Our Daily Bread

Apologies for the infrequency of our blog posts - the price we pay for living in the beautiful Malvern Hills is that our Internet connection has been very temperamental of late and rather than spending hours trying to upload and write our blog, the precious times the connection is live orders and website updates take priority!
It may be due to the excessive wet weather, although that seems to have worked wonders in the garden, although we need some sun to bring out our cut flower garden in time for our next photo shoot.
We are in the throws of adding a new colour to the Ochre And Ocre range for Autumn, and as ever it involves lots of planning, analysis of order quantities, and brochure pagination and copy. I do love doing the photo shoots, as Rachel Spivey is such fun to work with, and as a self confessed lover of ceramics, it is the perfect excuse to pick up some lovely new/new preloved),  bits to use in the shoot. Our office is becoming a bit crowded at the moment!

Challah (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a break from all the planning, I am really getting into bread making at the moment. The Aga is as close to a real bread oven you can get, and it gives you a really tasty loaf. One of my latest creations was goats cheese and sun dried tomato, and next on the list is a blackened chorizo. I was lucky enough to get along to one of the Aga demonstations recently, and picked up a few new tips, although I've yet to be brave enough to prove the bread overnight in the fridge.
I really only get chance to get kneading at the weekend, but the results never seem to last into the week.
If the wet weather lets up the vegetable patch will also need some attention, and it is looking very wild at the moment, but my new venture this year of fennel seems to be doing really well, unlike the peas, where the rabbits have been on a wild rampage.
We seem to be over run with rabbits at the moment, and whilst it is nice to sit and watch the baby bunnies frolicking on the lawn, serious vengeance is required after a visit to the garden where holes and dug up plants are everywhere. Baby Ochre particularly loves them, as his favourite soft toy is Peter Rabbit, so I'm not sure how he would feel if his Mummy started pest control patrols!

Illustration of Peter Rabbit from The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rain Rain Go Away....

I know we needed the rain, but since it's started it hardly seems to have eased up. Fingers crossed it is just April showers as we have to plant up our veg plot. Last years effort was a bit half hearted, due to the early arrival of Baby Ochre, but this year we have good intentions of using all the raised beds as well as the greenhouse. We (that being the Royal we) have managed to plant a few rows of potatoes, but so far that's it! 

Our new lawn mowers have arrived for the Spring / Summer season; 3 sheep and 6 lambs. They have already settled in well, exploring our orchard and the lambs bouncing and skipping around. Puppy Ochre is particularly taken with them, and takes any opportunity to slip out of the office to sit and watch them through the gate.

On the business side for Ochre And Ocre our latest wholesale customer is the very lovely Webbs of Wychbold, and Ryton, the Organic Garden Centre. Both excellent days out, if you are near either we thoroughly recommend popping in.

With no shows this year, it is nice not having to load and unload stock and props, and it does give us more time to forward plan; we have decided on our new Autumn colourway. Weather permitting it would be great to get some shots in the garden, instead of the week before Christmas like we usually do! I just hope we can tear Rachel Spivey away from her summer weddings for a trip to the Malvern Hills one ( hopefully fine) day!

Business as usual

Time has flown by over the last few weeks and we have been really busy since the new brochures have gone out. Our wholesale side has also been busy and as well as some good repeats from customers like RHS, and The Hen House, we are thrilled to have got into some new accounts like Fenwicks in Tunbridge Wells and Rossiters in Bath. Both proper, department stores, offering a wide choice as well as good service. A novelty in some high street stores.
We have had some more press coverage in The English Home magazine, this time it was our new puppy who had a starring role, accessorised with some Organic Cotton textiles! Another mention in the Sunday Express magazine, all helping to give our brand some credibility.
Time to forward plan is in short supply but knowing the leadtimes our thoughts are already turning to new introductions, and it would be really nice to have a summer photoshoot instead of the week before Christmas! (Although the weather may not be any better!)
Outside it really does feel like Summer is on it's way, the Spring blossom is everywhere. We have so many apple trees in our area looking out of the office window it can almost look like a covering of snow some mornings.

