The Soaplady

These days, I aim to buy no packaging at all for my mail-order business …

This has been the case for the past three years …

All my packaging is recycled, and I can confirm that my customers don’t mind getting their soap enclosed in a clean Felix cat-food packet, or a re-mastered cardboard box … (well none of them ever minded so much that they wrote and complained to me anyhow).

Not that it goes through the post like that of course, I always cover the outside with brown paper to ensure a wholesome look to the final parcel …

Every time I go to Callanish Post office, Margo the postlady and Donald the postman fill my car full of cardboard boxes which formerly contained chocolate bars and other foodstuffs from the little shop, or boxes which contained the annoying pieces of junk-mail that are added to everyones pigeon-hole … these would otherwise destined for the bin, but they go home with me …

I love chocolate boxes … lovely bright colours, emblazoned with Crunchie, Bounty, Wispa, Creme Egg and Maltesers … I love them because they’re very strong, deep enough to comfortably contain two bottles of liquid soap, and invariably an efficient size for the majority of my orders … Just a few bits of ‘void-fill’ as its called, and you’re away …

The brown cardboard type are mostly the same A4 size, and usually require a lot more work to fit my merchandise …

I am a diva with a pair of scissors and a craft knife … scoring very lightly before making a new fold in the box … calculating in my head how much of the original box has to be chopped off to make a newer smaller box, and exactly where and which way the cuts must be made to ensure that there is a good flap left on three sides to be made into the new end-of-box …

If you ever see me in the supermarket, and I don’t respond to your ‘hello’, it’s because I’m scanning the shelves for useful packaging - tea box trays and square cooked meat carriers … Anything which looks vaguely useful is secreted furtively to the bottom of my trolley for taking home and adding to my pile …

The only downside of this activity is that sometimes my prospective packaging pile, stacked on a sofa in a room adjacent to my living-room, begins to take on a life of its own …

It burgeons …

you could almost play that game we played when we were kids, where you could only move when the person had their eyes closed … I forget what it was called …

Rather like the Dr Who ‘Weeping Angels’ … Don’t blink … Don’t even blink … Or the pile will magically seem to be larger, or to have moved towards you, in a sinister fashion …

Death by Tesco Value Juice box …

I cannot take credit for the lovely picture of the Carloway Broch, that was done by a pleasant man called Sandy from whom I bought the canvas at a Craft Fair …

But the contents of the sofa are mine … :- )

Friends and neighbours also contribute to my store, and equally, if anyone ever needs a box - any size mind - the larger ones are kept in another room - they know to come to No 25 …

It’s getting to the point now when I need to reorganise the pile though - and sort it all into size-order, separating the bits of bubblewrap, plastic peanuts and glassine paper which arrives with my own packages …

Sometimes it truly feels that I’m happier about receiving the eminently-reusable bits of packaging than I am about the actual product enclosed … I especially love getting green or blue plastic peanuts … much more interesting than the white ones …

My cats dry food comes every few months from a german company, Zooplus, and they must spend a fortune on packaging, because I am inevitably gifted many cubic feet of air-filled envelopes from those boxes … Lovely …!!

Sometimes things get all out of proportion though, and I’m loath to use particularly precious-seeming bits of packaging … The air-filled pillows I don’t like giving away lightly … My plastic peanuts I am exceedingly stingey with …

The initials ‘O C D’ tend to come to mind here, for some reason …

Coupled with the fact that I also tend to accumulate stationery - pretty cards and notelets, and pretty pictorial postage stamps, which I also then begrudge using …

Perhaps I need help …?!

Tags: accumulations, boxes, chocolate boxes, Dr Who, Hoarding, OCD, packaging, recycling, weeping angels

Hello everyone … :- )

I am writing this blog in a ridiculous position from a very low chair, giving myself a back-ache and arm strain … Why …?!

Because the cat is on my ergonomic office chair, that’s why …

(Note to self: I have just turned 51 years old, and I am not even the mistress of my own furniture … tut … )

grasses from my walk this afternoon

Whilst walking Mindy this afternoon (after the Raffa-Murray Wimbledon semifinal naturally), I must’ve had my nature head on, and couldn’t resist picking myself a little bouquet of … grasses …

The colours, and varieties were so rich and full of life (the pic doesn’t really do the colours justice), and I thought to myself, I’d be more than happy to receive a bunch of these rather than flowers sometimes … My little handful seemed like a more pleasingly ‘compact’ offering, and I didn’t have to worry about damaging it either …

I shall probably dry these for posterity … :- )

Last week, I made a flying (driving actually) trip back home to see my mum and dad in Nottingham … We spent a lot of time looking at old photographs, and there were some I wanted to publish here …

My dad was complaining that he had lost a picture of himself at 16 years old, in his policemans uniform, and I had this horrible thought that it was amongst my own ‘purloined’ collection (well he had said ‘take any you want’, so I just had … ). 

He said he’d dearly love a copy of it, because there were so few photos of him as a lad …

He was with the Louth CID, and on his first day, the Superintendent brought him into the room, pointed to some pencil-marks three-quarters of the way up the wall, and said “see those marks on the wall …? I want you  to lift your arms up and see how close you can get to them …”.

