News from L&F

POLLY'S EASTER SIMNEL CAKE
It’s SO nearly Easter now, that we thought the time was right to introduce those of you unfortunate enough never to have met one of these before, to the uber traditional Simnel Cake.  The 11 balls of marzipan on the...
BUSY-NESS AS USUAL
Don’t you just love it when people with far less to do than you keep telling you how busy they are?  As though you aren’t, and are therefore a lesser being? For a long time when we first made the...
POLLY'S PERFECT PANCAKES #2!
Well, nearly.  Last year we gave you the American style pillowy ones, and you loved them.  This year we’re going for the more refined, delicate little papery thin fellas of my youth – and having canvassed your opinion on Insta...
THE SCENT OF SPRING
It feels entirely wrong to be writing about our new Spring designs and products, as yet another icy blast descends on L&F HQ here on the edge of the steppes. There’s nothing much between us and Kiev, and February and...
NEW STAFF MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENT
Hang on – is it really only a month today since Christmas?  That can’t be true – so, so much has happened and changed in just four weeks.  We’ve had snow, floods, some blue skies, real cold and a few...
LAYER UP, AND CARRY ON
Well, blame this one on us.  Isobel’s great whinge has long been that we don’t get proper frost here in the bottom left hand corner of Lincolnshire.  Rain, broiling sun, but never really deep, snapping frost. So imagine how unsympathetic we...
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Well, ladies and gents.  A very happy new year to you all, and welcome back to the world of L&F.  What a time we had of it at the end of 2024: the Aga had a hissy fit, and we...
A LONG TIME COMING
Well, the day is almost here.  Tomorrow, dear Reader, is my birthday.  Not just any old birthday – a BIG one.  Huge.  Ends in a zero and starts with a 6, and if one more person tells me ‘it’s just...
BLOWING IN THE WIND
Storm Darragh, ladies and gentlemen.  As I write this, safe in rural Lincolnshire on the eastern side of this fair land, I still hear the wind tearing it up outside and the rain rattling onto the windows.  For those on...
COUNTRY TALES - BACK TO THE BEGINNING
‘Why’ we are sometimes asked ‘Lincolnshire?’  Well apart from being a bit rude about a beautiful and largely timeless part of the country, that’s a very good question, and we’re asked it – or a variation on the theme –...
POLLY'S PUMPKIN PIE
So now that we’ve all gone entirely state-side, and we have learned to embrace our American friends’ version of Halloween with all it’s spookiness and sugar, what to do with the innerds of the pumpkins you’ve assiduously carved?  Simple.  Rinse,...
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
I’ve been in trouble this week.  My last blog exceeded our self-set limit by almost 100 words.  (Isn’t that the problem with Christmas though?  Excess.)  So, back to the briefer everyday story of rural folk.  It has been a very...
GO TO WORK ON A VASE
Have you seen our new Vases?  Oh my life.  We’re pairing them with the bang on trendy faux foliage that seems to be all the rage – and we do see why.  We had a great time finding these lovelies...
IT'S ALL OVER
THANK YOU, to everyone who sundanced last week!  What a cracking afternoon we had: the sun may not have been dangerously hot, but it didn’t pour – which, this year, is a definite win.  Businesses sold stock, people ate and...
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
No, not to Christmas – to the inaugural Late Summer Fair, here at L&F HQ.  The excitement is definitely building as we prepare to host 15 stalls of local businesses in a final flurry of buying and selling before we...
KEEP DRY AND CARRY ON!
Well, it has been an epically wet month in Argyll.  We and the land are truly and biblically, spectacularly sodden – from where we are, right on the edge of a sea loch, you see the next belt of rain...
UH OH...
And here we go again.  August: the most expensive and fattening birthday month of the year here at L&F.  Three male birthdays to be squeezed in, all (rather satisfyingly) on multiples of 5.  The fifth, tenth, and twenty-fifth to be...
AND NOW WHAT?!
Well, what a torrid time we all seem to be having.  Bizarre weather, Wimbledon drawing to a close, the little matter of a footie match tomorrow I gather – oh, and there was an election a couple of weeks ago,...
TENNIS TIME
I should tell you, I am an awesome tennis player.  (That simply isn’t true, and never was.  Even before my arthritic shoulders gave up.)  In my heyday however I had a backhand to fear – I certainly did: it was...
ALREADY?!
It’s nearing the end of June, so of course our thoughts turn to … Christmas.  If you feel that the whole world is Christmas mad, and you think it starts too early, my only words of advice to you would...
MOVING ON...
‘June just rains and never stops’ – so sang the wonderful Flanders & Swann a million years ago before we knew anything about climate change.  Well, they may have had a point, and I’ve long thought that the wonderful Wimbledon...