Birthday wishes

It's the first of October already and Autumn is really with us now. We've had a few nippy frosts but amazingly the garden is still in flower. I'm loving the changing colours that are slowly starting to emerge, showing signs of the garden going into hibernation until next year.

Today was a special day for a couple of reasons. It's my little brothers birthday today, although he's no longer little! Twenty years old today and a good 6ft 4", he more than towers over me!

It's also the 4th Birthday of Primrose Hill Interiors. I can still remember my business adviser telling me to pick a date and work towards it - so I did. I'd spent the whole summer working on the first collection and getting all the "business stuff" done. By that Christmas we were supplying our first outlet, The Fotheringham Gallery, and I was selling work. At last I'd made it, I was my own boss!

So it's quite fitting that now, four years on, we are in the midst of creating a studio for me to work in. I will at last have "somewhere to go to work"!!! It's all too easy to get distracted while working from the spare room, washing to hang out, a bit of tidying to do, you know how it is, and I do struggle at times! I'm soooo looking forward to packing up my little lunch basket and tootling across the drive to my little studio, where I can be creative all day and turn a blind eye to the chaos that resides in the cottage!



A little corner of the studio will also allow me to "play" shopkeeper!, this is the bit I'm most looking forward to....... Being able to go back to the roots of my degree and really get creative, oooh I'm so excited, can you tell?

So, in between sewing, I've been holding bits of wood for Gregg, and at the end of day three we now have the floor joists down and the back wall frame built, not bad huh? ( the photo shows the end of day two).


I'll keep you posted on the progress!

L x

Loving this life

It's Friday, yet another week has flown in, and it's truely feeling like Autumn now.

I wasn't really prepared for the heart warming feeling you get when harvesting from the garden, it really is quite magical. We had our first carrots tonight, along with some peas (we've had a bumper crop of them this year) and some broccoli. It always amazes me how the simplest things in life can make you so happy.

I'm loving going for peaceful evening walks, enjoying the last of the sun low in the sky.

Lighting the fires, the smell of the wood.

It's our wedding anniversary this weekend, 7 years, where has that time gone? We're both happy and settled and enjoying the peace.

Have a good weekend.

L x

A gardening day

Inspired was how I felt yesterday, truly inspired. I came home and made a list of seeds and plants to buy for next year. Where did this inspiration come from I here you ask? Well, earlier this year I joined a gardening group and yesterday was a day out nosying at other folks gardens, bliss!

We visited two gardens, both close to home, so coffee and cake was provided here at Mill of Fyall in between visits. The fact that it was a gorgeous day helped too mind.

The first garden was large and terraced, the views across the valley were quite amazing. The borders were filled with stunning roses, an abundance of clematis, aswell as many other beauties. Every time you turned there was a different scent lingering in the air.

The second garden took my breath away, the owner, a garden designer, has a little piece of paradise on her door step, I could have stayed in that garden forever. Quite formal, but flowing effortlessly, your eye was constantly pulled on to the next episode of the story and your nose was tickled with the scents of sweet peas, lilies and more delectable roses.

So, a rather large list was made last night, Sarah Raven here I come!

L x

P.S. If you fancy a cosy country break, the second garden that we visited has holiday lets, have little peak here.

Busy bee

It's been a busy old week this week, trying to wade through a HUGE order for a shop in Portree - I'll be glad when it's finished!

A little sandy beach on Eriskay looking over to S. Uist.

The gang at the hostel.

The hostel at Howmore.

Here's some more photos from the Uists, we camped for three nights at the hostel at Howmore. A great little place with a lovely atmosphere, we met up with some super people there, with whom we shared evenings of flying the kite on the beach, fishing and playing scrabble - great fun. The days were spent looking for otters (which we saw), listening to Corncrakes and dotting around the islands looking at various artists work during the arts festival, just my cup of tea!

A gorgeous little croft house.

Wild orchids.

Otter watching.

Unfortunately it's gotten to that time of year again when the "C" word (Christmas!) is being banded around the house like it's just around the corner, not something that I particlurly enjoy, seeing as the sun is shining and it is actually quite warm outside! Hey ho, the joys of being wrapped up in the world of retail...............(ha ha!)

Enjoy your weekend.

L x

P.S. Thank you to the lovely ladies Marie and Tracy for the awards, will post about them next week.

