Last night, after getting back from another day trip to Bollington, I thought, 'I must blog about today, it's been fab.' ...Cue opening Wix to begin a new blog post, and to my sheer horror, my most recent blog post was back in January, some 10 months ago, the very first time I went to meet Jo of Holly the Cafe Boat fame.
So much has happened between January and now, in all forms of life. We've enjoyed boating trips, we've gone on a Cruise to celebrate my Mum's 60th, enjoying watching the kids experience a plane flight for the first time, and my little designer corner Rose & Grace has gone from strength to strength. I may come to blog about the past few months, but we'll get to that another day.
So for now, let's continue with my trip to Bollington yesterday. As you all (may or may not know), back in January I met the lovely Jo over lunch at The Mulberry Leaf in Bollington. It was a cold, icy day, but a productive day at that (you can read about it here). Over the next few months I worked with Jo to design and illustrate a book cover for her Holly the Cafe Boat Cook Book! I probably ought to do a separate post about that anyway, watch this space. I was hugely honoured to have been asked and the finished cookbook was and is amazing. Take a look here at their Vlog of when the cookbooks arrived, in boxes, on pallets, on a lorry! All with my illustration on the cover!
Anyway, back to yesterday, sorry - I do love a good waffle!
Jo recently had another plan up her sleeve, and asked if I wanted to be involved. Of course I did! A few weeks later of designing and sending proofs back and forth, and she invited me back to Bollington to see something else in production. Yes!
It's half term here (for our youngest...the eldest is off next week - don't even get me started!), and I'd left it too late to book the dog in at daycare, so asked my lovely Mum if she'd come with me to watch the dog and Martha. Now, the dog is incredibly clingy, he's a typical lock down dog and only ever walked by me...so his walk along the Macclesfield canal didn't really happen as planned, and he ended up back in the car whilst I met Jo at the factory. The picture below shows me stood outside the wrong building...whilst trying to hide from the dog.
After seeing this incredibly exciting thing in production (shhh!), I relieved Mum of dog and child sitting duties and we took our friend Ann Marie to lunch at The Mulberry Leaf. The soup was warming and hearty, and fuelled us up ready for a walk up to White Nancy.
Mum had never been, and I'd never been till meeting Jo back in January - which if you'll remember, was on a freezing misty day, and obviously lacking in any sort of view, so it was nice to return - this time with Mum and Martha , and explore the hills a little. Ashby was more than happy to finally get his walk and darted about like a mad thing. Martha got to the top of White Nancy and exclaimed 'it's amazing up here!'. She also ran most of the way up as Ann Marie had given her a Tunnocks Teacake to enjoy at the top. I'm not sure where my teacake was...
After the quick walk up to White Nancy, it was time to part ways and head home. I had swimming lessons to get back for and the (by the time we would eat it) 8 hours slow cooker beef stew was beckoning. Turns out, if you use a sausage stew packet mix with beef stew ingredients, the kids wolf it down!
I promise I'll get better at blogging...pinky promise. For now, watch out for Holly the Cafe Boat's latest vlog, coming to screens near you, possibly this afternoon!