menagerie

Ah, yes, Saturday again. And the end of another month. We are most definitely in Autumn, that slightly hazy long light and the days are drawing in. The perfect time for the woodland creatures to pop out for a scurry- OK the pink and grey galah is less 'woodland' more 'bush' but lets just go with it.

These are so small and damn cute and I just had to get them for the shop. A couple of badgers, a galah, a tired little fawn, a squirrel whose name really should be 'Nutkin' and a definite March hare all ears and twitching nose.

I think the hare would be rather nice as an Easter present.

And I know there are people out there who love squirrels- in a collecting sense not in a, you know, strange way. Although I had a very funny picture of someone in a squirrel suit on my wall for a while, a 'plushy', nudge-nudge, wink-wink , with a huge tail standing at a hotel desk booking in. I found that photo very humorous.

And fox and vixen salt and pepper shakers!
These pieces are all hand painted and really expressive. It feels like Xmas has come again at the Cottage with all the new stuff that's coming in. I think we are about due for a big re-jigging of displays and most importantly the window display. I don't know why but I have been having heaps of trouble being enthusiastic about the front window, perhaps it's because there is less and less room in the window area as we cram more and more in the shop!

Might remember last December I treated myself to a Heico cockatoo lamp- now we have them in the shop! Of all the Heico nightlights this is my absolute favourite, I love that he is about actually cockatoo size and all the detail when he is lit up. If they made a budgie version I'd be in heaven!
A new batch of the Op Shop Guide has arrived too and we are hoping the CWA Classics cook book will be back in the shop in a week.
Jeez is that the time?! I better dash! If you can't make it in and you'd like us to send you anything you see here just give us a call at the shop or email us.

and the red satchel goes to......

the silver satchel goes to......

Over at Cottage Facebook the RNG has been at work and the winner has been announced!
Jethro is having a nap in preparation for the red satchel draw this evening.

ooops

As I forgot to mention that the giveaway closed at 9PM AEST (daylight savings) I'll leave the comments open until midnight tonight- midnight in Melbourne that is- anything time stamped after that will not be eligible.
Sorry! You've got 45 minutes to comment!

the end is nigh......

Jethro wants to remind everyone that The Giveaway ends tonight. Go here and here if you haven't already. He's getting psyched up for his role, it's pretty important work chasing bits of paper across the floor. He's taken to sitting on this stool blocking my view of the TV to remind me what an important cog he is in the machinery that is 'Cottage Industry', his role in public and customer relations is very important indeed. He's also taken to sleeping in in the mornings now Autumn is here- and I am very please with that, thank you.
Off to the studio today, then off to here to see this person's lovely work.

queen of all she surveys

I've had a curious week or so having to get up and talk in front of groups of people. Last week it was the panel discussion and today was a guest lecture at R.M.I.T. talking about my design practice and sustainability. I tend to wing these things, I find if I plan them I get absolutely lost. I just wish I had a good set of images, my photos were all over the place and then I forgot to show a whole pile. Oh well. After two and half years of teaching first year fashion design students I have got over most of my public speaking shyness (which amazes me no end!).
As a treat I dropped into Metropolis Books to see the latest treasures that Molly always tempts me with. I ran into on the stairs and she told me I was to tell Dan to show me the Alexander Girard book in the Special Cabinet. Molly is an evil book pusher ('evil' as in fabulous) and of course I then had to weigh up paying a bill or putting the book on lay-by.... lay-by won this time and I am itching to pay this beauty off and regale you with amusing quotes from this massive tome. It's the size of a coffee table! I really need to find a way of funding my book addiction.
I got home then headed out again to pick up my auction purchases. I just had to bid on this gem! I seem to have a bit of a QE11 collection here. I'm still working out how I can convince a friend of mine to 'loan' me a fabulous framed photo of Her Maj he found in a dumpster. Perhaps I should plan something for the Queen's Birthday holiday, a crazed window display maybe. I think this plaque came out of a pub, it's painted plaster and about 65 cm high with lights inset into the tudor roses. It's hilarious and I really must rewire it and get it lit up. There is a big crown on the top of it. I love it!
Tomorrow is studio.
Thursday is the end of the giveaway! Quick sticks!

