Tales From Pixie Wood

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Natural Interlude
2008-06-09 09:03:00
Ah, hello there! It was around about this time that I wanted to be telling you all about the last week and revealing to you a wonderful little progression in my corner. Alas, I'm still not ready. Jeez, its taking longer than I thought and of course we're having some great days of sun right now so the temptation NOT to be in front of the computer is a great deal higher. I did take an afternoon off on Friday though. Jo-Jo and I went with the girls to Petworth and had a lovely day. We bought bras for the wedding, oh yes, drank tea while the girls drank milk and then came home for bath time and lots of kisses. I went back to my work with more baby infused vigour than had previously been in attendance. That's all I have to say today you'll be pleased to hear but I will just take this opportunity to say a huge 'HELLO' to the people who are members of my forum. We currently have 443 registered users which is 'wrinkle my face up and look a litt...
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Sweet Sensations - Treats for Your Guests
2008-06-02 11:13:00
I have been milling about the house lately working hard to finish off various projects in time for my girlie party of the fifth of July. Things that would have been put off until much later have been finished. Things like staircases have been painted and gardens have been worked on from dawn until dusk. But the other side of things that has also had attention paid to it are the details. I have been fiddling about with details, ideas, colours and arrangements. One such arrangement is the addition of sweeties into our home. Sweet ies like the ones you can see in the thrifted china pourer above.  When you have guests staying at your house or visitors passing through for the afternoon it is handy to have essentials on hand such as clean towels for them and a stash of bathroom products in case a person forgets to bring shampoo etc. It is also a nice touch to have a few copies of a good quality magazine in the guest room for them to read should dropping off to...
More About: Guests , Treats

Jam Jar Covers
2008-05-29 09:11:00
Last summer I made this style of jam jar cover (picture above) on a whim. The idea of the shape and the way it would fit around the glass jar came in to my head and then translated into fabric and ribbon. I didn't make them to sell but I did find that I had private messages sent to me via email asking for certain quantities of them, which I duly made and whizzed off. That experience was exciting for me as it showed me for the first time how something that I liked but didn't even think of adding to my shop was also liked by others. This last Sunday LBH and I were out and about and I picked up the latest copy of Country Living magazine. I saw that they had included an article on how to make jam. If Country Living are getting ready for jam making season then so am I!!! So, this year I am making and selling a set of three different jam jar covers for your kitchens. The set contains one of each colour group... Green & Gingham Floral & Pink Red, White & Blue A...
More About: Covers

Table Make-Over ...... FINALLY!
2008-05-26 11:37:00
Today is a holiday in England and we were going to wake up this morning and go out for a run. However the wind is racing through the trees outside of our house, the rain is horizontal and its really chilly, even indoors. So instead of running in the the morning sun I am blogging. Which is just as nice as it means I get to show off a long standing WIP. This table was painted white about a year ago and has had the recipe books that I keep in my kitchen on it for that length of time. But it was Yvonne and this post that pushed me into finally doing something a little more imaginative with it and although I use a slightly different technique to Yvonne I have her to thank for the push! So, here it is. Painted white but needing a little extra something. I cut some green polka dot oil cloth to size. I didn't want to cover the whole table but only to add a runner to the top of it. Leaving white wood on show along either side. I pulled the oilcloth tight across the...
More About: Finally , Make , Table

Stepping Out With My Baby
2008-05-23 10:27:00
  Yesterday was LBH's day. We left our town in the morning and headed off in the direction of the station. Weddings are so focused on the bride for nearly all of the time, and quite right too, but I felt it only fair to let LBH have a special day out from behind his desk and get involved in the frivolities. Let's see how he got on shall we?   Fortunately for us the weather was on our side and although it was sunny and warm it wasn't sticky. Let me tell you we would not have bought a thing had it been sticky. LBH doesn't do shopping and sticky on the same day. We picked up our tickets just before the train pulled in and headed off in to London. I love our train station. When I first saw it I knew that I'd love living here. It has won all sorts of floral and decorative awards and at Christmas, well at Christmas the girls who work there make a huge effort to make it sparkle. Good on them I say!   So we left the green and the yellow..... &nbs...
More About: Baby

