A few days off ...

Did you all have a wonderful Easter?  I hope so!

We made a new rule last year here at Philpotts that we would not open on the Saturday of a Bank Holiday Weekend any more.  Quite honestly, we work hard enough throughout the year and so felt that we could justify taking time off with the girls on a Bank Holiday.  

So this weekend we had 4 days off .  Most of the time was spent chilling in front of the TV or walking the dogs (I must confess that I did do some work on the ipad but, you know me I never actually feel like I'm working because of what I do so it really was not a 'hardship' at all)!

Easter Sunday was the best day of all as my Mum and Dad came for Lunch. Here are a few highlights ...

Mum knows how much Mr. P loves her Christmas cake so she made the recipe, drenched it in brandy, decorated with icing and chocolate eggs and brought it for him as his Easter Present.

We all had a doodle on the notice board in the Kitchen and yes they are still the fairy lights left up from Christmas which I cannot bring myself to take down yet (I need the sparkle to offset all of the wintery weather that we had been having!).

The Chickens were on top form and laid us some beautiful eggs which we used as part of the table decorations (not the chocolate ones of course, we had to get those from the Supermarket!)

Mia made some beautiful cup cakes for after Easter Lunch!

Mum brought the most delicious lemon curd Victoria Sponge cake for after Easter Lunch as well!

We wrapped everyone their favourite bar of Green & Blacks chocolate in brown paper which we decorated with paper bunting and some small letter stamps to make place settings.

We used some washi tape to hold a paper doily in place for place mats and tied some polka dot ribbon around the cutlery.

We used some more washi tape around glasses for decoration and used doilies and bakers twine to decorate jam jars to hold the flowers.

No one really drinks in our house (unless you count the bottle of brandy that Mum has put into Mr. P's cake)

so we all had cordial with sparkling water to drink and lots of tea!

And finally ... here are Miss Squirrel and Mr Fox (handmade by Powel Craft in Devon), two new playmates for the girls ...

Refreshed and revitalized ... we had a lovely few days off ...but we are back in work mode today preparing the new workshop list which is due out very soon.

I hope that you had a lovely Easter!