a gradual woolification

A Sunday sleep in (to make up for the lost sleep last week), a walk into the city which was pumping due to the City Romp (a treasure hunt/ramble thingy), undie shopping, a visit to Breadtop to check out the puppy shaped cakes (the poster says 'adopt a puppy'.... then take it home and eat it....) and then home for newspapers and tea sitting at my spankingly clean big wooden table.
Then I had promised myself I would get the start of the woolifying of the Cottage underway. This year I've ordered in a range of Slade knits, yes, real old skool Slade pure new wool cardis and sweaters (crew and v-neck) and some lovely hand beaded jet black cardigans. It was looking like Slade was going to slide into oblivion but they have been taken over by a really lovely company who are backing it all the way and slowly re-vamping it, not in a bad way but in a good caring way- like doing beaded cardis! The prices are ridiculously good for a fully fashioned pure new wool garment and I love their classic good looks. There is a coral in the crew necked sweater that I love but I have huge bazookas and can't wear that style, it is so annoying! I have put aside a beaded cardi for me though.

autumnal saturday

Bit of a late running morning here. Another bad nights sleep and this means everything gets a little pear shaped until we get to 11am and the shop opens and we reset the day again. Running out to get supplies this morning and the definite feeling that Autumn is here, the little kids at footy training on the oval at Edinburgh Gardens, the greyhound being walked wearing a green knitted onesie or perhaps it was a 'thneed' (and on that note, do you feel as creeped out by 'The Lorax' ads on TV as I do?), the first of the Fuji apples at the greengrocer, the little girl who asked me if I knew whose birthday it was tomorrow- her's- and that it was at the Zoo, the strange yet familiar feeling of de ja vu as I walked along, yes, it is Autumn in old Melbourne Town.

I got a few Welsh blanket cushions done yesterday before I ran out of the right coloured zips. There are a few new colourways and designs in store. I also made up a batch of 'hot water' wheat bags, I thought we might be needing them, new flannelette fabrics too. And I picked up our new run of shop postcards, a bit of a four-legged theme this time! Mare and foal, stag and does and a Pierrot and horse (although it looks like it should be a unicorn!).

Better get the day underway I suppose. I'm quite looking forward to a big sleep in tomorrow although I must set aside some time to get all our new Winter woollies priced and out in the shop. If you are looking for me today I'll be the one behind the counter spinning yarn whilst wearing a top made from depression era quilts..... I seem to have misplaced my mudbrick house..... although I must admit I'm rather tempted to start building a straw bale cottage.....

Don't forget to post a comment here and here to be in the birthday satchel giveaway!

birthday

So today is the Cottage Industry's 4th birthday.
Can you believe it?!
The last four years have been a bit of a blur, sometimes good, sometimes dementing, occasionally hilarious, occasionally sob inducing, often frantic, full to the brim with lovely people (and a few very strange ones just to flavour the mix).
We've grown in so many ways. I've been able to indulge myself and stock things that I love, to make things that people want to buy and surround myself with glorious patterned textiles. The Cottage still has many places to go and things to do and everyday is -corny as it sounds- an adventure. I could certainly never manage without my lovely shop girls Dell and Anna who put up with my moods, rants and craziness (and of course lovelies Elise and Yem who still drop by for chats and smiles).

As we have done in past years we are doing a birthday give away- a present (or two) from us to you.

This year we have decided that the presents will be two Cambridge Satchels!

So here's the plan......

  

If you would like to be in the running to win a 15" red classic Cambridge Satchel then post a comment here on the blog. Jethro will draw the winner as he has done before, he quite likes running through all the little slips of paper.

If you would like to be in the draw for a 13" silver Cambridge Satchel then post a comment on our Cottage Industry Facebook page. One catch though- you have to LIKE us to be in the draw for this one. We'll use the random number generator to choose the winner here.


Fine print bits coming up.....
The giveaway closes at 9pm on the 29th of March 2012 and we'll draw the winners on Friday the 30th of March 2012.
Entry is restricted to Australian residents only.
We will mail the satchel out via Express Post.
The satchels can't be exchanged for another size, style or colour (or for monetary value of course!).
Remember either comment on this post or LIKE and comment on our Facebook page.
You can be in the running for both satchels.
Simple really.

Think I have covered everything!

Happy birthday Cottage Industry- and thank you all for supporting us!

done and dusted

OK photo shoot done, interview done.

Can I go back to bed now?

Pleeease?

