Fleece Grading

John Arbon and I managed to grade nearly 400 kilos of white fleece yesterday as we urgently need more sock yarn. Luckily we had enough to send a proper sized batch up north to be scoured. It is all the fault of the Scandinavians who have taken to John’s alpaca socks in a big way and are buying loads of them. I always wear them and it sounds as if we will all really need them this weekend when the cold weather hits. We will be very relieved if it stops raining, very fed up with it.

The mule is mended now and even has new, very knobbly tyres. We have implored Andrew to stop playing at being a racing driver and drive at a sensible speed as befits an adult human being, who knows if it will work. I think he might have got the idea that trashing machinery is not good, particularly in a credit squeeze.

We went up to Dartington Crystal to collect the Futurity trophies, they are very splendid, took advantage of the staff discount, kindly given to us by the marketing manager, to buy some more glasses. We’ve broken three of the last lot we got there already. The Dartington boys were getting ready for THE big trade show of the year at the NEC. It is all a bit touch and go, Waterford have gone to the wall, and Paul Cullen, Hayne Alpacas to us, but big wheel sent in to kick arse and save companies to the rest of the world, is in place at Dartington to see it through this nasty period of recession. He had a cup of black coffee in his hand and a raging cold so we stayed well back.

Back in the kitchen, the marmalade has been made, 12 jars of it. I was worried as two years ago I overcooked it dreadfully and the shreds turned into hard toffee. This time all was well, no disasters.