NOT ENOUGH TIME

Well there just isnt enough time in a day to fit everything in. Its starting to really annoy me. I need a planner to run my life and not just the work bits cos I NEED a planner to work out when I can fit in the play bits. How sad am I!

Felt a right idiot today. Took car into a garage cos have what I am pretty sure is a tracking problem but they just wont have it. If the tyres wear I shall send em the bill! Not sure theyd pay it but worth fighting for cos I still think it pulls to oneside but being a woman ofcourse I cannot be right - or so they made me feel. Me and M both drove several different bits of road and it always pulls to left. They say camber. I will send em the bill in about a month!

New directions and old friends

Did Leamington peace festival, Last time I went (as a punter/customer- depending how you see life!) I was 26! Now I am middle forties so all has changed|!) made a living. This is good. Its where I should be! I need to do lots of festivals. I have never enjoyed work as much as I did last weekend! Mind you was really hard work since my mate was ill so I ended up having to work alone and when it gets hectic thats difficult. Some shoplifting too cos I cant watch everything at once and serve pepes. I really need some help at big events like that. I still enjoyed it tho dont get me wrong and with luck I will do again next year.

free the chickens

Had a really hectic weekend and we are both still knackered and its only tuesday! On Thursday decided its nearly my birthday ( wont say how ancient I am)and emailed Little Hen Rescue since I would love to have some ex-battery chickens. I first got in touch with them when I found a knitting pattern for jumpers for hens on the internet and decided then - January- I would like some hens but we were not ready gardenwise. We still are not really but its just time and we have demolished about half of the tumble down buildings so do have some space now. I was intending to get them mid-July but they emailed back to say they had booked us in for Sunday! So having done a market in Derbyshire I came home swapped from van to car, left M to take care of the rest of the pets( dogs cockateils etc) and drove to Norfolk to get my chickens. We have 3. Should have got 6 tho so have asked for 3 more in about a month. They are lovely! They are a bit bald but not as bad condition as many. Because I live so far away from the rescue place they gave me very feathered good condition birds. Or relatively speaking. One has a floppy comb due to malnutrition and all are underweight. The state of some of them there was pitiful. They have a hospital wing for birds with broken wings - normally they are left to suffer untreated on the battery farms. One pen has birds with a disease who cannot got to homes. Another has birds who have legs so weak they cannot stand up. All will be rehomed eventually though apparently - except those with diseases. These people do such a worthwhile job and work long hours for free every weekend to rehome these poor creatures. The woman who started Little Hen Rescue is called Jo and she has also rescued cockateils. One of her cochateils has had its wings stapled. Can you believe that? What kind of human being would do such a terrible thing to a bird. Being a parrot it can climb and lives in an aviary with other rescued cockateils but the idea of this poor bird having its wings stapled haunts me. Apparently the vet reckons the staples cannot be removed due to having grown over. Poor animal.
Anyway Little Hen Rescue is wonderful. Inspiring. They had 10,000 birds to rehome last weekend else they would be slaughtered. They managed to rehome most of these. The place was very difficult to find and i just got lost and they came and recused me - made me feel a right prat I can tell you but anyway if you ever fancy recuing chickens ( they also do geese and ducks) I would recommend them. My chickens are currently in temporary housing but even this small 6ft by 2 ft run is better than they are used to. The house is good tho and till today only one had ventured out of it into the run and to get them out I had to force them thru the door cos I wanted to clean the inside of their house and didnt want to attempt with them in the way. On battery farms they have 6 chickens to a space the size of an A3 sheet of paper so mine have a huge area even though I feel guilty cos it is small! It will be better once the new run is built. Mine seem quite happy tho scrattching around and munching on food. You have to give them mash to begin with cos they are not used to anything else and make sure they are drinking but it all seems to be going well so far. I have given them some tomatoes, cougettes and carrots which they ate, but they didnt like pasta. The run is very makeshift since we expected to have another 3 weeks to get ready but it didnt work out like that so now we will have to move the wood store and they will then get a space about 10ft by 14ft to live in which is more like it. Also then I can get another 3! M worked very hard on Saturday, sunday after the market( whilst I drove to get them) and monday after he got home from work, to make this home for them. He is very tired still today. This proves how fast you can work tho when something needs doing.I wish we could be this fast at renovating the house. The new chicken run will be ongoing for a couple of weekends I reckon cos to build it we have to move loads of wood but its seasoned now and in reality we are unlikely to be given huge amounts of fire wood ever again so probably wont need such a huge storage space for it so it will be a new chicken home. My birthday has come early this year. Time to get back to making stuff for the festival now.......

