Bleats and Blogs

There are ruffled feathers among the Australian wool community. This is because Woolnews’ latest update (March 19) asks: is it acceptable for a non-wool product to market itself as vegan wool? The product is three parts cotton and the balance a weed called calotropis....

A good deal of personalised customer interaction lies at the heart of how we run Southdown Duvets. In a conscious decision to avoid the automated, soulless and often highly unsatisfactory way online retail sales have evolved in recent years, we encourage our customers...

Let’s get this straight. You never own a Maremma Sheepdog. From the outset, you and the dog harmoniously agree to symbiotically co-exist under one roof and if you cannot accept that, avoid this breed. My Cal is a perfect example and to illustrate my point, look no...

I was on an early morning train from Petersfield to London, Waterloo – just over an hour’s journey. Having already enjoyed my mug of tea before leaving the house, I settled down on the train to enjoy the second mug. It was only after I had drained that cup, did the...

Isn’t it strange that often it’s the briefest encounter one has with another human that has the most lasting impact? During my years as a mineral economist in the City, I was lucky enough to live close to Regents Park and I loved to spend time there, usually walking...

Leo, the cat, has a very odd relationship with food. Put any range of tasty morsels in front of him and he merely sits there looking vaguely offended. He only eats dry cat pellets and more specifically only one brand and one flavour, namely fish. But he does this with...

Ahead of Brexit (remember that?), I was concerned about being able to ship my duvet stock from Italy where it is manufactured. So before any potential window of opportunity could close, I placed a huge order and then shipped the lot to the UK. Our stock room was...

As a child growing up in South Africa I have a vivid memory of that little C5 size magazine called Readers Digest. Specifically I recall the section headed “Laughter is the best Medicine” and I regularly read the amusing anecdotes that followed. They were always very...

I don’t suppose many people give chickens a second thought other than to wonder how to cook them. But I enjoy living with my little clutch of hens and find them really interesting. Did you know that they can change colour? I have, for example, what used to be a...

My sisters and I used to call my grandmother Mrs Cottonreel. She was a ferocious reader, gobbling up 3 books a week, even when in her 80s she suffered from failing eyesight. When she passed away, my mother and I cleared her house, a home of four decades. Imagine our...