Harris & Lewis

As promised more photos of the holiday. We started our little island hopscotch by sailing over to Harris, one of the most spectacular places on earth. As we drove to the south of the island to spend our first night in the sweetest little B&B ever, all we could do was soak up the amazing scenery of one golden beach after the other.

An evening stroll along Scarista beach

Sorrel Cottage B&B, Leverburgh, a stunningly simple, home from home place to rest your head, made even more special by the lovely warm welcome from it's owner Paula.

Flying the kite on Luskentyre beach, Harris.

Luskentyre is also home to Luskentyre Harris Tweed Company, we had a great chat with Donald, who showed us his workroom, the weaving loom and how it worked. He designed and produced the Harris tweed that was used for the limited edition Nike trainer back in 2004. On looking out of his shop window I asked him where he got his inspiration from, but kind of knew I was looking at it, the aquas of the sea, the golden sands, the pale blue skye and the amazing colours of the machair.

The view from our first nights campsite, at Cliff on the West coast of Lewis. This patch of harebells just gently bobbed in the sea breeze.

Our second nights campsite on the beach at Garenin, the blackhouse village, a conservation village of traditional blackhouses, some of which have been turned into a hostal. There is also a wonderful museum set up as to how the house would have been originally, (another) Donald weaves all day demonstrating to visitors in the weaving shed, and then through in the kitchen there are demostrations of spinning, making oatcakes and the day we were there how to make butter. Theres also a superb little tearoom selling good coffee and great homebaking!

Donald weaving Harris Tweed.

Butter making with a roaring fire in the background.

Looking down through the black village.

Callanish Standing stones.

Feeding the pigs at the Callanish Visitor Centre - really nice little place that do a great bowl of soup, coffee and cake!

Uig Sands, a gorgeous big stretch of sands of Lewis.

Surfers at Dalmore beach, this was probably my favourite beach, a little cove of golden sands, aqua sea and great waves - ooh how I wish I'd had a surf board! It was so hot I ended up sunbathing for the afternoon, stripped down to my bra and my jeans rolled up as there was hardly anyone else there!

We spent our last night on Harris camping at Scarista beach, shown in the first photo. We sat down on the sands with a bottle of wine and watched the sun set (more photos but taken in a different format, will show them later!). It was such a beautiful night, not a single soul on the huge stretch of beach, then, all of a sudden what pops up in front of us but two dolphins! They gave us the pleasure of watching them play for a good five minutes, you can't pay for scenery like that. It just rounded off our first few days perfectly, we were off to The Uists the next day, once we'd seen a bit of the east coast of Harris. I have to admit I was looking forward to a soft bed and a good shower, our second night of B&B....

More to follow on the Uists next week, see you all soon.

L x

Back to work!

Back to work today after two glorious weeks of holiday. To say that we were both a tad stressed before we left would be a bit of an understatement, so our holiday in the Outer Hebrides was just what we were needing. We were lucky enough to get great weather the nights we were camping and met up with some really super folk.

The wildlife is quite amazing over there, and the beaches are just mind blowing, but more on that tomorrow.

As usual the work load has pilled up after two weeks away so we're going to be busy bees over the next few months. We've come home completely inspired by all of the artists living and working over on the islands so it's full steam ahead with building the studio and shop, I've put a deadline of the end of September on it................hmmm, we shall see, watch this space!

Will catch up with you all soon, in the meantime I'll just have to tease you with a couple of photos!

L x

Time to rest

We are away for a much needed break, off up north to the Outer Hebrides.

Any orders will be dealt with on my return to "the office" on 6th August, at last I'm having a proper holiday away from the business!

See you all soon, fingers crossed the sun is shining!

L x

Friday already and family fun

Can't quite believe that it's Friday already, where has the week gone? Maybe it's the fact that we've actually had a proper, summery week of weather up here, washing blowing on the line every day. You know what it's like when you've had visitors, the washing machine is on for about a week after they've left and you always find the odd sock that doesn't belong to you.

Linda, Ian, Hayley, Jordan and Joshie (aunt, uncle and cousins) arrived on Saturday afternoon, thankfully bringing some decent weather with them. We left the boys to put up the marquee and us girls headed off to the berry fields to pick strawberries and raspberries for Sundays pudding. Then we had a mass cookathon on Saturday night, marinading a couple of joints of meet from here, making the chocolate slab cake that was in last months Country Living mag (it's delicious by the way!) and generally catching up.

