Florida, USA

It was a long time since we had a proper holiday (that is all holiday and no work), and we'd planned this break long before Harry the cat died, though had I actually been able to cancel, it was definitely the way I was feeling.  As it was, my parents stayed at the house as usual to serve the cats in any way the cats desired, and I was bundled out of the house feeling very unlike wanting to leave home and my precious cats....especially as we were moving stableyards on return from holiday.
For some reason, we expected poor weather and we got everything but - it must be 12 years since we were last in Florida and I noticed that many businesses and malls appear to have gone to the wall, and in many places an air of tumbleweed blowing down the main street seemed to prevail.

Despite being far from home and in theory away from the stress of Harry's death, I'd just start crying randomly....thank god for dark glasses, because I think I had these horrible haunted eyes most of the time.  Blubbing would just erupt at any moment my heart wandered to what has just happened.
But there were moments of brightness, and the heat seems to have done my bones and health a lot of good.  We landed at Orlando and immediately took the rental car down south towards the Keys, our old haunt without much of a backward glance, though we pinged from coast to coast as we did it - we stayed at Captiva and Sanibel islands, both world famous for magnificent shells that wash up on the beach (the only shells I found were in shops!) - before driving further and further south and ending up at Islamorada in the Keys, and later took a trip to Key West which is a bit like Disney world with performing cats and drunk transvestites

dragging passers by into bars.  Clearly I have actually never been to Disney, but I think stuff like that would surely liven it up.

These cockerels were strutting their stuff all over Key West. There doesn't need to be a reason for it to be so in this place, it just is.

We stayed at Cheeca Lodge in Islamorada, somewhere we have been before and I was able to just sit and drink tea and be as miserable as I wished, which was a lot miserable some of the time.  I was able to raise smiles for the massive Iguana who leapt out of the bushes and scared the living daylights out of me and made me shriek the first time which was only because he surprised me as I have met iguanas before and I know he meant me no harm. Sadly, no camera at the time but I did see this fab green creature lurking around my favourite lagoon pool several times.    Cheeca Lodge has marked itself in my memory

as the hotel with the outside bath....you got to close curtains round you (or that was at least the idea in order not to frighten the rest of the world) and sit on the balcony in a massive round tub - bathing is listed as one of my hobbies so that made me happy.
Although we travelled together I have been spending a lot of time on my own because I am probably the worst type of company in the world....Mark would go off diving or swimming and I would feel totally free to stick my sunglasses on and just stare at the sea, or go and take another bath.

Rheumatology had given me my 'Christmas Dose' of steroid which I always feel compelled to beg for just before Christmas hits so bone-wise I was doing pretty darn well, despite the stress of what had just happened at home.  
It was a lovely trip but badly timed, though I was not to know that at the time of booking several months before.  We were saddened by the hardship that people are obviously going through in keeping businesses, jobs or just body and soul alive and were astonished by the number of people who seemed to be begging on the streets, it must be quite awful to be in such a situation and I hope life is able to pick up for them in the future. 

There are no miserable faced pics because I wouldn't have any taken....I don't want to look back in a few years and say 'oh yeah, that was that really sad holiday'.   We returned through a town called Sarasota which was just fab and Mark started dreaming about buying an apartment.  Dream on, we need to eat instead!   Enjoy the sunshine in the pics xx

Fighting With...

I cannot belive such a long time has gone by since my last post, especially as I began the year practically blogging every day!!  Sometimes there's loads to report on, and other times not so much, though this quiet period in my blog has mostly been caused by health issues - my Rheumatoid Arthritis has raised its ugly head once more and I just haven't had the energy to blog recently, and hey, who wants to hear about this bone hurting more than that one?  I sure don't and I'm pretty sure you don't either.  I've just been doing quite a lot of burrowing into my pillows and bed, reading and not a lot else, though I did manage to sneak off to my favourite health spa, Ragdale Hall last week for some much needed TLC.   It was lovely as always and I felt a lot better mentally if not physically for having had a bit of pampering.

I had thought I'd get away with sneaking off without anyone noticing, only to be updated by Mark that I had an avalanche of orders stacking up...this made me feel really guilty for being away, but he managed it and I want to thank everyone who was willing to wait a few days whilst I was away.  Usually I put a big message at the front of the site, and to be honest I forgot.  Apologies.  In any case, the avalanche is dealt with now, and I'm clear of outstanding orders so my conscience is salved.