I was woken up at 5am by a guy sitting out the back in the laneway talking to someone on his phone about whether they were on Facebook and that he'd send some things through to them there. At 5- freaking-am. Loudly. In a laneway. I told him to go home. 

The big room is still a mess from hell but really that is just how I live. Give me a space and my chattels will expand to fill it. I've got Graham the Garbo coming to take away a whole mess of crap from the studio tomorrow though (I'm sure he'll make a quip about how full the studio has become) and part of that is the old cutting table top which means I will then have to go out and get the new top and fit it to the base. That's kind of exciting. I new expanse of table to clutter up.

cat on a plate

Would you like any side orders with your main course?

just clean girl!

OK. This is it. I have get the upstairs room sorted. Full stop. No excuses. It's not going to be easy but I just HAVE to do it. I've got to get it done TODAY. (Capitals used to EMPHASISE the IMPORTANCE of these statements.)

Hmmm.

Wonder if I can have a loft ladder installed into the roof by 5 this afternoon.....

Perhaps not. 

I have a set of trestles from the studio sitting in the middle of the shop so I had better make a move on actually getting things together. I'm setting up another table upstairs (another horizontal surface to cover....) when I should be probably removing furniture  but I need a work bench at home that I can stand at to do some 'home jobs' as I'm not used to sitting when I am doing some work. 

I also need to deal with the boxes of stock at arrived yesterday. They are clogging up the shop but we really have nowhere to put them right now. Crap, crap, crap. Yes, we have fully expanded to fill every nook and cranny of this place. Which interestingly was part of the Hand Eye Collective discussion last night- the creative's collecting gene- we laughed about the hoarding of inspirational 'things' and  filling spaces with 'stuff' (and how embarrassing it can be when strangers see it all!).

The Winter knits are here but it might take a day or two to unpack and sort them, more on that later.

Right. 

I better get on to it. 

(Just where the hell am I going to put all these boxes of stuff?)

no good tv

The dumped rubbish that appears out the back in the lane sometimes annoys me and other times amuses. Like the time that the people on the corner moved out and set up their discarded furniture in tableaus each day- the lounge room, the laundry, the bedroom- and interestingly it would all have disappeared by the end of the day. Lately there has been a surprising number of televisions, they are dumped then someone comes along and takes them and then they reappear (like, duh, they were dumped because they no longer worked and they've sat out in the rain for a week....). Someone has suddenly got the bright idea to label them. This one amused me no end this morning.

No good TV. 

No, good TV.

No, good, TV.

You dirty no good TV.

Anyway there is no TV for me tonight, good or otherwise. I'm off to participate in Hand Eye Collective. It's free. There'll be 40 minutes of chat and 20minutes of questions. You can buy a drink and mull over creativity for a while. It starts at 6.30. Three nights of discourse. Come along!

wound up, wind down

Ahhh. Saturday again. A week later and home still isn't cleaned, the dyeing has only just started, I've well and truly avoided the studio, some emails have been answered, some are falling off the bottom of the list, a few phone calls have been made, most of the tin toys have been unpacked.... just another week drifting by.
I'm just printing up some handspun yarn wraps so we will have more yarn in the shop today. I dragged the spinning wheel upstairs and now I need to carry it back down. What colour to spin today? Choices, choices.
I haven't much to say this morning. I'm sitting here staring at the dye colours around my fingernails, they will be like that for the next 5 months, and have just realised that I forgot to get rubber gloves at the stupidmarket this morning. Damn. Note to self: don't shop when half asleep.
Having so many tin toys out just makes one itch to wind them all up at the same time and have them buzzing and whirring away together. Occasionally when one was sitting on the shelf supposedly run down it would start to whirr and click and jiggle about, it makes you ponder how exciting automatons must have been in their hey-day. There really is a magic to tin toys, a few cogs and springs, some jerky movements and away they go. More so, I think, than huge computer operated dinosaurs and dragons, they are impressive but not as much fun as a bit of pressed tin that you can hold in your hand, turn over and watch how they work. I think it's the Meccano factor, a bit of string, a couple of pulleys and some slotted metal and you have the Eiffel Tower. Perhaps it's just me, I'm a tinkerer, I like to visualise and think about how things work. I could at this point talk about the downside of computers and their two dimensional world, a shock realisation that came with teaching that there are generations of people out there who can not think in 3D and this is where craft and making stuff can come into its own. Using your hands and solving problems through craft and making stuff is a fabulous exercise for the brain. Often before I make something I will make it over and over in my head, thinking through how to produce it before I every pick up my scissors and slice through some fabric. On this note I should let you know about a panel discussion I'm part of for theL'Oreal  Melbourne Fashion Festival, you can pop over to the Hand Eye Collective's page to check out the details, three evenings of chat about design and making. You can come and have a drink and hear me waffle on Monday evening.
Seems like I had more to say than I thought.
Cat wrangling time!