Leamington Peace Fair / Festival

Well I have got on to Leamington Peace Fair but now its a festival apparently. Very exciting cos I didnt think I had. A fellow trader I know heard about 6 weeks ago he was on so its quite a surprise and its not long away ( june 13-14) so I just hope I will have enough stock to do it. Could have done with longer to get it set up. Also have already outgrown 8/10 ft market stall and now also have a table which is fine till it rains so today have had to rin g up the company who make them and order so evtra bits to extend to a 14ft ( because we have an 8 that extends to a 10 we will now be able to have a 8, 10, 12, 14 ft stall as needed which is a bonus. Also buying front extensions to make it better in the rain cos by the time theres a plastic sheet up there is no/ very little space to get customers in! I am really excited about Leamington peace fair. Have not been since around 1989 and apparently its grown from about 12 stalls to about 150!!!!! And we will be there!

I am now making candles and room sprays too which I have sold one of each already and they only went on the stall on saturday. Did not do very well this week end but sold enough to replenish supplies for new products and now finally getting round to buying gify fair trade stuff to go with everything else. We need a bigger range to get the company to work cosw if it carries on like this I need to get a proper job!

I am encouraged tho. On saturday was ready to pack it all in but then I just cant stay dismal for long I spose. Made more bath bombs today and will do the rest of what |I need for this week tomorrow and then off to banbury cross ( literally!) on thursday to do the market for the second time. Thden was going to milton keynes friday but may have to leave that till next week since sold more by the looks of things over bank holiday than I realised so may need to do friday making new stock for the weekend but I will see how much I manage to make tomorrow. Now time to pay tatty`s blog a visit I think!

mouldy moisturiser

My moisturiser went mouldy. Only one but worrying.Maybe they dont keep that long. Maybe someone opened that one. Like home made jam it goes off. Maybe thats good cos proves it natural etc but I am not so sure itd going to be good for business!Talking of which my first ever hit( as in to my website I mean) called me. Well he may not be my first hit but either way hes the first to ring me up and I was very unprofessional and just said hello not "Brackencraft" or can I help you or something professional sounding anyway I need to professionalise myself a bit and the result is there are paypal buttons now and they work! Have yet to do them all - takes me ages!

Maybe I will one day achieve self sufficiency after all..........
Now time to read everyone elses blogs. I have been so busy for ages................

a great week and life just gets better

Well we just did a very tiring and hard work bank holiday market. The sun was out and it was busy and the day was great. Makes me feel sure this is the right direction. I just need to find out the best markets and stick with them now so I make enough to survive. Its looking good today. I had a vague hope of selling out which didnt happen but sales were steady and we could make this work. So long as we can pay the bills and leave enough money to replenish stock all will be fine. Tomporrow gotta see an accountant to try to deal with this stressful tax stuff...................

Its been busy.............

I have been stressing. First the Vegan Fayre which was ace tho the coffee was suspect in that the "soya milk" didnt curdle and altho sometimes I manage it mostly when I make coffee with soya milk it curdles. The stuff in jugs sold at BVF didnt! Worrying but too late and all over with anyway. Will note for future reference.

Then had to make it work. Got my first mail order which is amazing. Hope she liked what she ordered! Then what next? Had loads of hassle uploading the website and total disaster so far with forwarding the rest of the domains to see the same thing. I have had very detailed instructions tho from web host ( Godaddy -) their customer support when you are an idiot with doing your own website is ok it seems cos have managed most things once I email for help! Havent had time to try yet since went on tax course for new businesses ( HMRC run) and now scared to death. Most unproductive 2 days ever after that downloading and printing credit card statements , bank statements and loads of wsated time and wasted paper making excel print company accounts to 2 sheets and one page wide each month. Finally worked out you adjust the % manually and try test page! Well never been actually been taught excel ( my excuse) and when did use at uni was just for graphs so I can do that but not the admin type stuff. Well can now!

Spent today at Rugby - ok but yet to work it all out and did stock take- for scary tax return stuff! Tho still have to actually weigh the ingredients in stock and no idea what I actually have!!!! Well vague idea but theres all sorts of weird things from failed experiments that I probably have to sort out now. Tho spose could be time to have a clear out. Also time to reorder stuff short of which is loads.

Doing tomorrow and monday markets so hopefully the bail out will happen now before the company goes under. The BVF saved me last time. May be this time it will be bank holiday. Wonder how it feel to actually start to make money or does it ever happen to normal people. Will it always be down to luck if I get bankrupt tomorrow! Its all fun I spose and have to say I have never felt free-er or happier!