Free Postage

Image via WikipediaAfter much debate, mini surveys and quite a lot of number crunching we have decided to offer FREE POSTAGE for all UK standard deliveries on our Ochre And Ocre website. We know ourselves there is nothing more annoying than wanting something and paying more in postage than the item is worth.

We will be sending out all our parcels by Royal Mail second class instead of first class, but we do turn around our parcels usually within 24 hours so you will still receive your order between 3 - 5 days.

Heavier items we will send by our courier APC who offer a really excellent next day service.

You can get full details of our delivery rates here.

February Spring Fair

We've had a busy few weeks at Ochre And Ocre HQ this month, with a lot of time and effort put into taking part in the Spring Fair trade show at the NEC. It is essentially like setting up a pop up shop for 1 week - you have to be able to carry everything in and out of the halls on your own, and be pretty handy with a cordless drill and a staple gun!
Every year I look enviously at the "big guys" who have there own teams  who do all the set up and pack down, often you don't even see the owners behind the bigger brands. Although being a little bit of a control freak, (I had better say it before my friends do!), I do like being there to set it all up, so you know exactly what to expect on day one when the doors open for the public.
We had a great reaction from the trade to our stand and our Organic Cotton kitchen textiles.
There is always a lot of follow up from the show, and we have finally ticked off all our replies, sent out the first few orders, and tried to catch up on the rest of our jobs. As a small business, unfortunately a week out of the office means that there is no one left to do your role whilst you are out.
Next we are looking forward to our new Katie Organic Cotton collection arriving, so we will be busy checking off the stock, loading the new lines onto the website and sending out our shiny new brochures. Then it really will be Spring!

New Newsletter and yummy recipe.

Our new revamped newsletter has just gone out and we are really pleased we have already had a record number of opens. We've tried to give it a fresh look and there is also a new feature, a monthly recipe slot featuring seasonal, local food from our favourite local haunt, The Inn at Welland.

Their first recipe is a rather yummy Pan fried pigeon breast, with wild mushroom fricassee, and garlic croutons.

Ingredients:-
1 x wood pigeon breast
75g woodland mushrooms
1 clove garlic - finely chopped
15g unsalted butter
50ml chicken stock
1 pinch chopped parsley
Salt & pepper
Truffle oil - few drops
Slice of ciabatta bread
Watercress to garnish

Method
1.Rub the garlic clove over the bread, lightly oil & grill until golden, reserve & keep warm until needed.
2.Sear the pigeon breast in very hot pan in vegetable oil (45 seconds eachside)
3.Take out to rest.
4.Add mushrooms, chopped garlic & butter, sauté for 30 minutes
5.Add chicken stock, cook until reduced & thickened
6.Season with salt & pepper, a few drops of truffle oil & parsley
7.Place the ciabatta in a warm bowl, add the mushrooms and the pigeon breast, coat with the sauce and garnish with watercress

We would love to hear how the recipe turns out for you and look forward to sharing another recipe with you next month in our Ochre And Ocre March newsletter. 

Fairs and Filing

There seems to be a never ending pile of admin at Ochre HQ at the moment - orders to be logged and stock updated, bills to be paid and filed, and what feels like piles and piles of paper. Although we strive to be green in all aspects of our business, we recycle, shred and reuse, and try to do as much as possible online, we still seem to end up with a desk covered in stuff.
We have occasional purges where afterwards we feel very self righteous and Monica like, then we go back into the spiral of mounting piles of stuff.
With the big Spring Fair approaching at the Nec next month, we have extra piles dotted around - piles of samples requiring ironing and labelling, paperwork that needs to be taken(more paper!), and random props - a few mannequins dotted around and a ladder!
Going from working all day in the beautiful Malverns, with stunning views and the ability to get up and stretch your legs in fresh air when ever the want takes you, to spending a very long 6 days in the NEC, with no daylight and recycled air is not something we are looking forward to - but it will be the first chance we will get to get a reaction to our new design and feedback from existing retailers of the Ochre And Ocre brand, so we are weirdly excited.
Right better get on with reducing the next pile....it's nearly the weekend!

Happy New Year - finally!!