tintabulation

When we did Markit at Fed Square last year a woman came up the stall and said rather abruptly to me (at me) 'so Pene Durston, not making stuff from vintage fabrics anymore then?!'. I was quite shocked at her presumption and she went on to tell me she was still using vintage fabrics. Well as you know I still make product from vintage fabrics (quite a lot of product) but we have always included a mix of new and old at the Cottage and we have always been upfront about the line between real vintage and re-pro. 

When the Cottage first started out I had a wishlist of things that I really wanted to get my hands on to stock. It has always been about a 'curated' list, things that I love, things that I would want to own, things that inspire me. We've got glass domes, favourite books, work by our lovely country ladies, Jim's knitting needles, vintage silk spinning bobbins.... and now the tin toy delivery has arrived! 

Jethro was excited (he chased a wind-up car through the shop last night and retrieved a train when it shot behind the wooden trunk), Dell was very excited and I have a whole pile of stock to price! We've got some little tinnies for Easter, rabbits, chicks, roosters and a very cute blue bird, and then we have a cars and trains, boats and spaceships. I think the real favourites are the monkeys though, oh and the elephant and ball, and the sawing lumberjacks and the man pushing the box (I must get a photo of him, he has a tattoo on his arm). Just where in hell are we going to put it all??

awry

This morning's booking to get some stuff sorted has gone belly up so I sat under the jasmine out the back and ate breakfast. I really don't know why I am bothering to book things and factor in times and what-have-yous when it's all going off target. Damnation. Stamp my foot in frustration. I'm now trying to move this afternoon's appointment forward. What a mess.

Sitting looking at the jasmine was nice though.

Perhaps I should hole myself up in the kitchen and start dyeing. In fact I definitely should. Well that's a plan. I need to move the huge basket of washing out of the way. Definitely. And clean the bench off. Get the dye pots out. 

Yep. There's a plan.

bird in the hand

A stop-start type of day today. Started well, ground to a halt, re-started, took a left hand turn, then a right, chugged along again. The plan had been for more cleaning and sorting but emails got in the way and a general feeling of ennui crept in and then I took the step of postponing this week's photo shoot until next week. I'm not a postponer or plan changer so it was a big step for me to make the call but the right step. I just don't have the energy to finish sorting and to lug it downstairs and out to the car (and after last week's thievery I wasn't happy about leaving it all in the hatchback until the morning).
My lack of focus is probably due in part to the mixture of sore-as-hell hip and today's anniversary of the accident that has giving me these aches and pains. I'm moving very slowly today. Creaking and creeping. I seem to lose days so easily but I am trying to remind myself that not all my work is about being in the studio, it is something I have to keep reminding myself about.
I got to play Portlandia 6 Degrees of Separation on Saturday morning when Mary Timony from Wild Flag dropped into the shop. Had it been Carrie Brownstein I think I would have died from embarrassment, stick a bird on it indeed. Portlandia, northern Melbourne, it's all a bit squirmingly close, crafty, coffee-ist, hilarious. Here's my favourite bit.

8 hours work, 8 hours play, 8 hours rest

Really this is what a long weekend should be all about, restful contemplation.
Sadly the washing and vacuuming and cleaning seems to have taken over a bit.
I'm trying to get upstairs sorted for a small photo shoot this week but the mess has me a little overwhelmed. I wish I could stretch out the big room just a bit so I could fit all the detritus of my life in. Books and magazines piled up, boxes filling up, heaps and heaps of paper work to be filed and me in the middle looking flummoxed.
Jethro helped me string up some wires out in the 'backyard' and now we have the start of a jasmine 'roof', it's rather nice. The jasmines seem to like the micro-climate out there and I'm hoping there will be lots of flowers this year.
I have read a book, drunk some tea, cooked some food, made messes in the process of cleaning, been for a walk, done a pile of washing. Just your usual long weekend.

yo there mohair!