It was going to be a simple affair, lots of good home cooked food, straw bales to sit on, tables borrowed from the local village hall and foxgloves in jugs on the tables.

Sunday arrived with lots of sun and all of the visitors, nobody got lost on their way here and we all had a marvellous day. There were 30 of us in total and two babies, enough food to feed an army and much fun was had. A very competitive game of football was played, a dead frog was placed in a Prada shoe and another dam was built in the burn.

It made me realise how important family is to me, how important my family is to me and Gregg. We've been together ten years this week, he is as much a part of my family as I am, he's been welcomed with open arms and accepted as part of my life, the way it should be with your extended family. That means a hell of a lot to me right now.

Our home comes into itself when it's full of life, kids running around, laughter filling the air, just general happiness buzzing about the place. It was a very special day, my mum and her five brothers and sisters all together, my grandparents watching most of their grandchildren running around with each other and two great grandchildren bouncing about on folks knees. Bliss.


After the last of the visitors left late on Monday morning the house seemed very quiet, I hate it when it's like that. Never mind, we'll just have to do it again next year.

A year of blogging........

I knew it was coming up but didn't realise it was today....................a year of blogging, where has that time gone? I've had great fun telling you all about our adventures over the last year, doing up the shack, tales of the animals and running a rural business from home. I've also made loads of superb friends over the last year, a couple of which I've even managed to meet up with.

I do find this whole blogging thing a bit crazy, I can't do it every day, I just don't have the time. I know I've been lacking in posts and commenting on others lately but life is just a bit hectic at the moment, I promise I'll get back into the swing of things and catch up with you all again very soon. I think the longer you leave it the harder it is to come back.......?

Anyway, this week is a bit mad, getting ready for the family invasion on Sunday, I think we've got a head count of around 36 people coming and a couple of babies at the moment...........where are we going to put them all?????? And trying to tame the garden is proving to be a case of dodging the torrential down pours, we may all be wearing swimming costumes on Sunday.........!

I promise I'll be back next week with lots of photos and more tales to tell.

Thanks all for letting me share our adventures with you. Sending you all love and hugs.xxx

On a mission..............

Too much wild fun going on here at the moment and now a mad panic before a family gathering of around 40 in less than 2 weeks time.........

Spare room to be painted, the garden to be tamed (?) and a mink to be caught that ate two of our chooks last night, little bugger..............

The joys of country life, it's not all a bed of roses.

Marie Chantal

Just a quick post to let you all know that Maries on-line shop is back up and running. When I did my post the other day on her beautiful products, unfortunately her site was down. So any of you who are interested in her products go have a look, they're delicious!

Today was a bit of a shopping day as I had been car-less for a week, I'll show you my purchases tomorrow and tell you all about the dilemma I found myself in over a pair of wellies!

See you tomorrow.

L x

From the garden.....

All this great weather has brought the garden on in leaps and bounds, veg, flowers and most of all weeds! Except for the parsnips, all the veggies are now planted in the veggie boxes as the last of the frosts are now hopefully past. We've been eating salad nearly every night for the last week, it's fab!

We're having a big family get together next month as we have family over visiting from NZ, so I'm hoping we might have some new potatoes ready for eating and plenty of salads, fingers crossed we might even have some fresh peas..........

I just need to get those second sowings done now.........! What veggies are you all growing?

Lots of news

Gosh, it's Monday already where does time go?!! Thank you to everyone for their well wishes, I'm feeling a million times better, just need to get rid of the horrible cough now!

Lots to tell today, firstly, a post that has been long overdue! The lovely Marie, over at Marie Chantal sent me a parcel a little while back with lots of her beautiful rose skin care products which are scrumptiously packaged. I at last managed to get my return parcel in the post just before I was hit with the lurgy! Marie received her parcel last week and has very kindly posted about it at the weekend, thanks Marie. Having used Marie's products over the last wee while, they are gorgeous! They smell divine and the rose cream is silky smooth and lovely to use. I've also got the Skin Freshener and the Cleanser, which again are both delicious to use. Here's a picture of some of her products ( Marie, I've pinched the picture from your blog as it looks really good, hope you don't mind!)

Marie has just opened up her fabby on-line shop, so head on over there and get buying girls as, luckily for us, she ships overseas!

