Over Christmas my cousin Jonathan kindly gave me a very polite nudge and reminded me that I'd lapsed in my blogging.  Now that things are getting back to normal, I thought I'd do a post and will hopefully soon get back into the groove.  

It's been another busy day today.  I walked the dogs this morning - taking the boys over to Tredegar House.  After we'd walked, (or paddled) I headed for the Post Office to send some Milgi parcels, then to Duffryn Community Centre.  Regular readers will know I often write about Busy Bees where I do patchwork - just before Christmas the shop was completely destroyed by a fire.  This was devestating news - as the shop is far more than that, it is the hub of a very friendly and involved group of quilters and needlewomen.  This week, Sandra and Sue, the shop's owners, have hired space at Duffryn Community Centre so that customers could pop in to check and confirm their bookings for the various courses they run.  I'd booked on a day course in March so called in today.  It was lovely to see Chris and Marianne, and it's likely we'll soon hear if/where/when the shop will be re-opening.  Wherever possible, they are also going to go ahead with the courses, which is excellent news.  For the short time I was there, there was a steady stream of customers, full of concern, but also of hope - a very cheering start to the New Year.  

This afternoon, I've been doing Milgi admin, ordering more fabric, sorting out photos for the online dog show, ordering some prizes for it (giant cheese cookies for the dogs) and passing on orders and stock lists to be made up to our machinists.  The company who supplies the dog biscuits is another small business - Jayne, the owner is always incredibly helpful and very positive.   We sent out giant cookies to our customers in the run up to Christmas as a way of saying Thank You, and often put little bags of the doggy treats in with orders the rest of the year.  

After feeding the dogs and having something to eat this evening, I had a phone call from a rescue friend - help needed for an emergency transport run, plus a lovely catch up on lots of other news.  Tidied the kitchen then came upstairs to a fresh round of emails.  Dogs are all settled now, so soon it will be time for bed.