The first hot water bottle covers of 2012, Winter must be on its way. 

A rainbow of mohair-y goodness, all the fabric woven in Australia (Tasmania or here in ol' Melbourne Town), they remind me of the 1950 and 1960s fluffy jumpers and scarves we were sometimes lucky enough to score at the op shop back in our student days. Little mohair sweaters for hot water bottles.

So it's Saturday again and what a weird and not wonderful week it has been. I've been robbed and annoyed and energy-less, I've been harassed and frustrated and getting into the studio felt strange and unfocused. I did get some work done, the HWB covers and some new vintage linen cushions, one pair in very pretty posy design in purples and raspberries reds and another in a heavyweight 1930s shiny rayon/cotton (ok, not linen but the reverse is).

I need to get treadling on the spinning wheel, we have only two hanks of handspun left, there I was thinking I had a head start on the cool season knitting. I've got another hank to weigh and measure and I'll pop that out today. It's almost time for me to pull out all our Winter beanies and this weekend I start dyeing gloves again, I'm a bit late this year, the humidity of February and then the raininess of March has thrown me a bit and now I feel like I am running behind. I probably say that every year!

It's a long weekend here (8 hours work, 8 hours play, 8 hours rest- except if you are self-employed) but I need to give the place a good clean and sort, plan some dye recipes, do the washing, create order from chaos. Just the usual Labour Day weekend. Labour Day this year falls pretty close (one day out) to the anniversary of that Labour Day morning I went out for a bike ride and didn't come home for a month or more, when I smashed my body into a taxi. I'm wondering whether my aches and pains over the last few weeks are trying to remind me about cause-and-effect, before-and-after, another life. Or perhaps that I really shouldn't lug 15 boxes of damned satchels around. 

Better dash. Things to do before the door swings open at 11am. 

aurora australis

Late yesterday I found out that the solar flares were going to give us a light show, it's on my bucket list to see both the Aurora Australis and the Aurora Borealis. If I'd known earlier I would have gone aurora chasing, a flight to Hobart or a drive far down the coast. Beautiful.

grump, grumpier, grumpiest

Actually I'm not that grumpy, which is quite surprising the last two weeks we've had at the Cottage, but I do feel that I should have the right to be wearing the expressions these two koalas are sporting.
We've had power blackouts and computer damage, telephone lines down (no phone, no internet), a customer who managed to pick up the off-line voucher for her purchase and won't take our calls about payment, we've had customers trying to return satchels they have used because they have changed their minds about the size (even though we went through all the pros and cons of size and function), another customer who's driving us mad (which is all very sad as we love our customers normally!) and then this morning some sh*t-head broke into my car and stole a box of storage tins that I had just picked up yesterday to develop a couple of new product lines in and had forgotten to lug into the shop last night. Jokes on him, bet he was disappointed when he opened the box to find smaller boxes full of tins and each of those tines contained another two tins....... you really have to laugh in a case like this. Hope it really messed with his head. Looks like the druggies of around here will be sporting nifty new stash boxes. If anyone gets offered a box of tins by some dodgy character or finds a dumped cardboard box in the back lanes of Fitzroy can they let me know?
Thanks.
I'm starting to wonder if I should take this last few weeks personally.
I didn't think I was that bad a person.

pegged out

I'm still just puddling about, trying to avoid some work and starting new projects. I feel like I need to have a damn good shake, rather like a dog, or a really good catty stretch. Hmm, that stretch actually sounds like a grand idea, I must remember to do it as I wake up lying in bed.
There was a battle of wills around here this morning, my housemate wanted food and I wanted sleep, so he preceded to knock everything off the bedside table bit by bit. Including a 3/4 full 1.25 litre mineral water bottle. This went on for an hour with him devising new plans to annoy me and me rolling over and giving the cold shoulder. It's quite fun really. We both had a nap for 20 minutes at the end and then I got up and fed him. I feel a little guilty as Jethro really was very hungry and he never asks for food out of boredom or greed (unlike myself).
I'm off to the studio for a couple of hours then I have to be back for a press meet and greet with lovely Dani from A Vintage Outing via Hidden Secrets Tours. It amuses me when people think that having a business like mine, making stuff, just involves wafting around a studio fiddling with bits of fabrics. Yesterday was spent driving around, grubbing in warehouses, talking to old skool suppliers, screaming at couriers (then having a nice chat with couriers), dragging around 40kg of wheat, emailing customers in USA that their order has been posted, making Dell tea, going out to buy a Dremel (mmm, power tools, oh this will be fun!), measuring up a new cutting table top....... really doing everything but fiddling with fabric.
There are deadlines looming however and I must stop dragging my feet.
See you later!

