In the last year there's been one noticeable change in our terrace. In January 2021 there were two dogs, one at the top end and another in the house opposite it. The very yappy Amber, so needy for love and attention, since an actual human baby arrived in the house. At the current estimate the number of dogs in the terrace has now reached five. Only ourselves and our immediate neighbour to the right of us, holding out against the doggy onslaught.
Its not that we haven't considered the possibility of owning a dog ourselves. Even down to what we might call it. The idea in theory always sounds fine. But once we start considering the extra demands on time and attention they require, the walks, the care, the additional cost of a dog and where it would live in our small house. It starts to feel more and more like not a good thing for us to take on in our current circumstances. Its struggle enough to keep a healthy work life balance, without throwing the additional responsibility of looking after a canine into the mix.
The young couple in the house to our left have just recently got a young pup. I couldn't tell you what breed, other than its small, white and quite noisy. Prone to outbreaks of constant barking at any time of the day or night. It seems upset quite regularly at 2 or 3am, barking for periods of an hour or two, not being uncommon. Just one more thing to add to the many that deter my returning to sleep when I wake in the middle of the night. Ah, the bliss of it all.
The shop as I write is now closed for three weeks or so. So what to do with our period of time off, is the Zeitgeist. It incorporates both a relaxing change of pace with advancing making projects and new ideas for the coming season. My making strategy has been to use this quieter downtime to build up stock levels. Hopefully to ease the pressure to keep up in the height of the summer season. But then in the middle of this period we are both taking a break from this and each other and retreating.
Jnanasalin took a weeks solitary, whilst I intended to stay at home and go quietly low- fi for a week. I was fully aware how difficult such a thing can be to achieve surrounded, as I was, by the easily accessed distractions of home. Its more straightforward if you can go somewhere entirely away from such things. But I didn't know quite where that would be for me in my present spiritual 'neither here nor there state.' But I bought some books by Brother David Steindl-Rast to read and study. Of him I sense there will be some mention in another blog.
 |
| Brother David Steindl-Rast |
A week home alone was a time to seek out some aesthetic nourishment. Apart from leisurely walks in the woods of Sheringham Park, I selected a few choice films and documentaries to enrich my sensory bank account. Opening with reacquainting myself with the documentary film In Great Silence about the Trappist monks of Chartreuse, living half way up a mountain range. Followed on successive nights by:- A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood - The Centre Will Not Hold - Ram Dass Going Home - The Last of England -Topsy-Turvy - The Last Legion. Some brilliant, some interesting, some moving, only the latter was a complete Dud.
 |
| Tilda |
I initially thought I might forego my early morning dash of trashy American Sci-fon Netflix and read an inspiring book instead, my interrupted sleep patterns dictated otherwise. Read at 2 or 3am, are you mad! So I've carried on viewing Series 3 of Star Trek Enterprise. A fitfully interesting attempt to reboot the franchise. Unfortunately it is also damned from the very start with a truly annoying 'inspirational' power ballad for a title song. I mean, what self respecting sci fi show wants to sound like you are about to view The Mary Tyler Moore Show?
I've taken to seeing how quickly I can press the Skip Intro button. But so far I have yet to prevent fewer than five words of the lyric playing. They also keep shifting where the Skip Intro button appears in the lead in. So its turned into quite a game of quick moving fingers to highlight and press. By Series 3, they even rearranged the orchestration to be more country folksy. Its still misjudged dreck however its played in my book.
 |
| Malcolm's suspicious face |
I thought I'd seen THE worst acting in a Star Trek series with Marina Sirtis in The Next Generation , until I saw the patently risible performance of Dominic Keating as Tactical Officer Malcolm Reed. Little emotional range, stiff of mouth and body, he often has to behave rough and tough, but it looks like his acting training used a text book drawn up for a Thunderbirds puppet. So bad, its good? Well I laugh, as I cringe.
We have done our brief jaunt up to Lincoln and Stamford. In the end we only found a couple of fabrics in The Fabric Quarter in Lincoln. Both we had seen before online, but you cannot get a sense for the scale of the pattern our how it might look on a cushion or lampshade from that. You really do have to see them. But it was lovely to visit Lincoln again, if only for a flying overnight visit.
Though we equally love visiting Stamford, the fabric shop there was a bit of a disappointment. It currently has a very muddled and incoherent fabric selection. We are going to Norwich in a couple of days, to view another fabric shop. ( a poor selection as far as our requirements go ) After that we'll decide on our fabric ranges for the coming season. Going small with our initial selection, seeing what interest and responses are like, before investing in larger quantities of any fabric.
We re-open the shop on the 10th Feb, so not much time is left of our break from the shop. We don't normally do much by way of sales for Valentines Day, but half term starts from the end of that week. Depending on the weather we could do OK.
I'd hoped we'd be able to visit and achieve more with the time off we've had. But in the end there were too many demands upon that time and we had to scale back on what could be done within it. Before we know it we'll be back in high season, but with a whole new range of things to offer our customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment