News from L&F

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that this week’s blog is in fact 24hrs late.  Nice though it would be to assert that this is because Isobel and I have been digging ourselves out from under a huge pile...

God was clearly having yet another laugh at our expense.  He had seen fit to send us two conveniently sedentary offspring : first was a hideously ill child who didn't walk until he was two, and then had to be...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Tomorrow, as I’m sure you all know, is Stir up Sunday, the day when families traditionally gather to ‘stir up’ the Christmas pud.  Here, we’re starting to wish we hadn’t spent so long lovingly establishing  the family traditions over the...

Last weekend we had a wonderful two days selling in Fakenham, at the Norfolk Artisans Christmas Fair.  It was fabulous to be back in the mix and out in the crisp (that’s a euphemism if ever there was one) East...

Here at L&F HQ we are, we hope, in the throes of placing our final orders of 2024.  It’s always a tricky call to make – brutally, we don’t want to be left with seasonal stock that might in theory...

Oh my life … is anyone else out there as excited about tomorrow as I am?  I’m a daughter AND a mother, and so I’m both giving and receiving tomorrow.  If I know my daughter – and I think I...

Tomorrow is Granny’s 93rd birthday.  93!  A matriarch to her core, the rest of the numbers are impressive too: 5 children (I’m number 3); 14 grandchildren; 7 great grandchildren so far.  So I hope you will indulge me if I...

Well I don’t know about anyone else, but I need a burst of colour and light and all things pretty and twinkly at the moment. February was the longest month in the whole year EVER and I for one am glad...

This year we’re a bit behind ourselves.  We normally spend January restocking, and deciding which fairs to go to in the year ahead.  This year we’ve done our big stock-take, reordered, designed and launched a new product, and started on...

It’s cold, wet and grey outside and the ONLY answer on a day like this, is pancakes.  Not your thin little whispy crepe thingies: thick, delicious, warm and fluffy American-style pancakes.  They may not be exactly what the doctor ordered...

...of winter!  Snowdrops are everywhere, bluebells and daffodils won’t be far behind, and it seems remarkably mild.  No doubt there will be a few more glitches before 21st March, the official first day of spring, but there is definitely a...

January is Seville orange month, and if you’ve never made your own marmalade before, do. Mr I seriously doesn’t cook, but he has a vested interest in ensuring the quality of his favourite breakfast essential, and is therefore currently to be...

Methinks it’s time to introduce the L&F lurcher, Callie. So named because Isobel, whose job it is to name all our pets, felt that ‘Caledonia’ was a bit of a mouthful to yell. So here is Callie, now 8 months,...

Well!  What a whirlwind that all was … blink and you missed it, but with a bang and a wallop Christmas and New Year both came and went and now we’re into 2024.  Extraordinary to think that all that frenetic...