Daily Confetti
2008-05-21 08:30:00
Mention the word confetti and immediately you think of the stuff that’s thrown at weddings. Be it rice, bits of paper in the shape of hearts and bells or even dried flowers at some weddings, although I’ve never had a penchant for pot pourri to be tipped on top of my bridal gown, each to their own I suppose. These days however confetti can also be used in the home and most notably at the table every single day. You can be so imaginative with table confetti and it really is only our imaginations that will stop our tables from becoming not only culinary delights but visual treats also. So, in the name of all things delightful here are some ideas that you may like to try. Petals. You can see from the picture how I have used petals in my own home. The ones shown are silk rose petals and I chose a very soft green to go with a more vibrant pink. Petals of this sort, be they real or not, are my top tip for a day with the girls, a bridal party or a baby shower.  Flower heads. ...
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One Year On
2008-05-19 10:17:00
We moved in to our house a year ago this past weekend. The last year has been an amazing ride. I remember sitting out at the front of the house in the early morning sun last summer and saying to LBH's mum "There is no buzz bigger than having your own house" She replied with "Until you hold a baby of your own in your arms" So true, so true. It seems appropriate that the first rose from the climber that surrounds our front door has peeked out to say "happy anniversary" and I am becoming more and more convinced of the fact that we only ever need look to the earth and nature itself in order to be truly inspired by what is the first, the one and the only genuine creativity. I say this as I'm starting a new project and I can only thank my lucky stars that there is so much loveliness around at the moment to look at and scribble down. I include in the loveliness all the recent comments to this blog about the honeysuckle, the Italian seasoning that I app...
More About: Year

The Sweet Simplicity of Happiness : Part Six
2008-05-14 10:29:00
Our garden was given a great surprise recently with the growth and flowering of this magnificent honeysuckle. Our brilliant neighbours planted this before we had even moved into the house and just look at how it has spread over to our side of the garden too! The colours and the syrupy fragrance are well known and LBH and I are both feeling rather grateful to have this welcome visitor. Last year was entirely focused on the inside of the house and this year we have been pottering in the garden at every spare opportunity. Boo rolls around getting to know the other feline neighbours, I add organic compost to the beds and LBH lifts bags of sand and heavy tiles. You can see who got the short end of the stick in this year’s project. And the honeysuckle? The honeysuckle just is and in so doing reminds us to ‘just be’ from time to time too. Cherry xoxox PS My latest SheerLuxe article can be found here! Pop on over and have a browse......
More About: Happiness , Sweet , Simplicity , Part

Signature Sprinkle
2008-05-12 09:30:00
Last year while in Italy we took a day trip to a town called Greve which lies in the Chianti region. It began to pour down while we were there and the rain fell out of the sky so quickly that before long there were mini torrents of water running along the gutters and into the drains of the streets. We needed to take shelter and fast or else our feet would have remained wet for the entire day and it wasn't yet lunchtime. Luckily for us the place we decided to dry off in was an Italian food store. I'm not sure whether you would have been the same but the sigh of pure joy that I'm sure emanated from deep within my chest was greater than if I had entered a designer shoe shop. Stacked floor to ceiling was produce and dry food products which would take me at least a day to make my way through but knowing that we wouldn't be there for very long I started to fill my basket. I came away with a jar of truffles in oil, rainbow coloured vegetable pasta which existed in such beautiful colo...
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The Day Draws Ever Closer......
2008-05-09 10:41:00
This is an image of the invite that is going out to female ( & one male, Hey Sam!!!) friends of mine. In England we call this event a Hen Night. I struggle with this concept as I'm not hugely in to male strippers and cakes shaped like a man's willy. So I'm going down a more sedate, if not just as naughty route, with my pre-wedding party. You may need to click on the invite to read it properly but I am so enthralled by the area that I live in right now that I just don't want to leave it, even for an evening. So I figured that I'd have everyone round to mine. I'm planning, along with the gorgeous Louise, Jodie & Jackie, a day and evening inspired by all sorts of people, places and things. Summer in England is one and I'm being nothing but positive about the weather until the day arrives. Eeeek! The odd tea dress may make an appearance. The Mitford girls. I read this book last summer and although I can't recommend anybody ever hanging out with Hitler I lov...
More About: Closer

The River Cottage
2008-05-06 08:48:00
The house you can see in the distance is the River Cottage . This is the new location on the West Dorset/Devon border and LBH and I had yet to visit since it moved from just outside of Bridport. LBH surprised me with a day spent at the new headquarters, a tour of the gardens and livestock followed by lunch cooked by the River Cottage kitchen staff way back on Valentines Day this year and we'd been waiting about two and half months for the day to roll around. Eeeek!! Any longtime readers to this blog will know how I feel about the River Cottage, its ethos and just how much good they do in making folk aware of the food they eat and where it comes from. Hugh's Chicken Out campaign was a huge success and sales of free range chickens were so high, and continue to be so, that many of the big supermarkets struggled, and possibly still do, to meet the demand. Ahhhhhhh, the power of television! We did so much in our day at River Cottage and learnt so much about what they are doing and...

