News from L&F

Sad though we are to see the back of Halloween and therefore all things pumpkin, we’re SO EXCITED that it’s now properly November and that the run-up to the L&F Christmas can begin! Our renewed and refreshed website is laden...

‘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 –...

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,...

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...

Yet more excitement at L&F HQ this week as our Christmas stock arrives, in a flurry of deliveries, phone calls and (whisper it) real paper paperwork. Callie the L&F pooch has been on hyper-alert, warning us of incoming traffic, racing...

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...

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...

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 leaves are falling at L&F HQ, and nothing makes us feel more autumnal.  Except perhaps our divine little felt pumpkins, which we’re doing again this year in homage to our own homegrown offerings: if you could only see the...

Don’t anyone mention it, but the weather tomorrow is kind of important to us.  We don’t ask much – we don’t want grilling heat and glorious blue and gold, nice though those would be.  We’d just like no rain please,...

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...

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...

The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that we have just had the second of our August birthdays.  Mr I is … well, a year older than he was around now last year – and he put a very...

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...

Since last we spoke, dear Reader, the deed has been done.  Our automated inventory has been tested and not found wanting, which is both a relief and a slight disappointment: it’s always fun to find fault.  As I moved boxes,...

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,...

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...

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...

‘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...

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s all my fault.  I can only apologise, most sincerely, for the truly awful weather: I take full responsibility.  Not only did I foolishly buy more clothes pegs two weeks ago to enable me to hang out...

Ian the Excellent Painter has been again.  L&F HQ is a bit like the Forth Road Bridge before they invented a self-restoring paint, or whatever they did.  No sooner has he finished than he has to start again – and...