Nadja's Very Special Card

Those who work from home will understand that sometimes you miss
the daily interaction with the rest of the human race, especially your customers.
Being an online shopkeeper is a lot less chatty than selling your wares over the counter.
People order and I post their parcels and occasionally they email or send a card back to tell me how happy they are with their new bag - and that makes my day.
This week I was blown away by Nadja's purple thank you card.
I was asked to make a bag printed with "Nadja's bag of love" and lots of hearts and stars.
I didn't know anything about Nadja until I received this card - and it made me smile all day.
I'm going to take a leaf out of her book and send more cards - spread the love!

LOVE & PEACE

Sally
x

NO PLANES

What an extraordinary week it has been. If someone had told us that this would happen nobody would have believed it but here we are with a volcano close by and the travelling public are all over the place. We all know someone who is either stuck here waiting to go or stuck somewhere else not able to get back. My darling daughter was in the queue at the airport on Thursday waiting to fly to the US and now hopes to go on Tuesday (she says by the way that British Airways staff have been incredibly helpful - credit where its due!) other friends have been taking Trains, Boats and Automobiles to get back home.
It's a tough one.
I met a lady today who should have been in Russia at her only son's wedding and there will be tragic stories too. It's all too easy to say GREAT NO POLLUTING PLANES but it isn't great if you are a flower grower in Tanzania who won't be paid for flowers that could not be delivered or a surgeon who cannot cross the world to save a life.
Perhaps the best thing that could come out of this is more funding for solar powered planes - they are being tested now in Switzerland.
Maybe......the volcano will calm down and everything will get back to normal.

Nobody knows the answer right now.
love & peace
and get home safely
x
Sally

EASTER HOLIDAYS

I recently gave up buying newspapers in a big sulk after the
Observer changed everything I liked about it but today I woke up early and succumbed to Sunday Paper Temptation. Tucked inside the Observer is a section of the New York Times which I like to read because it makes me feel more Metropolitan. Anyway, this morning there is a diagram of the Plastiki craft which has begun its journey across the ocean. The craft is constructed from plastic bottles and is travelling across the ocean to focus the world's attention on the massive floating island of plastic wste in the Pacific. They are following the route of the 1947 Kontiki expedition, which was one of the more inspiring things I remember from my schooldays. That expedition leader Thor Heyerdal's name, although probably not its correct spelling, is one I always remember despite forgetting those of my closest friends when I turn to introduce them..." this is er...my friend" I digress. Read all about the Plastiki and track their progress on this site http://www.theplastiki.com/trackplastiki
There is a button on their site where you can pledge not to buy any more bottled water - its a tough one when we have all grown so used to it but I have good intentions so I have clicked on that button. A shocking fact on their site is that 50% of all plastic waste is in the sea. We have to start picking up after people who don't know any better and perhaps someday they will notice and join in.
love peace
...and a bit of chocolate

Sally
x

The antidote to grey

I live by the sea and I'm lucky, I know.
When the sky is brilliantly blue so is the sea, but the same goes for grey and these grey skies are spoiling my sea view. My antidote to this is to surround myself with colour. My workroom is a riot of pattern and colour so I gather up an armful of fabric, sweep aside the breakfast dishes and clear the kitchen table for fabric cutting. I delve into a box filled with ribbons, rick rack and fringes and spend half an hour sorting out old buttons from the tin. Now my old Bernina is raring to go and I've finished my mug of tea so I'll sign this off and make beautiful bags to brighten up the day.

love & peace
Sally
x
STOP PRESS: MIRACLE TO REPORT - SUN NOW SHINING OUT OF BLUE SKY ON TWINKLY BLUE SEA!

IT'S SNOW TIME!

CARRY-A-BAGS ON MY SNOWY APPLE TREE

It has been ages since I've posted a blog one of the reasons is that something has changed on
blogger so my saved sign-in details are no longer recognised. Remember when we only had a pin number to remember those were the days! Now I have long lists of combinations of letters and numbers stored in my head - and inevitably they do get mixed up. Anyway - that's why I've been so quiet.
Two thousand and ten has a good ring to it and I am full of hope. Hope is good but I have heard that optimism should be diluted with a good dash of realism. So I shall hope for a good year but
not pretend its going to be a breeze.

Love & Peace
xx
Sally

Carry a Christmas Shopping Bag

Last week was a bit of a milestone for plastic bags as the Welsh environment minister announced her intention to make it law in Wales for retailers to charge customers between 5p-15p (maybe 5p for useless bags and 15p for really smart ones?) for every plastic bag they use. She gets my vote - even though I'm not eligible to vote in Wales. Reading Lucy Siegel's column in the Observer yesterday I detected that she has moved on to greater issues and was a bit dismissive about the importance of refusing plastic bags in a saving the planet sort of way. It would be a shame if now that 'ordinary folk' have taken the idea to heart it has loses some of its momentum - I hope I misread between the lines. She did however remind us that each bag takes 1000 years to bio-degrade so we should re-use the ones we have over and over again. I'm with her on that and I have no doubt that if its raining and I've just bought some presents I will want the waterproof properties of plastic - so I'll be carrying the best of the under-sink stash from back in the day with me when I shop this Christmas instead of saying yes to any new ones.
Six weeks to go!
love & peace
Sally
xxx

New venture for Autumn.

I have neglected the blog for a very good reason - I've been writing a book - well not so much writing more 'putting together'. Three of us have formed a small publishing company called SeaSaw Books - because we live by the sea and this is what we saw. Our first book arrived back from the printers on Friday and we launched it last weekend at the local Seafood & Wine Festival. A whopping success it was too!
It is called the Little Hastings Fish Cook Book and it features more than fifty recipe contributions from family, friends, fishmongers and chefs with the focus being on the fish our local fleet brings ashore each day. They are not permitted to land any cod until March 2010 because of the EU quota system. It allows them to catch a certain amount of cod each year and because it is quite plentiful around Hastings they have already caught theirs! Now they have to throw back all the cod they catch - dead. How crazy and disrespectful is that?
Our idea was to encourage people to buy the less usual choices such as Gurnard, Huss, Squid and Coley as well as Sole, Plaice and even Lobster - which are all caught in these waters. We have had such fun reading and testing recipes and my husband Stewart has been doing the illustrations on the beach. Debi Angel our world famous designer has put all of this together to make a perfect little cook book for a fiver - Can't say fairer than that guv! Our website is up and soon there will be a Paypal checkout where you can get your copy - a perfect stocking filler. Oh I am SO proud of this! And dear friends ...on the inside back page I sneaked in a little message to ask people not to use plastic bags.

Happy Autumn
love & peace
Sally xx