Must Have, Latest, Simply Can't Get Through S/S 2008........My Bonny Bl
2008-04-30 19:41:00
I have several baskets like this mooching about the house, as I'm sure many of you do. I tell them that if they are to stay and not be given away as part of a gift bundle or housewarming present then they have to look like they are enjoying themselves and make themselves somewhat useful. This particular basket paid no heed to my warnings and skulked around looking awfully dull. I even moved the basket to a position with a much better view. From atop this pile of books one can see right across the kitchen and down the hallway. I got no change in behaviour at all and something had to be done. Now I like love the shape of this basket. Its classical and romantic, not too big or small and has a super handle so because of this it was spared re-homing but I did insist on giving it a make - over. And this is the result. I'd really like to say that the inspiration to go for the colour blue was my idea but my mother was the bright spark there. We were in a wonderful french inspired...
More About: Simply , 2008

The First One
2008-04-28 10:28:00
As an English person I wait for this type of weekend, the first of its kind this year, with an anticipation that I can only liken to a dog eager to go out for a walk. Lots of tail wagging, tongue dripping, panting and whining. This weekend was the first real weekend where it was warm enough to be out in the garden without my long sleeved thermal vest. It was bright enough not to have to worry about hours of rain and there was a smell in the air. The smell of a sunny weekend day in England. If you've ever smelt it you'll know what I'm talking about. I'm having my bachelorette party here at my house and in my garden so LBH and I are working hard to get it looking pretty for the day in July. Say hello to a new addition to our garden family, Jasmine. LBH and I both have fond memories of the scent of Jasmine which filled our noses on a daily basis while we were in Italy last spring, so when we saw this beautiful version we picked her up and brought her home with us. If you st...

Going To The Chapel
2008-04-23 21:38:00
I wailed to a friend recently "Why are these learning curves always so steep, I'm tired, I wanna get off" But you know, when the lessons are this good and the answers like individual, daily epiphanies I never, ever want those learning curves to get any less steep. I was in the house on Monday and I was moaning. An ongoing conversation full of questions running through my head. Why can't I cut this fabric to the right size? Why is it still raining? Why are the channel taking so long to come back? Why do I not feel like going for a run? Why am I so tired? Perhaps I need to go for a run? Why am I still getting huge, massive zits on my chin when I'm almost thirty three? Maybe a run would sort that out? Oh. My. God. Why can't I cut a simple piece of fabric to the right size EVER? Mmmmmm......what a load of bollox. Vacuous bollox. Draining, unrelenting thoughts about yours truly. I only needed to do one thing to lift me out of this miasma of self centeredness and...
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Hints, Tips, Trims & Things - The Big 'O' and Starting Small
2008-04-21 10:37:00
Over in my forum we have been discussing the big 'O' - organisation. We've been told for a long time by experts, lifestyle gurus  and people that have been successful in many fields how being organised is one key to all sorts of mini successes, and large ones come to that, within our lives, homes and businesses. I absolutely agree with them. Its freeing to be organised and very disconcerting not to be. Over the last year since we moved in to our house my future hubby and I have been slowly getting sorted. As the postman has delivered papers and bills to us we have gradually worked out a filing system that works for both of us. The kitchen cupboards and the contents of them have been switched around and played with so that we are both happy when rustling up a meal and recently we've been working on a 'one in, one out' premise - we were given two new white bathroom towels recently so we re-cycled two not so white towels and removed them from the linen cupboard.... you get...
More About: Tips , Small , Things , Hints

Like Snow in Rosebud - home ware by Cherry Menlove is now open for trading!
2008-04-13 17:55:00
Wow, I beat my own deadline. I wanted to be hitting publish on my revamped on-line store, Like Snow in Rosebud, tomorrow morning. It appears that I did more preparation than I had previously thought and so its up and running NOW, which is GREAT. There were times along the way when I seriously doubted ever having a shop to tend to again. I think I lost my crafty mojo last year, which is understandable as it was all house, house, house. Of course now the house is tickety boo I am finding that I am working on creating products that I would like to use myself. Take my new 'Flying Fancies'. They are colourful flags for use in food. I have a bunch of these sitting by my desk for my own personal use this spring/summer. I can envisage large plates of cupcakes and picnics full of teeny sandwiches that would look great accessorized by these. You can visit the store front and wander around at your leisure by following this link...... 'Like Snow in Rosebud' home ware by Cherry Menlove I...
More About: Home , Trading , Open , Ware

Let Me Out!
2008-04-09 15:13:00
The room I work in/make stuff in and write in when I am at home is not big. Not big at all. So after having spent a great deal of time in this room over the recent weeks I am very ready to leave it and come out to play. In the past I have had a real tendency to put things off until I think the thing is perfect and ready to be looked at by others eyes but I think Nike summed up my current mood which is one of  'Just do it'. Just do it so that I can leave this bloody room and get some air! So, I'm hitting publish on my new and improved on-line shop - Like Snow in Rosebud - on Monday, 14th of April. I had originally aimed for Valentines Day as the day I would be selling again. Mmmmmmm......now what happened there?!?!?!? I've photographed the products I'm ready to go with and now they just have to be entered in to the site. I have the luxury of being able to add products as and when I can and will be popping more up as the days go by. I don't have any fancy photographi...

A Morning Making Madeleines
2008-04-03 09:30:00
Last week I bought myself a new Madeleine tin from our local bakeshop. I wish I could show you this teeny, weeny shop. Full to the rafters of every type of baking aide you could ever wish to use. Each and every square inch of this tiny place is covered, including the ceiling, with treasures. I opted for the silicon version of the baking tray but may pop back and get the metal tin as I do like the romance attached to that version. Anyway, I had this notion that I wanted to spend a few mornings perfecting the art of the Madeleine, I'm not quite sure if I managed it but it was certainly a lovely way to pass some time. The thing with Madeleine's is that they are so very easy to put together and its the baking tray that does all of the fancy work for you. They take between 16 - 20 minutes to bake and in that time you can have a dozen ready to go. They also derive their roots from France and if there's something I love it's french baking. I was speaking to a gorgeous girl ye...
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A Whole World Of Before & Afters
2008-03-25 11:04:00
I started one of our most risky make-over projects yesterday. We had ummmmed and ahhhhed over doing this since we moved in but really wanted to make sure that we were doing the right thing so have waited this long (ten months) before taking the plunge. I shall do a reveal/show & tell as soon as its all finished but starting on this project did get me thinking about all of the changes which have taken place in the house since we moved in. The front of the house.... The Living Room...... And, the guest bedroom..... to use three examples. I have uploaded a huge amount of before and after pictures to my flickr account and created a set called Our House - Before & After which can be found in its entirety here! I'm becoming rather obsessed with my little flickr account. I am very late, as usual, in realising just how useful it is to have your pictures uploaded, tagged and stored somewhere. I opened a flickr account about two years ago but sort of for...
More About: World

Two Tiny Babies , Two Fat Ladies ......Oh, and One Magazine Article
2008-03-16 18:57:00
It always feels a little odd after having posted a personal blog. You never quite know if you've done the right thing, but the emails that have popped into my inbox over the last few days convinced me that it was all OK and I shall finish responding to them over the next two days. I had my most recent epiphany on Friday just before lunch and a true weight was lifted from my shoulders. Its now up to me to remember the decisions I made at that time. Hanging out with the girls and taking all sorts of smiley and bath-time pictures helps. LBH had whizzed off for the night on Saturday as there was some sort of 'boy celebration' to be had. I wasted no time at all in offering to help Jo-Jo with the monkey-doodles for the night. Daisy is up there, smiling away, goodness she's gorgeous!! So full of character and thoughts and REALLY tight hugs. Jo-Jo calls her a tree frog and the minute she gripped on to my own arm and buried her head in the crook of my neck I knew exactly what she was ta...
More About: Magazine , Babies , Article , Tiny , Ladies