bobbin about

I seem to be a little AWOL at the moment.
I seem to be misplacing things.
I also spent yesterday unpacking boxes, which of course means lovely new things in the shop today. Bobbins, bobbins and more bobbins, fabulous vintage French silk spinning bobbins, I've even stashed a couple away with shiny silk thread still on them. They are from just south of Lyon, a great silk weaving city once. The farmers in the outlying areas would make extra money by raising silkworms and feeding them Mulberry leaves, selling the cocoons to the silk spinning factories that supplied the weavers. Of course it's not like that now, now the factories are sold off and we end up with a couple of boxes of silk bobbins at the Cottage. History. C'est la vie.
Now it is March and things are happening again after the lull that is February, the month when everything is slow and annoying and faintly sad and frustrating. It's late morning, I've been out and back and boxed up orders to go out and now better get moving again, I need to hit the post office and go to a meeting and feel like I can cross a few things off the mental list.
Did I say we have some lovely bobbins in store? Well we do. Wondering whether I should pop some on the Queens of Craft online shop. That would mean taking photos.....

a week has seven days*

What a weird week, definitely glad that is over red rover. Yes, I know a week is just a way for counting out seven days but these past seven have totally done my head in.  Goodbye messy week, hello Autumn and March and a rainy weekend- and apologies to anyone wishing the rain would go away in our poor flooded bits of Australia.
It's just the Cottage and cool weather seem to fit so well together. The shop glows and is so invite when it is a little cold and dismal and really we are all about cuddling up on the couch with a good book around here. 'Nesting' they call it. Although the week was so incredibly disjointed I did manage to slot a couple of hour in here and there to get cushions made (if I see another freakin' invisible zip....). We are now being crushed under an avalanche, drowned in a tsunami, overwhelmed by a plump of cushions. It's quite funny when customers try to look at the Welsh blanket cushions, they end up everywhere (the cushions and the customers). Explosion in a cushion factory! The upshot of my cushion making mania is that we have a fabulous selection in at the moment.
Now I need to get my arse in gear and start working on all the other stuff we need done!

Not having a properly functioning computer/internet access this week means I didn't get to remind you all about things that were on, like the launch of NC4 last night or that Nikki's in town having a sample sale. Sorry people. It was out of my control.
Anyway if you are around today and would like to peruse a rather large selection of cushions or purchase a satchel or three I will be in theCottage pretending to be shopgirl. Better run, I've got a shop to vacuum and a cat to wrangle.

* Are you old enough to remember 'This week has seven days'? It was a huge favourite it my family.... we really were a bunch of nerds.

autumn days

What a week this has been.
I've been in pain and laid up, travelled to Sydney and back, the computer has had to go into hospital and we've had no landline (so no phone and no internet), I've been juggling money and bills and all the general day to day things when you live a life surrounded by your business. Really, a dozen spanners in the works, one thing after another. Sitting and tapping on my computer is a painful operation but at least the machine is back and the internet is streaming again.
I have been so looking forward to Autumn and here it is, March has clicked over in a haze of angst and frustration- please let things go a bit smoother from now on! February is a strange month. The news is on TV and the stories are all about the rain and the flooding, we really are having a 'funny' old weather time, drought and flooding rains indeed.
After spending most of the morning, which should have been spent in the studio instead of hanging on the mobile to Telstra, I finally got to the studio at midday and worked so hard to get some work finished. We are desperately low in tea towel cushions but we have inserts arriving tomorrow and there will be lots in for the weekend now. We've also got a new batch of Welsh blanket cushions happening too.
I think it might be time for bed. I'm having trouble stringing words together. I'm tempted to sit propped up in bed and sip my way through a mug of tea. The warmth will send me off to sleep but the liquid will have me up in a few hours for a wee! It's going to be an early morning tomorrow and hopefully I won't get stuck sorting out some annoying technological problem, I'm starting to get a little paranoid!