Why finally you ask?? Because I have been woefully tardy on updating our blog, but I do have good intentions of keeping it more up to date this year! (New Year resolutions and all that!)
We have already had a busy start to the year at Ochre HQ - the Clearance sale has been going great guns, and it is great to start seeing some empty space on the store shelves. Just in time as our new addition to our British Collection, Katie is arriving shortly. We had a great photo shoot with our photographer pal Rachel Spivey just before Christmas.(a sneaky peak at one of the new images below). It was a lovely clear day, which gave our images a beautiful winter light. We have been laying out our new brochure, and trying a few new things in there to give it a revamp.
We are also working on giving our newsletter a fresh look and have a new feature that we are very excited about starting in February. More on that in a later blog.
Our annual trip to the Spring fair is only a few weeks away as well - and we have been updating our stand ready for the wholesale crowd. So as you can read, although we've been quiet we certainly haven't been putting our feet up, it's full steam ahead here ready for an exciting year at Ochre And Ocre!

Autumn Already!

I can't believe that the leaves are falling off the trees already - I know it's been a dry summer, (albeit without much sun??), but it does feel so early. Autumn makes you want to curl up in front of a fire at night, drink hot chocolate and have long walks through woods kicking leaves around. I wish! Life is just as hectic as ever - Baby Ochre is teething, which means lots of distraction techniques are required to help the poor wee chap forget about the erupting white ones.
Our new Ochre And Ocre brochures have arrived -so me and Mr Ochre have spent the past few nights sitting in front of the tv with a glass of vino, (so not all bad!), stuffing brochures into envelopes. Once again it's not until you do this exercise that you realise how many typos you've made! Despite scouring the mailing list before printing off the postage labels -I still managed to type Newscastle?!
The other exciting thing happening is preparation for the pending arrival of Puppy Ochre - stairgates to be fitted - play pens to be built -multi purpose obviously for both Baby and Puppy Ochre! Plus many a happy if late hour spent web browsing for cute new collars and harnesses in which to dress up our new arrival.
Our third Birthday seems to have past in a whirl - without us hardly having chance to celebrate the fact we are still trading through tough times. But no rest for the wicked only a 1000 or so stamps to stick onto envelopes, and I'd better get my screwdriver out to fit those stair gates!

Courgette Crazy

Image via WikipediaIt's that time of year again, when the veg patch has gone slightly crazy, and seems to produce vast quantities of one vegetable at a time. Our friends groan as we appear with yet another bag of courgettes as gifts, and poor Mr Ochre has yet another meal with a cunningly hidden green vegetable lurking inside.
I'm finding new ways to utilise the abundance by making use of the new Aga. Sundried tomatoes, (albeit done in the Aga rather than the Tuscan sun), are making a welcome addition to our salads. Slow cooked Mediterranean vegetables, sprinkled with chilli, make a quick and easy pasta topping. Last year I made several different types of chutneys and ketchups, which we gave as Christmas presents along with local cheeses. We are hoping to bottle sloe gin this year, which I'm sure will be well received at Christmas.
With the kitchen refit nearly complete - just the electrics and worktops to go, I'm already perusing my recipe books in eager anticipation of mass cook ups, I just need to find the time in between packing orders for Ochre And Ocre, looking after Baby Ochre and as ever DIY!

A-Day

We are very excited at Ochre HQ today, as D Day has finally arrived - renamed A Day, as our shiny new(reconditioned) Aga has arrived. From the lovely folks at Aga Twyford, it is the ultimate in recycling, and it looks as good as new. It does make you wonder why you'd pay for a brand new one. I've chosen a classic white model, as it is the best backdrop for the Ochre And Ocre textiles, when we do our next brochure shoot in our own kitchen. I suspect I won't get away with putting it through as a business expense, unfortunately!!

I grew up with a version of an Aga, (A Cleopatra oil range), and have many happy childhood memories; Helping to make Welsh cakes on the top, my mums kitchen filling with the smell of baking. Sitting with my back to it, when it got really cold. Slow cooked stews bubbling away. Woolly hats warming on the top before going out in the snow.  My then boyfriend(now husband) had the shock of his life, when he came to stay the first time, sat down for a farmhouse breakfast, and the door of the warming oven swung open, followed by a loud Baaaa and a small lamb fell out. (No, we weren't cooking the lamb! They are a great reviver).  So I know how they are more than just a cooker, but a very central part of family life.
I have already started scanning websites looking for recipes, and have started to stockpile some ideas. If any of you out there are Aga fans I would love it if you could share your favourite recipes. What to make the first time??? It has to be Welsh cakes..yum!

