The machine is cranking up again

Well, as I've already said, this Christmas break has been all about doing nothing ( apart from eating). But all good things must come to an end ( the fridge is now empty ), and it's time to heave the expanding waistline off the settee and get back to work.

Still, after a couple of weeks of over indulgence, the prospect is quite appealing, I must say. I need a bit of structure back in my life.

So, tonight I tackled one of my least favourite New Year chores - filling out application forms for Craft fairs in 2010.

Some organisers make the form filling easy, others are just sadistic. Like making you print your name,address, phone number, fax number, email address, website address blah blah blah on EVERY page of the application form, which in one particular case stretches to TEN pages.

But anyway, that's two major fairs applied for at least.

On the subject of Craft Fairs, we recently found a list of the fairs we did in one year, way back in 1995, and believe it or not there were 47 of them, some of them over 2 or 3 days as well! That meant we had to pack up for a fair just about every weekend of the year, sometimes even packing two vehicles as we were doubled up at two events on the one day.

Those were crazy times, but the wholesale side and of course the website were non existent, so we had to go out on the road to reach our customers.

Over the years, we've cut back drastically to just some major events each year - the Royal Highland Show, Edinburgh Festival and Country Living are the main ones. But I'm not averse to adding in the odd little one, especially near Christmas as they can sometimes be wee goldmines.
 I certainly don't miss the old Friday night ritual of packing boxes and stressing out about what to take and what we've forgotten. Then setting out before dawn on a cold snowy winter's morning and driving as much as 120 miles when everyone else in the world was tucked up in their cosy beds, and don't get me started on the number of times the car broke down when I was by myself in the middle of nowhere.

No, checking the website for the orders coming in, and taking calls from our shops while in the comfort of our own home is much the better option.

OK, enough rambling. Today's picture shows that I haven't just been a couch potato over the past few days. Oh no - I have been doing the JIGSAW FROM HELL, or La Paz, Bolivia to be exact.

This was Laura's inspired idea for her Dad's birthday - a photo from their South America travels turned into a 1000 piece jigsaw. Great idea, but  the one she chose....

well, see what I mean? Just click on the picture to get a better idea.

Bob fell by the wayside very early on - I think he just looked at the box of pieces and decided to get back to work instead.

I thought I should do a mother's duty and make it up for Laura's benefit ( are you reading this, Laura!) It took days, nights and days again. But at exactly 4.30 pm this afternoon the final piece went in! That was after going to bed with stinging eyes and a sore back at 4am this morning, not to mention the heartburn and indigestion caused by being bent over the jigsaw for days on end while scoffing Thorntons chocs.

But my side of the family is known for its tenacity - Mum knows what I mean. We can get quite single minded about getting a job done, usually when it's the time wasting sort rather than anything meaningful. So, Laura, here it is. I'm going to keep it made up to show you when you get home, then I'm going to break it all up and present it to you as a challenge. Have you inherited the Clark gene?