Christmas came early

Never work with children and animals - well we tried today with a very cute lil dog called Darcey - it was time to do some Christmas pics with our lovely new Venetien Red. My friend Amy very kindly agreed we could use her house, and I turned up armed with a table, table linen, crockery and ivy. Darcey thought the ivy was great - and proceeded to drag it out of the sack and troll it around the house, chewing.
Once we wrestled it from her jaws, the table was laid. Darcey was very keen to take part, and nearly suceeded with the table cloth trick, by sitting on the edge of the cloth. Luckily no wine was spilled!
She was a natural born poser, as you can see from the pics.
After a few snaps, we still had time to take Darcey for a walk in the nearby fields. A very muggy, humid day, but nice to be outside in the fresh air.
Just our new hamper pics left to do now - once the chocolate brownies and fudge are ready!

Sunshine!

After a lovely relaxing weekend, its life back to normal at Ochre And Ocre. The empty hamper boxes arrived last week, so I am spending this week planning the perfect Christmas Hampers, calculating the costings, and writing the text. After years of working as a buyer, you would think I would be used to working a season or two in advance, but it does seem particularly surreal at the moment, given the gorgeous weather.
I've finally relented, and dragged my laptop with extension cable outside, along with the bulldog and her box. It is baking hot, the screen isn't that clear, but at least I can enjoy the weather, without feeling guilty!
The labels for our new hand wash and hand lotion are also nearly ready, so I will need to start bottling soon!
As you know I like to share my secrets with you when it comes to great online companies, and I have just come across a lovely website called; Sage, inspired by life. The site has a great mix of unique gifts and things you would want to buy for yourself, mainly sourced within the UK. I love their quirky "knitted" porcelain pots, as pictured above, as my friends know too well, I love nice ceramics, but that's because you can take a girl out of Wedgwood, but you can't take Wedgwood out of the girl!