Madonna Or A Bubble Bath Bubble
2008-03-12 21:13:00
I'm sitting here cutting out teeny weeny felt tree trunks for a project and thinking about Madonna , as she's just been inducted in to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I like Madonna. Not because she burns crosses in her videos or has a penchant for simulating masturbation on stage, or even because she has a much better body than me at nearly fifty years old when I'm only thirty two. I like her because she is still here. Lets be honest, we all have days when we feel like Madonna - or a Madonna type figure - powerful, brave, ballsy, carefree and then we have others when we feel like a bubble made by the bubble bath we use. Fragile, ready to be popped and never seen again with the most fragile of touches. We can look around us and it can appear as if everything is perfect - so why do we want to cry? The room shown in this post is our guest room. This room has the advantage of almost never being untidy, simply because its used less than the other rooms. I come in to this roo...
More About: Bath , Bubble

Still On The Mis-Matched Tip
2008-03-10 09:45:00
As a storm rages across England and I snuggle down into the depths of my study/crafty room/ place where if you don't look closely you won't see me for all of the STUFF laying around, I thought it was time to tell you of my love of postcards. I love postcards. OK, thats it, I've told you, see ya, BYYEEEEEE!!!............................. .hee hee! I love their size and shape, the classic postcard I'm referring to, and I love the fact that you could decorate your entire home with postcards picked up on your travels and it would appear as if you had little works of art all over your walls. I have carefully chosen postcards on my fridge and an entire row of vintage postcards balancing on the skirting board of my guest-room. I am going to be sprucing up the frames that this collection sits in and I'll post them here. They are all from Lake Como and need a little more attention than they have been given of late. Anyway, I picked up the three postcards in the first picture wh...

Easter Bunny Cosy Project - brought to you by Cherry Menlove & Yvestown
2008-03-05 06:18:00
When she's behaving my bunny cosy sits nicely, with the flowers and the easter nest. She'll even give you a twirl and show you her cotton tail bottom. Sometimes she is naughty and hops off to hide in the crocuses. But she always comes back and will perhaps settle down for a spot of reading. But when you can't find her ANYWHERE, she's usually to be found in the cookie jar! Woo hoo! Today is the day that Yvonne and I launch our Easter Bunny Cosy project, Download easterbunnycozy.pdf  Yvonne and I have had some great chats on the phone recently and she actually came up with the cosy idea, I promised to come up with the next one, which I'll be popping across to her any day now! We really want you all to have great fun coming up with an Easter Bunny cosy or cosies of your own. Create a character or better yet a whole family of them and DON'T FORGET to blog about it and upload it in to the Easter Bunny Cozy Flickr group that has been set up especially. I suppo...
More About: Project , Cherry

Mis-Matched Fun On Mothering Sunday
2008-03-03 08:29:00
Yesterday was Mothering Sunday in the U.K. and so LBH and I invited everybody over to ours for a spot of lunch. We were going to be having ten of us around the table at two pm and when there are that many of us the table comes into its own mis-matched glory. I have been collecting odd bits of crockery for years now. I often see one lonesome plate or a group of saucers which when put together with the rest of my collection seem to sit rather well. It would be nice to think that someday we'll be setting the table with Villeroy & Boch, but if that never happens I'm more than happy with my odd bits of Royal Doulton and Spode. There is a plate in my mis-matched collection which is important to me and sits there so beautifully that if anything ever happened to it I'd be devastated. You can see it in the picture above. The creamy, pale blue trim of the plate, edged by the daintiest gold pattern you ever did see. It almost seems a shame to place anything resembling food onto the...

The Start Of My Easter Tree
2008-02-26 20:29:00
Here is the start of my Easter tree for this year. It resides in the hallway atop my Singer phone table and is no longer on the plate that you see in the picture. My aim for this year was to begin the run up to Easter with a fairly bare tree and see what goodies and random bits and bobbles I would end up attaching to its branches by the time Easter was done and dusted. Recently, LBH and I rid ourselves of some Hazel branches which were growing in a crazy way at the bottom of the garden. So I nabbed one of them and painted it Green Ground, using one of my ever trusty Farrow & Ball sample pots. When it was dry I plunged it into one of two white ceramic bedpans that I own, but which look far prettier as planters or receptacles for pretty Easter trees than their original use. Bleugh..... bed pan..... BLEEEUUUGGHHH!!!!! I covered the soil up with some bright green, 'straw like' material that I picked up in Salzburg and placed two tiny sheep in amongst it, in order that t...
More About: Start , Tree

I Could Have Sworn I Showed You This.........
2008-02-25 09:18:00
I had a couple of thoughts over the weekend that related to my previous post about a television presenter and the subject of focusing on all things perfect. At times I thought that I really should have been MORE aware that posting about this particular topic  and television show was incendiary but its important to own and take responsibility for what one writes whilst blogging and I do feel strongly about the enormous amount of pressure that seems to bleed in to our lives from various corners. That said I am now moving on to a subject that I was convinced I told you about already but my published post are having a ball telling me otherwise. Our Bathroom - I previously posted about here, way back in June of last year. Here are a few reminder pics of how it used to look......... And here is how it looks now........ Photo by Colin Poole, Photoworld Ltd Photo by Colin Poole, Photoworld Ltd These pictures were taken for the magazine shoot way back in September and...

'Perfection' ........"What the...........!!!!!!"
2008-02-20 21:14:00
I am so mad right now. Steaming mad not just simmering! No, hang on, I'm not mad I'm frustrated...SEVERELY SO! There has been something that I have been unable to put my finger on, a question that I have been unable to answer and now I have found the answer I find myself in a state of frustration. Like I have on a million layers of clothing and someone has sat me in a sauna, that kind of frustration! OK, I'm going to do my best to explain this but I have no idea whether or not it will translate well or come across the way its intended to, so I'm going for broke and grasping at the limited amount of language that I have at my disposal. I'm also going to use pictures of cake to illustrate my point. When I meet people from the world of television the question that is levelled at me more than any other is this one "So, what makes you any different to 'insert the name of a British television presenter, turned television housewife, who teaches you how to be 'perfect' here...
More About: Perfection

Come Fly With Me......
2008-02-18 20:34:00
......to Salzburg, Austria. LBH and I came back yesterday from spending three days in this magical city. What makes it magical? Well, it's a city where you can eat chocolate cake at ten in the morning in the sumptuous surroundings of Demel's. ...... ......and then go through to the shop and browse the sugared violets, laying in splendour in glass cages. You can walk out into the street and catch an unusual, yet utterly charming, form of transport.... or, play Posh Spice to Mozart's David Beckham........ ...and then go and purchase some of his silver balls (!!!!!!!!!!!!) You can drink Gin Martini's in 1930's inspired cafes...... .......while watching young  people play the merry game of dating..... ....and then fall in love all over again as the one you adore drinks beer from a 'man mug'!!!!   You can light candles together and say secret prayers that are between you and God.......    ......and stare up at beautiful ceili...

Everything In Its Place
2008-02-13 11:37:00
On Monday I worked on the kitchen. I had been colonising again and all of my fabric, trims, threads, papers, beads etc had made their way down the stairs and onto the kitchen table. They will keep doing that!!!! If I've told them once I've told them a thousand times etc,etc!!LBH and I had been eating on our laps since the start of the year and it had started to get boring! I just can't stand to see an entire surface covered with 'stuff'. Stuff that, although important, was taking up space which should be dedicated and saved for other activities. Such as eating, conversing, winding down after a long day and greeting people as they walk into my kitchen. So it was time to take back my table and finally tackle and organise  the 'stuff' which would be heading back up the stairs and into it's proper room. For my latest SheerLuxe article I have discussed this frenzied day of sorting and recommend a website and some products which will help if you are thinking about doing t...
More About: Place

He Seemed To Know What Was Needed & That Was To Follow The Sun
2008-02-11 09:32:00
Good lord, what a week last week was. It was FANBLOODYTASTIC on many levels but I ended it by eating a bowl of pasta on the sofa and falling asleep at about 8.15pm on Friday night without ever really feeling the benefit of the fire that LBH had made in the hearth. Although I did wake up SUPER HOT and rather red of face before taking myself off to bed at around 10pm so I suppose I got something from it. Last week was a week of meetings and tests. I'm very lucky to be building relationships with people in the television industry and find that they are as passionate and as practical as I am. I think that sometimes the industry can be given bad press as a place of insincerity but as long as you're not unrealistic I think that its possible to  forge working relationships with folk from every (within reason) industry and there is a lot to be excited about no matter what happens. I also took my driving test - and passed. I had been driving around for AGES, years in fact, ...