?

Running Twice I have had to grasp so many new skills - photographer, graphic designer, web operator, manufacturer, designer ... and on and on. Everything that can be done in house is done in house. Of course, in order to be able to do these things there is a steep learning curve - and I always come out better off somehow but sometimes things get thrown at me that really have me wondering what I am doing. Yesterday just such a thing happened when the much anticipated first run of 5000 Twice catalogues arrived ..... all absolutely unusable.

I have been very successfully using on-line printers for a while to produce leaflets and postcards and invitations and have worked hard to improve my abilities in desktop publishing. So, when I made the big decision to do a catalogue I looked for the most cost effective way of doing it which was for me to do the design and then get it printed by the same printer. However, I could see I might struggle with formatting of the artwork and I wasn't comfortable that I would be talking to someone in Germany to finalise the proofs, so I changed to a UK company, who cost more but assured me that that bought me first class customer service and hand-holding. I thought it was a price worth paying and went for them. I was sent about four samples of different paper finishes and plumped for one that looked wonderfully matt which I thought was very fitting for Twice. What I now know is that this particular finish (called offset) leaches colour out of photographs - the result for my catalogue is that all the wonderfully vibrant colours have just disappeared. When you are asking people to choose a product on colour, that's really not a runner. Anyway, there was a sad little puddle of me sitting in the office last night at midnight having just got back from a two day sale in Yorkshire, wondering what on earth I was going to do with 5000 unusable brochures. I wrote the printer a very sad email and got one back this morning basically saying that it is like that because I chose that finish. As the experts, do you think that they could maybe have advised me that that would happen? I do.

So, where are we today? Well I'm feeling a little more chirpy and have called my local printer for help (who I didn't use in the first place because I thought they'd be much more expensive) and they are going to match the price and we are going to go again.

In the meantime, there are an awful lot of boxes in the hall that the online printers don't seem to want either!

Feeling really autumnal and scrumpish ....

We have just spent a really fascinating day up the road from here at Glendoick Garden Centre on a cider making course. It was run by Michael Pooley who has written a book called "Real Cider Making on a Small Scale" and was really worth the effort. It was part of an Orchard Weekend that was put together for the Carse of Gowrie, which is the area surrounding the River Tay just before it hits the sea - and is also where we live. We have masses of apples and a couple of years ago embarked on making apple juice - it worked to an extent but we weren't any good at getting it to store, so ended up freezing it. This works well as a preserving method but I can never remember to get it out of the freezer at the right times. So, last year we thought we'd have a crack at making cider. This was done by following instructions in books and, as we discovered today, really only got us so far. The cider (gallons of the stuff!) ended up sitting in the fermenting barrels for far too long and the results were really pretty disgusting. So the idea of a day spent finding out what we should have been doing was too good to pass up.

The first photos shows the apples being washed prior to being mushed up in the musher - electric one seems a much better idea than doing it by hand, and infact we had already discovered at home that a garden shredder is pretty effective.

Then the mush (proper name pomace) is put into nylon bags which are then put in the press. A quick twist and delicious fresh apple juice starts pouring out of the pipe at the bottom, straight into the demijohn ready to become cider.

After about an hour of processing we had filled 11 gallon demijohns with applejuice - it really wasn't too bad, although there were 10 of us, so I'm sure it will take us longer at home. It's a really good thing to get the children involved in - so that's half term sorted!

The other thing happening as part of the Orchard Weekend was that two fantastic old chaps were on hand to identify apples - the photo below shows Willy who instantly named three apples from our orchard. However, he was temporarily stumped by one delicious eater and we had to produce four apples from the same tree before he got it - and it was finally pronounced to be a Red Melba. Willy grows an unbelievable variety in his own orchard and he is shown standing beside just a few of them.

All in all a really great day - I feel inspired and love the idea that we can now turn all our wonderful apples into something delicious without getting it wrong. There was talk about putting together a co-operative apple day in the Carse - that would be good!

