'hey, i got outta bed- what more do you want?!'*

This pretty much sums up my life at the moment. Bed is where I want to be. 

I'm getting more- and uninterrupted- sleep than I have had for the last 16 years but somehow I still feel like in bed, asleep, is where I need to be. Getting out of bed is just so very, very hard in the mornings. 

Someone this week, ripped one of the doilies off the magnolia tree. I got back early enough this afternoon to patch the damaged section. Quite a silly bit of vandalism. And strangely weird too. The Prettiest Magnolia is back to her lovely self. The number of people who have taken her  photo is quite astounding. 

This weeks lack of posts has mainly be due to too much on. School started again this week and I've gone back to squeezing in 3 days, if I'm luck, in the studio. I have managed to get new stock in store this week though. We have cashmere/wool 'Dora' pants in black and moss, some 'Ava' wool tops and lots of new tea-towel skirts (I had an intense skirt making blitz to get them all finished) and some new cushions. These are made from patchworked vintage Obis backed with waxed linen- very glam. (I am such a sucker for natural linen and can't understand why people don't find it as gorgeous as I do, in fact I find people's reaction to linen generally quite weird. Just a warning but I am using linen for summer stock so if you hate it you better steer clear of the Cottage when the weather hots up.) There is a lot to do though, I had lots of stock and back-ups in the store cupboard and was really surprised when I checked and all the back-ups were gone. The list is growing.

Really the main reason for lack of posts has been that this is POST #200 and I have spent the week agonising over whether I would do a give away to celebrate. The problem with competitions and give-aways is that they always feel to me like they are a bribe to make people join in. I feel like I shouldn't have to bribe you to visit. If you find me boring or I don't interest you then you are quite welcome to not visit, that is the joy of the free blog world. Don't think that I don't like giving things away- I do! (probably too much for ever be a hard-arsed successful retailer)- and I thought it might be really nice to do it one day with a really special piece, not something pulled out  of the shop but something created especially for the occasion. 

So anyway this is Blog Post #200- normally programming will return with the next post.

*thanks to Lily Tait (aged 12) and Banksy for the above quote