Niche is Hot

Niche. Hot or not?

Hot. Definitely Hot.

Niche is a handmade market going on at the Academy Gallery at Inveresk in ol' Launny town this weekend and it is certainly worth a look.

I would like to have taken a stylish pic of all the goodies I bought this morning to embellish this post but then everyone will know what I bought them for Christmas.

Let me just say, "Get down there, Ladies." 

Not only is there a whole lot of beeeee-yew-tifull handmade stuff but the peeps behind the stalls are stellar. (Do you like the way I said " peeps' then, just like I am down with the young people?)

My faves, of course:

• Gemstar, or Loz and Dinny - Gem your eye for style is bang on, baby. 
• Isis - beautiful, thoughtful, hand bound books. Isis uses Coptic binding, vintage book covers and handamde paper.
• Annie at Red Bamboo - soaps and candles to die for. Annie has mastered the delicious art of combining scents. 
• Black Eyed Susie - stunning handmade kidswear. Suse has the knack of choosing the perfect fabric and turning into a cracking little number every time. Her little boys stripey trousers are killing me. 
• Franrosie and The Ruby Pear - is the essence of organic style as always,
• Little Jenny Wren -  What can I say about Jenny's amazing work? Only that I can't wait for Sophie to be old enough tto have one. 
• Hungry Kitty - I had one of her carrot cakes for breakfast and I am wishing I had bought some more for right now. I think Gemstar was right on when she said "You can't leave without at least one box of her rocky road. It's got Maltesers in it." The Maltesers are a stroke of genius!

And many more that I am going back to investigate closer sans small ones attached to my legs. 

I had a really ace morning. Thanks Ladies!

Response

Don't you think that to wrap someone up in a blanket is such a considerate and generous act of kindness?

D, in answer to this question that I posed in my last post, commented "Yes, why do you mention that?"

And I want to post my response: 

D,

I mention it, my friend, because I am surrounded by these wrapped moments - 

at the end of every yoga class that you lead me through you wrap me in a blanket, 

I often see my mother wrap my two year old daughter in her 'blanky' like an oversized newborn and hold her tight, just as once she held me, and as I held and hold all my children,

as I lay moaning and whining with cramping innards a few weeks ago my own 8 year old son saw me and of his own accord wrapped me with all the consideration and empathy of any sweet mother, 

every night I wrap my children in their beds, sing to them and send them off to sleep and dreams, 

and when our recent lost came in from the cold, it was the only act that made any sense to me, wrap him.

I mention it because it embodies a state that I seek -  presence.

Because it says " I see you. I know you. I will comfort you. I am here for you."

I mention it because, in my mind, presence is the essence of mothering and wrapping a true selfless act of love.

I mention it because I see friends, women, wives so lost and bamboozled by the 'performance' of motherhood, sisterhood, wife, worker, consumer, maker, and on and on, that they have stopped seeing these simple but overwhelming gifts that they both give and receive,  so intent on the grandiose gesture, the smallest most poignant gifts go unnoticed. 

That now I can sit still enough to notice how full my life is of these wrapped moments is an unfathomable blessing. 

Thank you for wrapping me D, every time it fills me up. 

GG

Rapt

Don't you think that to wrap someone up in a blanket is such a considerate and generous act of kindness?

1972

I just googled my birthday and discovered that on the 20th November 1972 the Time Magazine cover showed Richard Nixon holding up the victory sign with the headline "Landslide, Prospects for the second term". 

A movie released that day was a British version of" Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" starring Michael Crawford, Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore. 

I think I was actually born into that story As the youngest of seven children, I definitely remember growing up with at least one white rabbit, definitely more than one Mad Hatter, endless packs of cards and being scolded by the Queen of Hearts and I am quite certain that my elder brothers often smoked stuff they shouldn't have in the 1970s. 

However I was not Alice.  My elder sister was known to have so vividly dream the 'Alice' scene where she grows and shrinks that she loudly and vocally re-enacted the whole thing in her sleep for our entertainment. She must have been Alice. 

The sleepy mouse might have been me. I wonder if Dudley Moore was the sleepy mouse? I would've wanted to be Peter Sellers but am definitely more Dudley Moore. 

 

I like that Richard Nixon and Alice in Wonderland were significant on my birthday. It reminds me that you can never be sure of what will happen next.

Assistance, s'il vous plait?

So we are going on a Smith family adventure to la belle France, as I might have boasted previously, and I need to plan the trip. We are pretty much overseas travel virgins and so require un peu d'assistance.  Does anyone have any tips about finding self-contained/self-catering accommodation in France -Paris, Biarrtiz, Provence? Cheap places to stay in Paris? Good places to take kids in France? 

Anything? 

All suggestions would be most gratefully received.

I am still pinching myself a wee bit that I am even required to ask these questions. Woohoo!

Confused ...

Today my daughter declared " My nuts are hurting!"

Between that and her belief that she can pee standing up from her belly-button, I fear she may be a little confused.