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Caroline

Lots to catch up on as it is a ridiculously long time since I posted - apologies for that - but I am sure you will understand. It has really been so busy I can't believe it. Not only am I getting ready for Christmas, which gets bigger every year for Twice in terms of fairs and stock levels, but I had also rather bravely organised the second series of workshops to kick off in September and run through October. It's great fun but, of course, does mean having the house presentable and the little matter of cooking lunch for up to 14 people twice a week! Anyway, it all went off really well and everyone who came gave me such lovely feedback that it makes it more than worthwhile. We had people from all over the place - and as far away as Cumbria - this time. The first workshop was the return of the Foragers which you can see above - it was amazing how many edible goodies everyone found on a fairly nasty, rainy day. And the cookery demo in the afternoon was really inspirational .
The photo above is the second workshop which was Nicolas Arcedeckne-Butler (pronounced Archdeacon), Master of Wines, giving us (I joined in!) a wonderfully informative and fun day on wines. We tasted 10 different wines over the course of the day and I came away knowing so much more than I had - I feel I really know something about the different grapes and which go with which foods and so on. It was a fantastic day and I can't recommend it highly enough if we do it again. Nicola is a great teacher - so knowledgeable.

Next up was Craig McAlpine doing a day on 'Easy & Impressive Dinner Parties' - he cooked rack of lamb, roasted butternut squash puree and boulangere potatoes for our main course for lunch and followed it up with Chocolate Fondants with Blackberry Syrup - that is the impressive chocolate put which should explode with runny chocolate when your spoon goes in - which it did! In the afternoon he ran up some delicious starter ideas - warm quail salad with caramelised beetroot -yummy!

These two photos show our final days - 'Preparing for a Hand Crafted Christmas' with Jane Lindsey. As always Jane gave everyone a really inspiring day - bulb planting, how to get your bulbs flowering when you want them, how to make a mossed wreath (see above) and, in the afternoon, these wonderful table centres and candle holders. She even had time to fit in some ideas on present wrapping.

I can't thank all my demonstrators and teachers enough - we had some great days and some really positive feedback - which is all I can ask. There are already enquiries about the next workshops, so I will have to get myself going for a Spring series.

Wow - can't believe that it is six-odd weeks since I wrote a post for the diary. Lots has happened - we spent a really wonderful two and a half weeks in France. The first week was spent in the Ardeche - mountains and rivers - glorious. Then for the second week and a bit we did a house exchange with two French families. It's the first time we've done an exchange and so we were slightly trepidacious (?!) - but we needn't have worried. Because you are in each others' houses everyone treats everything with enormous respect because you hope the same is happening at the other end. So two families came here to Inchyra and we had two houses fairly close together in the Drome. We invited friends to come and stay and had a really great week with swimming pools and perfect huge lunches and dinners. I have to say, these parents in hotter countries really have got it made - give a child a swimming pool and you really don't ever have to find them anything else to do.

We also kayaked down both the Ardeche and the Drome. It is a great day for everyone - a little bit of danger (rapids), beautiful scenery, some exercise and at the end of it you really feel you've earned that very large dinner and lashings of wine! The photo shows James and Ellie on the Drome.

After one day spent frantically trying to catch up with Twice we headed up to Beauly near Inverness where we go to the Tartan Heart music festival held at the Belladrum estate every year. Well, we've done it for the last four. It is always a resounding success. We camp with the children, listen to music, meet friends, drink and eat too much and generally have a ball. I think it's really good for the children to have their first experience of something like that with us around and Silvie (now aged 9, but 5 when she first went) is such a seasoned festivaller now she gets quite cross when we want to keep an eye on her. The photo shows Silvie and her friends getting the best seats in the house for a bit of Country & Western!

Anyway, now it's back to thinking about Twice and, unbelievably, but inevitably, Christmas. I really need to have all the stock for Christmas sorted out by the end of this month and so I am in a right flap. Hopefully by the end of this week I might be able to see the wood for the trees. Husband James is coming on board in a slightly more formal way which is a great help to me as it means there is someone here to throw ideas and numbers around with - and with a bit of luck means I don't have to do the dreaded books any more. (Not sure if he knows that bit yet!) In addition to all the usual fairs (Country Living in London and Glasgow, Living North in Newcastle etc), this year we have got the workshops running from 16th September until 9th October, we will be doing a Christmas sale here at Inchyra sometime in October and we are launching our first catalogue, so I have no idea how busy it's going to be - but I think 'very' might be the case.

If you would like us to send you a catalogue just email us using the link on the homepage of the website.