Friday Feeling

Even though I work from home, and often work through the weekend, I still get that Friday feeling. I'm not sure why - it must be ingrained after years of working in an office.
Friday's in London used to be quite special, as often there were informal get togethers in bars and pubs as you waited for your train home. In summer when it was hot people would spill out onto the pavement. Living in a rural location now, I still like to kick back and chill out, even with a 3 month old - so we were very excited when a rather gorgeous Gastro pub opened up on our doorstep. Now as much as we want to keep it to ourselves, I suppose it's in our interest to share it!  The Inn at Welland. In a lovely setting, decorated with soft muted greys, and BTC lighting, the food is pretty good too! Fortunately they welcome tiddlers, and with lots of outside seating you can make the most of the weather, and enjoy a smog free drink! Happy Friday everyone!

Routine

One thing I am discovering with a young baby and working is that you have to be a lot more flexible. I am quite a creature of habit and in my pre baby days I loved to start my day with a walk or bike ride in the Malverns, before spending the day working on Ochre And Ocre . Now my day seems to be snatched moments of work interspersed with feeding and changing. My phone answer service is certainly getting more business, as holding a baby, and a phone leaves no hands free to write. So I tend to have to call customers back during nap times.
My other baby; the house build / renovation also takes large chunks of time. Builders are also creatures of habit; they like to have their tea breaks at set times, and I've learnt if I'm not there ready with their brews, they walk muddy booted into the house to make their own. Not to mention the constant questions throughout the day, as to what thickness of ply they should use, where I want a pipe positioned - I do feel like I'm blagging it a lot of the time. The end is nearly in sight, as the doors are being fitted this week, and plastering this weekend, I'm busy dreaming up all kinds of meals we can have once I have the use of a hob and oven again!
With all this going on something had to give, and it's been our garden. We have inherited a beautiful garden, or rather it has the potential to be beautiful if it were tended. I am the first to admit I'm not a gardener, I like to look at the finished piece, but I can't tell a weed from a flower. So it was after much soul searching we took the decision to employ a man who can. It feels rather bourgeois, to have a "gardener", but my need to sleep means there are no free hours in the day at all.

He came for the first time last week; and such is the scale of the task he asked me where I'd like him to start; I vaguely waved at an area, not knowing quite what the plants were and suggested he start there. I hope it won't be like using a mechanic - once they know you know nothing all kinds of problems ensue! I am still responsible for the veg patch and greenhouse - which is currently going great guns, and I'd welcome any recipes that use cucumbers, but don't need a cooker!

Monica's Unite!

Image via WikipediaHands up all you Monica's out there - there are a lot of you I know, sometimes closet Monica's, some who are very much out there! For those of you wondering what I'm talking about, Monica is a character of the US sitcom Friends, who likes to clean, some say even finds it therapeutic. I have to admit to having Monica like leanings, which is why I am finding it really hard at the moment. With the arrival of Baby Ochre I was willing to let standards slip slightly - but with builders, plumbers and plasterers in every room of the house bar one, I feel like I am coming out in a rash due to the need to hoover and polish. We are now hopefully on countdown, signalled by the plasterers being here, but unfortunately with plastering comes that fine white dust that hovers in the air and settles everywhere, white footprints up and down the stairs, plus the odd bit of old render which has been pulled off the wall, dragged through the house and dropped down the stairs.
Everyday I think, "maybe I'll get the hoover out this morning, whilst the baby sleeps", then by mid day I've given up, slumping into despair at the state of the house. I'm also a Barefoot Monica, normally I wander around the house barefoot, bliss after wearing heels in my previous life. But a few well placed splinters, and bits of cement have soon put paid to that; instead of my bohemian feet, they are more slumdog. I know, I know it will be worth it in the end - but it seems to never come at the moment!
If you are a Monica, and feel the need, the need to clean, you will be more than welcome to help when we are done!

