Clay Oven and BBQ

We have decided to add a Clay Oven and brick BBQ to the garden and somehow incorprate a smoker that bit we havent yet decided how to work it in but I am sure it will all come together, the area we have chosen was original were the swing seat was homed but now 10 years on it has a serious case of rot and is no longer safe so it was time it went, hubby has made a start today on digging out the footings for our new outdoor kitchen, and I am hoping it wont be too long until it is functional. We have ordered a book from Good Life Press all about building and cooking in your clay Oven, I am hoping it will soon land on the doormat so we know a bit more about what we are doing. Home Farmer are running some courses on building your own clay oven but unfortunatly we cannot make any of the course dates.
Tommorrow we are off to the small holders show in Ardingly should be a good day out we have been going for several years now and learn something new each time, tommorrows trip will give us a chance to stock up on some more supplies for the bee hives and I hope to get some info about ducks as I fancy keeping a couple.

A Year has gone by

I cant believe its been over a year since I last posted on my blog, well I can really and what a year it has been, firstly an explanation for my absent, April last year I fulfilled a life long dream and opened my very own craft shop, called Homespun Crafts the shop is based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, its open from Mon-sat so takes up most of my time, as well as running the shop on a day to day basis, we also run craft drop in sessions were you can walk in off the street and take part in a craft session for £2 on Monday's we do do jewellery Wednesday is a card making day and Friday is scrap booking, so there are always timetables being put together and samples need making, on Tuesday afternoon's we run a knit and natter session which is a free sociable get together, once a month on Thursdays we run a stamping club, and every Saturday afternoon we have workshops on, once a month we have a lace session were lace makers can meet and have a natter also new lace makers can come along for lessons, so it is a very full on very busy shop, we rent out Cricut cartridges, run a saving scheme, have lots of charity makes on the go, I have had to move premises three times in the first year of business to accommodate our growing crafting community and products and have recently taken on a partner to help me out with the running of it all, and whats next well we are expanding the shop either further to accommodate quilting and patchwork.

As well as the shop life continues much as normal at home, we have still got a growing family of chickens, we now have two bee hives up and running, both green houses are bursting at the seams, we have a new addition of a poly tunnel and the fruit and veg plots are all in full swing.

so that is my excuses for not having been around much, but now things are settling into a routine again i will make the effort to post more.