Another lovely lady who has inspired me lately is Cherry over at Tales from Pixie Wood. I was catching up with her blog, reading about her trip to Florence last week. This time last year we were in Florence, I looked back at some of our photos from the trip and thought about how happy we both looked, it was such a fab holiday. So, feeling a bit "down in the dumps" last week I promptly went about booking us a holiday. Now, in the Hector house this is generally Mr. H's job, and a grand job he always does! But, I needed something to pick up my spirits and get me back into the swing of things, so holiday hunting I did.

Not one to go down the "let's go to the travel agents and let them do it all" route, not that there's anything wrong with that, and to be honest there's probably not a travel agent that could organise this type of holiday, I got surfing on t'internet!!!!! So, where are we off to I hear you all mutter..............

Here's a clue.......................

stunning beaches.....................

rugged landscapes.................................

Have you guessed yet?

We're off to the Outer Hebrides to do a bit of an Island Hopscotch, and how are we doing it? Well, we're camping, yes, camping!!!!! And the bit I'm looking forward to is this.........

.........sitting on the beach watching the sunset, with a large G&T and then sleeping under the stars!

Most folk that we've told think we're nuts, but hey ho, we were both in the Guides and the Scouts so we at least know how to put up a tent!!! Lets just hope it doesn't blow away in the wind like the last time!!! ( We have bought a new, slightly smaller and cosier tent for this trip!)

So the plan is, we sail over from Uig on Skye to Tarbert on Harris, spend a couple of days discovering Lewis and Harris and then sail over to North Uist, to do a whistlewind tour of the Uists and Benbecula. We are booked into two B&B's, the first night and the middle night, just in case the weather really is awful!! And if it's just not good enough weather for camping we can hopefully stay in some of these cute little places that are dotted around the islands........

We have both always wanted to visit Lewis and Harris, the thought of being able to camp on those amazing beaches just fills me with excitement. The opportunities to spot some of the wildlife that surrounds the islands is another huge spine tingler for me, imagine being sat quietly on the beach and then suddenly seing an otter in the wild? You can't get much better than that can you...? The camera will be at the ready........!!

On the nature front, I witnessed an amazing scene in the garden this morning. I was busy sewing away in my workroom, looking out over the garden, when I saw the familiar flash of the woodpecker fleeting over to the peanut feeder. A couple of seconds later another woodpecker joiner her, a fledgling woodpecker! She pecked away at the nuts and then fed them to her baby, it was like a scene from Springwatch but in our own garden! I shall try and get some photos but I can't promise anything...............

See you all soon,

L x

P.S. the photos are thanks to the visit hebrides site.

A quick hello.....

Just a quick hello from me before the weekend begins. The dreaded lurgy attacked this time last week, needless to say I ended up in bed for a few days. Not one to play the martyr I slept it off, best way in my opinion! So, feeling a lot better now but sounding like I smoke 40 a day (although I do quite like having a Mariella Fostrup type voice!), I've been playing catch-up these last few days. I have managed to get a few parcels in the post and have another order ready to go out, so roll on the weekend!

I'll be back on Monday with lots to tell, I've spent a good bit of this week cheering myself up by organising our holiday, all will be revealed on Monday, lets just say I'm VERY excited!!

Have a great weekend, what are you all up to?

L xx

P.S. The picture is of Jacobs Ladder, we've got tonnes of it in the garden just now, it makes a lovely cut flower so I'm off to fill up loads of jugs to dot around the house! x

A rainy day

At last we've got a rainy day, drizzly and dreich.

So much time has been spent in the garden lately, yet there is still so much to be done, but we're getting there, slowly but surely. It's nice when people comment on how much we've changed the place, I met more friends of neighbours at the weekend and the first thing they commented on was how much we had improved our little corner and tidied it up, all the hard work is at last starting to pay off.

We at last relaxed for a bit on Sunday afternoon, a walk in the bluebell woods and then a pub tea in the Taybank in Dunkeld, my favourite (reasonably local) pub. Friends visited yesterday so the house got a quick tidy and much coffee, tea, scones and cake were eaten!

Here's a picture of my favourite tool at the moment, my riddle, I've been using it loads lately, great for getting nicely toned arms!

Sewing today, and then a visit up to Glenshee Pottery to collect some more stock this afternoon. If the rain stays on we'll hopefully get a bit more work done on the website, which desperately needs updating, when will there ever be enough hours in the day?!!

L xx