Oooooh! I booked the final person for our autumn workshops this morning and I am SO pleased with the line-up for September and October. We have got:

~ 'Autumn Foraging' with the Forage Rangers

~ 'Appreciating Antiques' with Jeremy Gow, a restorer well known across Scotland as one of our foremost authorities on antiques.

~ 'Understanding Wine - an introduction' with Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler (pronounced Archdeacon) - one of the most respected female Masters of Wine in the country.

~ 'Preparing for a Hand Crafted Christmas' which sees the return of the wonderful Jane Lindsey.

and finally, booked today, 'Dinner Parties Made Easy' with Craig McAlpine, winner of Channel 4's Come Dine With Me, who runs a company called Bespoke Caterers which teaches dinner party cooking across Scotland.

I don't know about you, but I feel that we have a really good range here and some fascinating speakers. The flyer goes to the printer in a couple of days and then we're off again! I have to say, I find the whole thing so much fun - it really doesn't feel like work. And, actually, that was the whole point - to bring Twice home a bit rather than running around all over the country doing those blessed fairs. I have managed to contain my Christmas selling to three big fairs - Living North in Newcastle and Country Living in London and Glasgow. That means only three moves, which is heaven.

Once the flyer is out, I can slightly put my feet up and enjoy the children and the summer holidays. Big sigh of relief.

Here at Twice Towers the produce is really starting to stream in and yesterday I came home to find that happy husband had been busy bottling. The result looked so wonderful that I thought I'd share it with you. The line up on our kitchen table is Damson Gin, Damson Vodka and Elderflower Cordial (not sure in which order). There's also some Blackberry Whisky cooking away somewhere which should be interesting. Today he has added 12 2 litre bottles of Elderflower Champagne, a la Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, that promise to be quite delicious once the bubbles have come in and will be ready for drinking in about three weeks.

The gin and vodka have been brewing for quite a while. Just a sip of either of them makes me feel completely autumnal - and then, I expect quite quickly if I had much more, rather happy!

At the end of yesterday's workshop I suddenly realised that I hadn't taken any photos - and had to quickly take these two on my little camera - so apologies for the quality (particularly to those who are actually in the photos!) but it gives an idea of the day. It was the last workshop of the series - and seemed to be a real hit much like the other days. Joa Studholme, who kindly came up from London to teach us all about using colour in the home, is an unbelievable font of knowledge on the subject. I can't even start to explain what she told us all - but suffice to say that I don't think anybody who attended the workshop will think of 'white' in the same way ever again!

The photo below shows the board that Joa worked with as it was by the end of the talk - she really opened up so many possibilities to people in terms of colour. It is extraordinary how light makes a difference to colours - and even whether you are seeing them horizontally or vertically.

The one thing that I have really learnt from listening to all our speakers over the past few weeks is that you can think that you know about something but when you listen to someone who REALLY knows, it is extraordinary what you can learn.

I would like to thank all our speakers - Xa Milne, Fiona Houston, Jane Lindsey and Joa Studholme - for coming to Inchyra and giving everyone who attended workshops a really memorable, useful and inspirational time. The feedback has been great - we seem to have got it mostly right - and I am now busy organising the next series of workshops in September and October. I hope that Joa will be back later next year - so there will be an opportunity for those who missed this one to see her talk again.

Thanks also to all those who came to the workshops - we were probably a bit of an unknown quantity as we had no track record on them so was a slight leap of faith for people signing up.

If you are reading this and are near enough to come to Perth for the next workshops - please do email me at info@twiceonline.co.uk and I'll put you on the list to get the info.

Just a quick one. Yesterday's workshop with Jane Lindsey was smaller than the previous one and then even smaller because a couple of people couldn't make it in the end - so I thought I'd make up the numbers and join in. I am SO glad that I did. I can't tell you how much I learnt and how much I discovered that I was doing wrong. No wonder my flowers didn't last long indoors! There were some incredibly basic things that I was doing wrong from the moment I picked flowers. I would love to tell you what they were, but then there would be no point coming to the workshops!

It was also really nice to meet the lovely people who came yesterday - we had a very jolly lunch and it felt absolutely like having lunch with a group of friends. I have just posted a couple of photos from yesterday showing some very pretty little table centres that we made and also the wonderful hand-tied bouquets that everyone created. Mine actually looked good enough to give to someone - and that is a breakthrough!

So, once again huge thanks to Jane and thank you to everyone who came. We are already organising days for the autumn - at the moment it looks like we will cover planting spring bulbs, planting indoor bulbs for the winter and also some autumn/Christmas arranging and wreaths. Be very interesting to hear if there is anything else that people are interested in learning about (workshops will be on 7th and 9th October).

We've had the most wonderful day here today with the first of two workshops on Cutting Flowers with Jane Lindsey. These photos give a bit of the flavour of the day - but we really were lucky as the sun shone all day - unlike the rest of the UK which was apparently in heavy rain.

I'm going to sit in on tomorrow's talks so I will have a better idea of the brilliant tricks of the trade that Jane imparted to everyone but all I can tell you is that every time I popped in to see how things were going there were lots of "that's fascinating!" type comments. As you can see, there was a trip down to our walled garden where Jane talked about which flowers to plant and also how to cut them so that you get the best flowers and look after the plant.

Then it was back to the demonstration room where everyone was shown how to condition the flowers before arranging. Jane had brought along lots of flowers from her own cutting garden and everyone picked the ones that they wanted to arrange. The flowers were all then conditioned - I will know more about this tomorrow but apparently it extends the life of the flowers once indoors from a couple of days to a week or 10 days, so it's well worth knowing. Once all the flowers were sorted out we all had lunch and a bit of shopping at Twice.

After lunch it was on to the arranging and Jane showed everyone how to make a pretty hand-tied bunch and then how to wrap it in cellophane so that the flowers can sit in water - I've always wondered how they do that. Then some pretty tissue paper and, Bob's your uncle, we had ten fantastic hand-tied bunches that would have done many a florist proud.

The day wrapped up with questions and answers and Jane demonstrated a clever way to make a really original flower or candle container with rosemary and a jar - so pretty.

I am so looking forward to joining in with tomorrow's course - everyone seemed to leave today's workshop full of renewed enthusiasm for their gardens. I love it when you learn bits of information that you will use again and again - and I think that's exactly what people did today.

This weekend I think it finally, finally started to be summer - I don't really mean the weather as much as our mentality. The first thing that made me realise it was that I cut the first really good bunch of flowers for the kitchen table. You can see them here - rather thrown together but I'm hoping that once I've listened to Jane Lindsey doing the cutting flowers workshops on Wednesday and Thursday my 'thrown together' will be rather more professional! Roses are out, peonies are out - it's all gorgeous. And then we put our big tent up in the garden - it's a big canvas one from the Middle East that stays up now until about October - and that really means summer to me. We have a huge table in it that seats about 20 and it means we can go out for the day in the garden without worrying too much about rain ruining lunch or whatever. So today we had lunch there with friends who were staying and we barbecued a butterflied leg of lamb and had delicious beetroot and salads and a wonderful fruit salad.

Last night we had more friends over for supper in the kitchen and we ate artichokes from the garden. As relatively new veggie gardeners, this was a significant moment. I took this photo of them yesterday - they really are striking plants and we have them in the flowers beds because they are wonderful to look at as well as to eat. And the photo at the bottom is something I couldn't resist putting in because it is quite special and particular (I believe) to this part of the UK. It is a Himalayan Poppy or Meconopsis. It is native, as if you couldn't guess, to the Himalayas but grows really well in this part of Scotland so I had to give it a go and it seems to like us. The blue is quite different from any of the others in the garden .


The other reason that I'm posting these is that I'm quite proud of the photography! Because of all the photography we have to do for Twice, I have a quite snazzy camera but I could never make it perform very well. On Friday I had a meeting with Shaun Ward who is a photographer who is going to be working with us on our first catalogue and while we were talking I said that I was really struggling with my camera. Anyway, he gave me a couple of pointers (ie. explained what two major buttons that I didn't know how to use did!) and suddenly I seem to be taking half decent photos which I couldn't resist posting! At this rate I may even be able to stop using the 'Point & Shoot' that I always end up resorting to in frustration at not being able to use the good camera. I am also going to enroll on a photography course because I really ought to know what I'm doing a bit more. Watch this space to see if I improve at all!