Visitors

We have had lots of visitors to Ochre And Ocre HQ recently; as well as the numerous well wishers for Baby Ochre, there have been some of the winged variety.
We were surprised to come across a swarm of bees that had decided to make their home in the end of a roll of fencing wire in our orchard. Fortunately we have a friendly local beekeeper, who came to investigate. It turns out the bees were probably from one of the pollinating hives on a nearby field of oil seed rape. Unfortunately the Queen Bee was no where in sight, and without their queen the swarm was slowly dying, and there was nothing that could be done to help them. The bees were tipped onto the grass and as the beekeeper rather quaintly put it, they could go back into the life cycle as bird feed. Later on that evening the orchard was filled with 100's of little songbirds eating up the bees.
Apologies for the poor image but Baby Ochre and I were advised to stay well back whilst the bee keeper investigated.

Also recently arrived are our own mini flock of sheep and lambs; whose main employment is to eat the grass in the orchard, thus saving time mowing. (We are very keen for any time saving schemes at the moment!). The lambs are at an age when they are just starting to play independently from their mums, and have spent the first few days roaming their new home, checking out all the places to hide and jump off!

With all the sun and rain we are having at the moment everything seems to be growing very quickly - Baby Ochre is nearly out of his newborn sleepsuits, and our veg plot is quickly filling up with radishes and lettuce. If only our new kitchen extension would grow so quickly!

Baby Ochre

I think I have a fairly good excuse for not updating my blog for nearly a month - we were somewhat taken by surprise by the early arrival of Baby Ochre. 4 weeks early, and weighing in at a light 5lb 8oz, our daily routine has been slightly disrupted.

Fortunately he sleeps most of the day, unfortunately not much at night time. So although I have peace to sort things out in the office, make calls and pack orders during the daytime, lack of sleep is making it hard to concentrate, and stay awake!
I know the common advice given is to sleep during the day, but unfortunately it wasn't just us who were caught out by the early arrivals, the builders were still in full demolishing mode, so during the day jack hammers, steel saws and cement mixers whirl. Whilst Baby Ochre seems blissfully unaware, and snores away softly, I cannot sleep through the noise. So instead I blurringly try to continue with my daily jobs, inbetween feeding, nappy changing, and making countless cups of tea for the builders.
Once again our lovely customers have been very understanding, and patiently leaving phone messages with the answer service, so that I can call them back when I have a free hand, (I quickly realised I couldn't hold the phone, baby and write at the same time!). I also had to time the calls in between the power tools, so I could at least hear the customer at the other end of the line!
I know when it's all done it will be fab - I'm hoping it will be ready in time for an Autumn photoshoot with the lovely Miss Spivey, so we can shoot the new ranges for our Spring brochure. In the meantime I am getting quite adept at cooking on a single ring camping stove, and typing one handed as Baby Ochre snores softly in the crook of my arm.

Forward Planning

Well we survived the Country Living Spring Fair - all rather more accurately the long suffering Mr Ochre survived the fair, as I spent most of last week in hospital, proving that you don't always know what is around the corner!
He did an absolute sterling job, especially when you consider the stand was in part of the Women In Rural Enterprise (WIRE) group. A huge thank you to all the group who I know where "keeping an eye on him" through the week! Surprise sellers this year where our new Aga pads, with several orders having to be sent out after the show.

Above: Thank you to Robyn who helped out at the weekend.

With baby Ochre fast approaching, my la la la worry about it when it happens attitude has had to be a bit more focused, especially when it comes to ensuring the day to day running of Ochre And Ocre continues smoothly. Having an online business rather than bricks and mortar does mean you are more flexible, but only to the limitations of technology. So even though I had my Ipad with me, and could access emails, making phone calls and sending out orders is a bit more tricky from a hospital bed, especially with an intermittent signal. Our lovely customers were more than accommodating, and were happy to wait a few days for their orders, but it is not ideal.
Not knowing what is around the corner, has made me forward plan even more than usual; writing the bones of the monthly newsletters, (it is so hard to keep them different and not just pure marketing), planning promotions, press and our Autumn brochure, and juggling the stocks, (not too much that we are stock heavy, but enough that we can fulfill retail and wholesale orders). Once again Mr Ochre will be stepping into the breech, along with our multi skilled book keeper Amy, and I will be holding mini refresher courses on how to wrap and despatch our orders!
I've also started the long process of new designs and colourways for next Spring, knowing that the photography will need to be done early Autumn, to allow for Press and photography, it's not actually that far away.
If nothing else the past few weeks have taught me that I need to be more flexible, and dare I say it, go with the flow sometimes, a hard lesson to learn for a self confessed control freak!

