End of year BIG tidy up starts

After months of working morning noon and night, the time is now here when I can raise my head from my work table and take stock of the chaos around me. Everything not directly related to actual making has taken a back seat - so tidying, cleaning, organising - things which really truly I enjoy doing (!) - have been non existent and the results are there for you all to see in the picture on the left. This is the storeroom, thankfully not the workshop. But it is the room where everything gets dumped after a craft fair, where all the packing and dispatch of orders is done and where I will be working once Christmas is past and the cold months of January and February make it too chilly to work out in the actual workshop. So I needed to do some drastic sorting out.

Anyway, that was what it looked like at 6 o'clock tonight - and two hours later ( yes, all it took was two hours of concerted effort) this was the result! OK the shelf units still look unsightly, but honestly I now know what is in every box, and there was a huge amount of rubbish to chuck out.

I thoroughly recommend a good clear out to clear out the mind too and leave it at peace.
There is still a lot to do in the workshop itself, not to mention accounts, records, paperwork for next year's craft fairs ( the booking forms are all in and need to be filled out) and believe it or not next year's Christmas card designs.
But all I need to do is apply the work rate of the past few months to these jobs and we'll whizz through them. Underneath I'm really an organised person at heart ( Bob snorts with derision) and I feel the benefit of being back in control.

While I'm on the subject, here are a couple of views of the workshop in its Christmas finery. The seasonal bits and pieces are going fast and I'm already sold out of quite a lot. My Christmas scented candles for one.

And finally today here is a cosy picture of our open fire taken at Christmas last year. Now the reason I'm mentioning it just now is because there is a sorry tale to tell. Open fires - wonderful things - they give focus to the room, they give off heat and light which is comforting and mellow. Nothing nicer than cosying up to the fire on a cold winter's night with a glass of red wine or a mug of tea and watching the flames dancing....and NOTHING WORSE than getting up on a Sunday morning with plans for an easy day pottering about while your husband is away working hard at a craft fair....and finding the entire living room covered in a two inch thick blanket of soot which has come down the chimney overnight. That was Sunday. I spent from 9am till 6pm in my jammies cleaning soot from every crevice in the room. I was covered, it was up my nose, in my hair everywhere. I could have cried but it would just have made black streaks.
So at six I had got the room looking good and smelling sweet again and I just had time for a quick shower before Bob walked in and asked if I'd enjoyed my day off!***!