weather for selling ?

Thursday's clouds and weather forecast didn't bode well...and as we left for a school Christmas fair in Alloway the snow was laying on the road an inch or so deep.
 You could only use dipped headlights as on full beam all you could see was swirling flakes.

Arriving at the school the snow had stopped and I got a parking space right by the entrance.   A good start to a profitable evening...it had a silver lining like the afternoon's clouds!!

It was a relief to drive home on clear roads and to have made some good sales too.
Fairs are always a hit and miss affair...guessing which locality will have enough spare cash and hoping for good enough weather to bring people out. Hoping that the organizers will have publicized the event sufficiently.

I've bought some Post Office packing boxes to calculate post and packaging costs.  We now have three rates for different size packages and the Post Office have boxes behind the counter to see which category your packet/box will fit...and  slits to see if your letter is a letter, a large letter, or a package!!

Friday was an At Home day, but a steadily busy one.  An electrician friend came for the day and he and The Pirate quietly got a lot done!  The weather has been mostly dry but chilly and damp.

I'd bought a settee in a charity shop and today was delivery day....the time set came....and went...then the shop phoned...
The delivery driver had phoned and I was out!!!!  Not when I last checked!!!
Eventually we solved the problem.  The shop had kept my carefully drawn map so the driver had relied on google. We have six or seven properties within half a mile of each other with the same postcode and three of them are called The Stables.....put our address in and it sends you to a farm a quarter mile away up a small lane!!

Settee in place, we had lunch and I could move everything back in around it...and the place still looks tidy!  Mid- afternoon and we had visitors..tea and home-made cake ready baked, luckily.

Then relax and check facebk...and I have another sale from posting about my work selling in our local community shop. 
Time to choose work to photograph and put on sale in the Etsy shop!

greenhouse harvest

The greenhouse is a sorry sight, but is still producing.  We haven't had a severe frost yet....

The seeds from the Coriander in the picture have been boxed, the rest of the plants will smell wonderful when we next light a fire in the stove!

We're still picking spicy salad leaves from a late sowing and the calabrese that ended up in the greenhouse is still giving small florets. This despite having been discovered by caterpillars in September!  The last sowing of beetroot only has large marble sized roots, but the leaves are delicious instead of spinach...much tastier in salad or stirfry.

gardening

Today it was comparatively warm, and sunny...cue garden work!!
A shed required its last coat of timber treatment so we grabbed the chance to finish the work!   I painted while The Pirate took an old beagle for a walk around the village.
We both finished at the same time!  
After lunchbreak we inspected a fallen tree that we could have for firewood, with a little help.  That might keep us going until the New Year!!

Then a patio cleared while the Pirate supervised...and the wind got up and the clouds loomed...and we retreated for a cuppa.
The weather turned cold with icy rain- definitely "rain stopped play".

Home to saw and stack firewood in a break in the weather.  Then supper in front of the stove.

We started wandering on the internet, looking for "Possee" , "Epps" , "Saxby","Hubbard" and "Allen".....in one site on tribal pages we found all those,but not the right ones.....they must be related somehow!!

Then we looked at war records....
Looks like we'll be doing a bit more genealogy soon!

keeping warm and dry

Today started with twenty minutes on my bike...which is fixed to the turbo trainer!!

A session interrupted by a phone call...inviting me to have a stall at the Doonfoot school Christmas fair on Thursday evening!   They have had a cancellation so there was a table spare. 
There is hope of better sales there, nearer to Ayr, so I said yes!!

The rest of the day has been bits here and there, dodging the rainshowers.
I did my shop duty today and collected the money from November's sales...only a salt pot and two mugs, but it is growing quietly.

We're working steadily through our woodpile, so must replenish it soon.  I travel with a small bowsaw and loppers in the car for "roadkill"...after all one can't just leave it to be a hazard on the road!!

roadkill!!

 It was very overcast, grey and damp this morning. We needed a "constitutional", but yesterday's walk had been a little too far.   If we'd been able to find that distance solely on small lanes and have a completely relaxed walk....but we live and learn!

We need to find where all the nearby footpaths are, to give us smaller walk circuits.
Much as I love our local Green Lane, I loathe just going there and back.

 Everything is very damp and green.

 We found a few more crabapple trees ready for next year's foraging, but there was not one sloe in sight.

 What we did discover was a tree branch on the road,  run over by someone speeding round the bends....

and now neatly sawn and stacked ready for tonight's fire.

keep on walking...just round the block....

 Guiltree Hill    (guil probably means yellow)

 looking back down towards Kirkmichael

 looking towards the Carrick Hills

 property boundary

 hedging and.....the hedges here are trimmed immaculately here, pity about the ditches....

 We've noticed that many of the newer farmsteads/bungalows are built without a windbreak. When you consider the older farmsteads, as here, built in a square with the stables and barns as a strategy against hard weather, it is curious.

 Catkins!!

 and sheeps...

 Where the ditches have been cleared you can see just how much rain has fallen so far. 

 Ayrshire has beautiful stone bridges of all sizes.

 We are actually having major road resurfacing, AT LAST!!!!  There are three weeks worth of road closure in progress...made possible by the fact that we have back roads and lanes!!

 footpath construction....just like Kiwi roads!

 Meeting fellow members of the Ayr Roads Cycling Club on the road.

 In Kirkmichael, the fingerpost is still standing.

 On the shelves in Jock's Cafe and Community Stores. Kirkmichael.....
tealight lamps by me, on sale at £15.

and  where a very welcome cup of real coffee was drunk!
Then homewards for the last mile...and never arrive home empty-handed....

revolution!!

We had a day off yesterday, visited a wholefoods supermarket in Giffnock in Glasgow......just tooo much lovely food and goodies!!

Then to the Glasgow Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in the Emirates Arena to see an afternoon AND an evening of track racing in the Revolution series..the fortysecond event in ten years.

Rather late home....but worth it!!    It was fun seeing people I've known since they were Under 10 (years) racers with the Maindy Flyers in Cardiff, racing well at the top level.