I've been doing loads of cooking in the past several weeks, I suddenly got the bug for it and its nice to do other creative stuff, and I do think of cooking as creative.   I made the most AMAZING chocolate cake for Father's Day and had Mum and Dad over for dinner - alas I forgot to take any photos, so you'll have to take my word for it, but I love to cook....eventually we plan to knock a wall out to the side of the kitchen and make a much larger one but that's all in the pipeline under 'Manyana' because I have a horror of home construction projects as its a strong childhood memory that my parents must have been the original property developers; we moved a lot, and every house we lived in, my Dad was always knocking down walls, building extensions and putting new roofs on....its not at all that it was awful, its just anytime I think of all that dust and mess I start gibbering.

Well, we've adopted ANOTHER new pussycat; we had a bit of a tragedy as you know when lovely Blue died a while back and we adopted Harley who is lovely and cute but he immediately bonded to me rather than to Mark; so Mark was on the look-out for another cat and we've adopted Bailey, previously 'Ghost' who needed rehoming as the little boy to whom he belonged was allergic to him in a major way - Bailey is a Tiffanie cat (no, we'd never heard of the breed either) and as you can see from the pics, he is beyond beautiful.  Apparently Mark is a cat snob, because all the other three are mogs - the three have all bonded to me of course, and Mark is working on Bailey to get him to bond to him.  Bailey isn't actually living with us as yet because it turned out he had some sort of cat virus which we didn't fancy giving to our other cats so at present he is at Mark's Mum's on quarantine until we get the all-clear which shouldn't be too long away now.

The one thing I do know about my cats and Merlin my horse is they all instinctively sense when I am not well and do their own thing to try and look after me.   Harley likes to lie right against me and purr very very hard into me; it does make me feel better, because that sort of unconditional love is very very special.

So, its four cats now, and that is absolutely the limit - its a nice number and certainly the three we have in the house now make it feel full, like a home, as there's always something going on, and they bring warmth and happiness to the house.

I have been doing some new work and although I can't make promises as to when it will go on the site, where it does there will be lots of new pieces to look at - I've also got lots of fresh vintage stuff as well, but of course the progress of all that is health dependent.


I hope you'll forgive the total silence, and hopefully I can make up for it soon.


Love, Stephanie x

'Treat the souls of others with care, you cannot see the pain they carry.'

This is what I did today...I had my magic potion infusion for my rheumatoid arthritis at hospital - Actemra is on drug trials, and which hopefully will get NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) clearance for general use soon.    The drug is administered by infusion into my arm and the procedure takes between 2-4 hours depending on how many blood tests and monitoring schedules are required; it's a small price to pay comparitive to how I was before I started Actemra.   

It's a mysterious process when the brain heals from the memory of pain; I was practically skeletal, I had gone down to a UK size 6 and my bones stuck out everywhere.   It was impossible to sleep or stay awake; even having a blanket cover me was painful.  If Merlin brushed against me I would scream inwardly - we had to work hard

So am I controlling my arthritis, or is it controlling me?

 Lately I've been been feeling my Rheumatoid Arthritis a bit - I started Pilates a few months ago, mostly as a result of the infamous sideways saddle incident which made me realise I was doing too much to protect my weak left side, I could see how disabled I was becoming because of it - when it gets to the stage when you can't get on or off your horse without using a crane, its time to look for help, which I have found via Emma my Pilates teacher who is doing a fab job with some frankly crappy materials, to be specific, my bones.    

 

Other than the pilates with Emma, I've had a busy few weeks - I attended several trade fairs - such fun! There is so much stuff you could spend your hard earned pounds on in an attempt to generate more pennies; so much stuff you never knew you needed before you saw it!!  It's fun buying, chatting to people, going back to the cafe for another cake and capuccino because you know you're going to be able to put it down on the business and the taxman will just have to lump it....I could spend and spend at these trade fairs, and it all seems like it could be the next best thing.
The last thing you want to do is wake up in the morning with your credit card receipt and think 'oh no, I didn't really, did I?'  

Beating My Car With A Branch of a Tree.....

The scene from 'Fawlty Towers' of John Cleese beating his car with a stick because it broke down seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Its official, my car is knackered.   I have to confess its probably not had an easy life, being used as our 'workhorse' car, it is continually loaded up with saddles, bridles, sacks of horse feed and bales of horse bedding; we moved house using it, and its probably moved tons and tons of stuff over its lifetime.   I do though keep the front seat free for my handbag, spare coats, my packets of tissues, bags of sweets, phone chargers, bottles of water