Strawberries and more ...

I love strawberries ..... and our friends the MacIntoshes have the most wonderful strawberry patch ... full of the juiciest, sweetest berries. And, like all old-fashioned varieties, the fruiting season is relatively short, and once picked the berries don't keep .... but ahhh, the flavour! We've been picking loads and gorging ourselves till we just can't eat any more.. so I painted some (not very well) and then I made some jam ....

Last month I mentioned the old letter concealed in the chimney breast that the builders found when renovations were in hand. Here it is ...

It's hard to read in the picture, but what it actually says is

"Fryday 15 Septr 1837

Enclosed in a cupboard being part of an old chimney built time out of mind lately belonging to and rebuilt in all its parts this House (save this Chimney) in the Year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1812 by the late James Torring Esq and now altered improved & beautifyed by me the Owner a newspaper being enclosed with it describing among other things the Funeral of our late King Wm 4th it now being the first year of the reign of Victoria a young Lady of great promise.

Robt Webb"

And that's it. I haven't been able to find out anything about Robert Webb, but do know that the back part of the house where the cobb walls are 2 feet or more thick dates back to at least Tudor times, whilst the front is definitely Georgian. I think Robert must have been the gentleman who laid our wonderful hall floor and I think of him every time I sweep and mop it (rather more often than I would like thanks to those newfies!)

And having mentioned the newfies ... it was our village fete last weekend. Sadly it rained and rained and rained and we had to hold the event in the hall. Having made all our preparations though, we carried on and it was a great success. Our most important task here at Coombe Leigh was to create a special harness for Amy to wear on her big day - for of course Amy was a competition in her own right!

She loved it!! She preened and posed, delighted to be the centre of attention - and raised £21.45 - which is a lot of 20 pences!! (No, I'm not sure where the 5p came from either!)

Amy was trained to do water rescue work before I adopted her following her accident. Interestingly, when I put the harness on her she puffed out her not insubstantial chest, and became very serious and important - I don't know if she thought she was going to be working again. She did actually save a little girl once, bringing her in from the sea at Looe, and was in the local press. But she's been resting on her ever more substantial laurels ever since. In fact she weighed in at 10 stone 11 lbs!!

As usual, Ben gets the final laugh!! (He's simply impossible to ignore)

A weekend at Exeter Craft Festival

Today is not going to be a blog about the newfies ... in fact I haven't seen them all weekend as they've been banished to boot-camp (aka the most wonderful kennels in Devon, let's run straight into the play area and not even bother to say goodbye to our mum)!

But they wouldn't have enjoyed this weekend at all, as the DevonBears have been at Exeter Craft Festival meeting lots of nice people and selling loads of stuff. We had a great weekend, in the most wonderful surroundings as the stalls were set up on the Cathedral Green. You can't see the stalls on the photo below, but they were just off camera to the left.

The only bad bit of the day was trying to navigate our way around Exeter's one-way system - we could see the Cathedral in the distance, but whichever turning we chose we found ourselves heading back out of town again. Marital disharmony threatened, but more by luck than judgement, we found a very-well hidden side street and suddenly we were there! We quickly set up our stall ....
Not a moment too early as vistors soon started to arrive ...

The junior team member (aka husband) was overcome with fatigue and abandoned his post for a quick cup of tea and newspaper break ...

Then the band began to play...

And he quickly returned to his post... (I wanted pink stripey staff uniform aprons but he refused to wear pink - spoilsport!)

Visitors came from across the globe - some travelling great distances to reach the DevonBears stand ...
Some of our products are off to far-flung places such as Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong - wow - my bags and aprons are better-travelled than I am!

Two days of fun, sunshine and hard work!! But a great time was had by all - we sold out of some things, and loads of feedback - more bunnies are needed!! A day off today, then collect my furry friends tomorrow (don't suppose Ben will want to come home) and start on the orders.