I have discovered the best TV programme of all time - Ace of Cakes. Have you seen it? It’s a reality show about a cake shop in Baltimore, that specialize in really amazing custom cakes for special occasions. Awesome cakes. Some of which take 20-30 hours to decorate. Cakes shaped like Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus. Or the Taj Mahal. Offbeat, quirky, one off cakes. Made by offbeat, quirky people. It’s TV heaven.

Over the holidays, I managed to squeeze in a little time reading and relaxing. Just a little. I started off with Jane Brocket’s charming book, Cherry Cake & Ginger Beer, which is a collection of recipes based on classic childrens literature. It reminded me of so many books that I loved as a child, but had forgotten about: the Chronicles of Narnia, Ballet Shoes, Five Children and It, Swallows & Amazons. So those were next on the reading list. There’s nothing quite like children’s fiction to soothe a stressed mind.

And there’s nothing quite like nursery puddings to soothe a stressed body. Rice pudding, jam rolypoly, apple dumplings, hot scones, sticky flapjack, spotted dick and custard, ahhhhhh. These are the things that kept us going through the long days of renovations. I defy anyone to feel stressed after a bowl of jam rolypoly and custard.     

I can’t believe how fast those Sock Club memberships sold last night! I’m still reeling from it. Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm about Posh Yarn. I know that a lot of you missed out, and are disappointed, but don’t worry, we’ll have lots of scrumptious yarn in our next shop update for you to console yourself with! We’re still running behind schedule, so the next shop update will be Sunday January 18th at 7pm. It’ll be worth the wait, I promise!!

……….. that sign ups for the 2009 Posh Yarn Sock Club open today at 7pm (UK time)!

Why, oh why, did we decide to remodel upstairs? Why, oh why, did we decide to do it over the Christmas holidays? Why, oh why, did I believe Tony when he said it would only take about a week?

Three weeks into the project, and we’re only just beginning to see some progress. I had hoped, planned, for it to be finished at the beginning of this week, so that we would have a bit of time to relax before getting back to work. Ha. 

For one thing, the dividing wall between the two rooms, which we thought was plasterboard, turned out to be lath and plaster, so it was a much bigger and messier job taking it down. Then, instead of buying wardrobes, we decided to have a walk in wardrobe running the full length of the room, and that’s taken the best part of a week to build and fit. Tony’s only just finished that today. The ceiling had to be re-skimmed, because the ceiling in each room was different, so that’s slowed us down as well. Today Tony will start wallpapering, tomorrow will be painting and finishing off, and Sunday I hope the carpet will go down.

(this was a tiny bedroom, which we used as the Posh Yarn stock room)

Unfortunately, that means that we’ve run out of time to do the PY stock room and office before we have to go back to work. So we’re going to have to juggle doing that while working over the next couple of weeks.

(this was the other tiny room upstairs, a box room, not big enough to use for anything really)

Thankfully, we had the help of some very generous friends, who sacrificed their xmas hols as well to help us out. Without them, we would be even further behind than we are now.

(The left side of the room once the dividing wall was demolished. The eagle eyed among you may spot Tony’s Fair Isle sweater, over which I slaved for months, in a pile of rubble on the floor. Grrr.)

I hope that next week I will have some finished - or at least, mostly finished - shots for you!