chocolate cake is good for the soul

feeling much better now following an easter egg hunt at a friends house this afternoon with our NCT chums. sadly we returned home too late to make it to circuit training... shame.

By the way I am now the proud owner of this little beauty, a Barbour Washed Twill International Jacket - what a lovely husband. I also tried on a lovely Avoca Renaissance dress, perfect for Kevin's wedding party! the thing i've found we need to be wary of however is shoe-horning ourselves into O&C clothes just because we have access to them rather than wanting them. don't let me forget that generally speaking the shop is targetting the 45+ market!!

apparently there are some great Dents bags on the way though...

hold onto your hats, matt hayes is about to net a very large rudd at horseshoe lake in lechlade near my hometown of highworth. it's depressing that i've watched this programme before. definitely time for bed!

a strange old week

i was determined to write on here at least once a week and already i've failed but it's been an odd week. it feels like it's been an emotional week. mothers day on sunday which is never a good day for me, even though i get spoilt by grace now. i went to cambridge to meet some friends for lunch and cried nearly all the way there after hearing about jade goody. i was never a fan so perhaps i'm a hypocrit but it was just so tragic that those little boys should wake up on mothers day without a mummy. a friends husband died this week too. and again there were too gorgeous children left grieving for a parent - they are so young too it brakes my heart.

so you see, that's why i haven't written much this week, it's all been a bit sad really. on the bright side grace has had a lot of fun entertaining Barnaby Bear from nursery. we had to look after him all week and take photos of his travels. this photo above is my favourite of the bunch with Grandma and Peter at Minsmere.

don't worry, i'm sure it won't be long before i'm back to talking about shoes and handbags again :)

how very grown up

james has just got home from his first meeting of the aldeburgh business group as vice-president, how terribly grown up! sounds like there's a good group of people on board so lets hope they can get some momentum going and worry about things other than the christmas lights (not that I'm denying the lights their importance of course...).

I had a very busy day at work today - proposals coming out of my ears and I thought people didn't have any money to spend? perhaps they really are turning to digital as a more effective way to spend their marketing budget. alas this meant that I missed a gloriously sunny day - most annoying seeing as it was so grey and cold when grace and I braved aldeburgh beach yesterday morning. But little grace had a fab day out with grandad and gran-jan - they went to RSPB Minsmere the lucky things.

Can someone remind me I have 3 over-ripe bananas in the fridge waiting for me to make banana bread on friday afternoon? beccy truly has turned into her mother since having the twins and now puts me to shame by arriving everywhere laden with very delicious cakes and brownies, yum. how does she do that AND look after two 2 year olds?! apparently her banana bread recipe is one of nigella's so i'll be attempting that on friday. beccy says i can soak the sultanas in any spirit i have to hand - I can't help feeling that will be a waste of my lovely Citadelle gin though...

And finally... check out the lovely new Barbour images on our homepage (you may need to refresh a few times) summer is on the way! New Spring/Summer items are slowly being added to the site (bless Daryl for his patience with the software we have to work with!!) and I'll certainly be trying this little Barbour Mac on next time I'm in the shop! Oh, and I'm very excited because I'm being allowed to have an input into the new curtain fabric for the ladies changing rooms - so easily pleased. How about this Liberty Fabric? I LOVE the Liberty website!

a room with a view

beccy and i just had a fantastic flying visit to a little place called Sales in Switzerland to visit amy, michael and their gorgeous 4 week old baby, olivia rose. she was a poppet and all was very calm in the howard household - much more so than i ever remember our house being when grace was 4 weeks old! anyway, i just thought i'd share this photo taken from their kitchen. we sat on the balcony in the sun having coffee this morning looking out at this view, gorgeous.

jolly nice to be home for big grace and james cuddles though, especially as it was such a lovely sunny afternoon to drive back to snape in. thank you easyjet for getting me home in time for bathtime :)

there's always time to talk shoes

well i'm a bit bushed after running a web workshop today on the tantalising subject of trading standards. it was in fact a really interesting day but i am worn out now and my hat goes off to the O&C shop staff who are on their feet all day. and talking of feet...

when i did briefly see my husband earlier (he's been buying shoes in norwich for the past 2 days and popped in for beans on toast on his way to hockey training) he very kindly informed me that he's seen some lovely Riva pumps today that i will love and he's going to order me some in. how special to have a husband that can proactively deliver such delights!

dipping a toe in the blog water

I've secretly always wanted to write a blog but never really had anything interesting to say. But then on the way down the A12 today on a gloriously sunny Suffolk day I realised that I do actually have quite a lot to say and perhaps now is the time to start.

So here we go.

It all started in 2006. This was quite a momentus year for me - I got married and got pregnant (in that order) and then James, my better half, bought a shop on Aldeburgh High Street called O&C Butcher. It's a pretty awful name for such a lovely, traditional shop but it's been trading for over 100 years so who were we to swoop in and change it? However, I do still have to clearly explain to people that my husband deals in clothes rather than meat. At that time we were living in the village of Duxford just south of Cambridge. James was in corporate banking and commuted down to the City each day and I managed a small digital team at a marketing agency in Cambridge. We'd never been to Aldeburgh before - we were always Southwold/Walberswick visitors - but before we knew it, it was ours!

So, James took over the shop in February 2007 and at 36 weeks pregnant we moved to a little house in Snape. Why do pregnant women always do stupid things like that? On our first wedding anniversary I woke up and told James I was in labour - he'd left my card and flowers at the shop (a common mistake) and the day generally went downhill from there. But in the early hours of Monday 28 May 2007 Grace was born. Amazing.

All of a sudden we had a new baby, a new business and a whole load of new friends to make. It was to be quite a year.

By May 2008 I was ready to start working again and picked up some freelance project management work with an Internet company called Shelton. Rather handily they are based just down the road in Melton and I've been happily working there 2 days a week ever since.

As we get to know more and more about our local surroundings I get more and more inspired by the people I meet. There seem to be so many entrepreneurial people around here. People who have escaped the City, locally grown talent and others who have returned to their roots. But in this blog I hope to introduce you to some of these folk and share some of the tales of my Suffolk life as The Shopkeeper's Wife.

And I promise to *try* and make future posts more succinct...