New Year - January Sale!

We have had a great initial reaction to our first ever sale at Ochre And Ocre. I was determined that it should be a "proper" sale, with genuine reductions. As an ex buyer I know all about special "sale buys", and I hate getting conned by the not so real savings. Another bug bear of mine is when you purchase something in a sale, then two weeks later it is reduced even more. It does make you feel like you should have held off a bit longer, to save those extra pounds - everything in the Ochre sale is only being marked down once, so as to avoid upsetting those customers who have purchased already.
Some of the lines in the original Chateau collection will remain marked down to clear, but all the print ranges, Organic Cotton table cloths and napkins will have new pricing for 2011.
Since we originally launched Ochre And Ocre in 2008 all the prices have been held. But in order to run a profitable business, (a sensible goal I think!!), we have to increase our pricing for two reasons. When we first bought the range the sterling to euro exchange rate was strongly in our favour, but this has declined hugely over the past two years. Another more recent issue is the price of Cotton. There are major cotton shortages worldwide, and Organic Cotton is even more scarce. I read on the BBC Website this morning that Next are increasing their prices by up to 8% due to the cotton prices. As a "small" company, we are at the back of the queue against the bigger retailers in trying to grab some of the remaining Cotton stocks.
Allowing for all the above factors, because we are only "small" we are fortunate to have small overheads, and more flexibility than some of the larger firms, so our price increases are modest, and still allow us to be competitive. It will be interesting to see how 2011 will pan out, but I am optimistic of a good response to our new additions to the ranges this year,  and am grateful to have a loyal and growing band of customers.

Grumpy Dog....

As in any office environment, occasionally working together for too long can cause niggles and gripes, and it is no different here at Ochre And Ocre. We are busy preparing for our big Autumn show this week, The Spirit of Christmas, which involves lots of boxes everywhere, shelving, and general chaos.
Those of you who have been following my blog, will know I share my office space with a lady of advanced years, who is prone to grumbling when the phone goes, teetering at the top of the stairs when you are trying to take an order, and generally making sure her presence is felt at all times.
This week is no exception, but for once I have to see her point of view, as the office has been over run with gift sets, and cardboard boxes, making it very hard for Gert to make it to her "desk" under the window. I know that the sight of all these boxes does tend to unnerve her, trauma from seven house moves in six years, so I have made a concerted effort to clear her a pathway across the office this morning!

I also promised you some pictures of the beautiful Malvern countryside around here, in all it's Autumnal glory. The one morning I remembered to take my camera out with me, it was very frosty, but the light first thing is so warm, and golden, if I time it just right there is often a beautiful sunrise over the Cotswold Hills, hard to capture on film, but lovely to watch as I climb the Malverns.

Autumn

Apologies, I know this poor blog has been sadly neglected as of late, but in the Ochre And Ocre world lots of Autumn fairs have been keeping us busy.
We are very excited to have received our new sample colourways of Isabella And Madelaine, ready for the Spring launch, and we are just starting to pull together the props for our forthcoming photoshoot.
Once again aided and abetted by the talented photographer, Rachel Spivey, we will hopefully be working our magic to turn a kitchen showroom into a homely, chic kitchen.
On the home front, the Autumn harvest has been done, our giant pumpkins are picked, the last of the marrows despatched to willing recipients, (I don't think I will put in quite so many Courgette plants next year!), and the apples are picked ready for storing. All around us on the Malvern Hills, the trees are starting to turn their leaves, the fern has been cut down, and the smell of bonfires is in the air, as people tidy up their gardens before the winter. I promise I will get out there with my camera soon, so I can post a few pics of the beautiful scenery around us, but for now I must get on with making Lavender Hearts in preparation for the photoshoot!