I am disturbed to report that we may actually be living amongst a whole NETWORK of pirates, not just the one as we had first feared.  The other day I walked out of the front door and spotted ‘it’, billowing gently in the wind.  ‘It’ was very cleverly concealed, behind a garden wall and a tree, but directly in the line of vision of the pirate next door’s bedroom window. ‘It’ does not (I assume) belong to the pirate, but one of his ‘hearties’ in the next road.  ‘It’…. is a large, real, live, pirate FLAG.  I stood for a moment, stunned by my discovery and wondering if, perhaps we live on a mound of buried treasure.(..?)

Further concerns mounted this morning as I heard what sounded like numerous trees being chopped down.  I expect they are building a ship, or some treasure chests - who knows?  It is all very mysterious and I shall try to capture a photo of the flag as evidence (…without getting arrested).

The female graphic designer’s bliss…  Nice little things!!  That is certainly what MOO provide.  When I saw the advert in Design Week I was intrigued enough to have a look, but had already written them off as costing a fortune.  Wrong.  £9.99 gets you 100 customised mini calling cards which are totally cool and for just £4.99 you can get a sticker book!  Great presents I reckon and probably a market with the potential for growth.  Well done Moo, good work.

Christmas is coming!!  Woohooooo!!  I am delicately recovering from a stomach bug (apparently a virus that 600  000 people get every year!!)  which, due to my IBS stayed inside me for five days before rearing its ugly head on Friday night.  I feel a lot better today but still a bit delicate, so taking it easy.  Yesterday I crawled up Daisybank with JT to collect holly, ivy and moss to make a wreath.  I then spent a happy half hour making it whilst JT went to the Path curry (yes, he is feeling better!!)

Rad Gran is in hospital and apparently a bit hyper on oxygen…  Oh dear.  Still, if it is keeping her cheery then that is good.  At the moment she is suffering from a chain reaction, there is a problem with her heart and fluid on her lungs, but the medication causes a kidney problem (I Think?!) and her potassium levels are too high.  However, she fights on and still manages to come out with funny things (not quite sure what they are giving her!)  I can’t go to see her until I am better but I hope she won’t be in over Christmas, because she finds Christmas almost as exciting as I do!

Well it is that classic time of the year for us business owners…  Everyone owes us money and is trying to avoid paying it.  In the meantime, our cashflow sucks.  We just went and did a Christmas shop at Aldi, thinking “Oh it’ll be much cheaper!”  Er….Wrong.  They sell loads of nice stuff in Aldi!!

Having said that people try to avoid payment, I must take this opportunity to salute Owen Clay of Marble Cake who pays us at lightning speed every time.  Thumbs up that design agency!

So a fun afternoon will be spent sifting through the invoices and sending out a few red ones.  Merry Christmas everybody!!

Well we are still poorly T’s, but earlier I finished decorating the tree to cheer JT up - here it is! I had a bit of help from the cats, which was… Well, interesting, but I think they have decided to leave it alone for a minute or two now.

Not quite sure why Monty has double eyes….  :-S

Apologies to all for not being as blog-prolific as usual of late….  Uni work, paid work and life in general has been going a bit crazy in thr run up to Christmas.  However, I break up on Friday and intend to blog more regularly.  It is currently 4am…  Poor JT has been up all night with a bad stomach bug and I am not feeling at all good either.  I am hoping it is just my IBS and that I haven’t caught the bug as well otherwise it could be a bit of a nightmare.  I will keep you posted…

Just lately I have worried myself…  I have had a mad urge to plant some vegetables!!!  Am I becoming domesticated??!  I might have to go and do something crazy like buy some big pink trainers…. Oops.  Ok I think I am safe.

I thought that I should start simply so today JT and I enjoyed the first fruits of our labour - egg, cress and mustard sandwiches!!   I was so pleased!  Broad beans next…  Then onions!  These were the only seeds that we could find in Robert Young that could be planted at this time of year.

I will update you as they grow…