Dad did so, and being 6 foot 6 inches, not only touched the marks, but managed to exceed their height …

The superintendent was surprised and miffed, saying “well young man, those were *my* marks, and they’ve been unbeaten for ten years now, until you came along …”

Dad never found out whether this was, in general, a good thing, or a bad thing  :- )

Talk about ‘the long arm of the law’ … :- )

Here’s his picture, at 16:-

Dad in police uniform, 16 years old

 I sent the original back to dad, with his birthday card, and kept a copy for me, electronically …  :- )

and here’s one I almost feel I remember, of my dad on a local beach, keeping hold of me:

Dad and Linda at the beach ...

and finally, I exercise the birthday girls prerogative to concentrate on herself, and here’s a picture of me, at an impossibly-young age, but already with an interest in flora and fauna …  :- )

Linda, as a child ...

This is about the only currency you can use now, to talk to my mum, in a meaningful way …

and even then, she may become confused at any point, and forget something she knew perfectly well a minute and a half ago.

If the television is on whilst you’re talking to her, she may just break off in the middle of a sentence, and go back to watching it, forgetting she was having a conversation at all …

I had a good visit though, and made sure she knew I loved her, at least whilst I was there, and will go again later in the year to do the same thing …

Tags: grass, Mum, old pictures, pandering to cats, time

I made my usual visit to Callanish Post Office this morning …

What I found did not uplift me …

Apparently the Callanish Visitor Centre at the Standing Stones site is in the process of applying to open on Sunday. There is also talk of a liquor license being applied for too.

In the Post Office, there has been placed a petition *against* allowing the Callanish Visitor Centre to open on a Sunday, in order to preserve the culture and way of life of the people who live in the environs of the Centre, which is collecting many local signatures.

This petition was started and placed in the Post Office late last week, and this morning Margo got up to find that her ‘Post Office’ signs on the property had been ripped down.

Struggling at the moment with the illness of her child, she is also being troubled with many phone calls from people ridiculing her view of the sunday opening question.

For heavens sake people, *everybody* is entitled to have their own view on a subject.

Disagree with it all you want, but don’t go bothering people by phoning them about it and attempting to force your own point of view on them.

Too many people these days believe that not only is there a black-and-white ‘TRUTH’, but also that they are the sole custodians of ‘TRUTH’.

Nothing could be further from actuality - there are many and various ‘TRUTHs’ depending upon a myriad of personal experiences, belief-systems and personal preferences.

Let us try to respect them all …

Tags: reality, sunday opening, TRUTH

There is a direct and distinct correlation between level of calmness and feelings of being ‘in control’ and number of blogs written, I always think …

I have had a lovely day today, and I’m mellow and happy …

First thing, the gentleman who cuts my soap turned up for work with the two loaves of artisan bread that he always brings me on a Monday, and set to on a rhubarb block … was everything OK, he asked me - was I up-to-date …? Now I know this gentleman well enough to understand this secret code … What was he doing today, I asked … Going to the mainland on the lunch-time ferry to pick up his new camper van, then visiting relatives … Wouldn’t you like some free time to sort yourself out instead of being here and cutting blocks …? Yes, but he didn’t want to let me down if there was a big backlog …

I asked him to wait just long enough for me to take the mountain of post to Callanish, and walk Mindy, and then at 11am he was on his way back home, to get ready … everything was under control, and he was welcome to take the free time …

Since then, I’ve had ‘come and get me’ upon the shop door, and I’ve been tinkering indoors … making sure nothings creeping up on me, revising my italian for my class tonight, and more excitingly, formulating my very first home-made lotion …

I’ve purchased all the ingredients I need to do this - mainly emulsifiers to hold the oils and the water together in suspension, but I still needed to make out a detailed recipe for this first experiment … I’ve never made lotions or creams before, and a good deal of practise is going to happen before it goes on the shelves (not to mention chemist certification of the eventual formula) …

What percentage of water to oils …? What percentage of emulsifiers to total ingredients … How much preservative, and at what temperatures …?

Had to mix and match from my Aromantic book on making bodycare products, and a lotion recipe from Brambleberry, in the USA, also from information supplied with the emulsifiers … Comparing proportions … understanding the percentages recommended were of the Total Ingredients, not just the oils …

Also, they say a *very* different cream will be produced if you add the oils to water, rather than adding the water to the oils … Hard to take on board, but my sources are experienced lotion-makers, so I expect it will be so …

So tomorrow morning, I shall make a basic lotion, using only cheap olive oil (in case something goes wrong), and do it both ways, and see what I get …

I suppose only a cosmetic manufacturer feels like this, but it is actually very exciting …!!

Then after you understand the making of lotions enough, there comes an even more exciting part - deciding which proper precious oils and active ingredients will make up your base … I’ve already purchased rosehip and evening primrose oils, also blackseed oil, many of which have special properties, rejuvenating, restorative, anti-inflammatory, and some sea buckthorn extract, which is a superb anti-oxidant, and from my preparatory reading, I also understand exactly what anti-oxidants do for the body …

I have a couple of other ingredients waiting in the wings too, which I will not mention, because a purveyor of body products has to keep a few bits of knowledge under her hat, doesn’t she … :- )

So, in the wings are hand and foot-lotions, body lotions, and a mature skin moisturising and replenishing cream (close to my heart, that one :- )

Finding and procuring the packaging of these will no doubt *not* be such a pleasant task to complete, from my own experience with packaging … Minimum quantities is going to reach out and grab me in a sensitive place, I expect … Labelling the containers will threaten to reduce me to a gibbering wreck …

All the more reason to enjoy this first discovery part …!

So no visitors to shop … nothing sold today … but I’d rather be in here, doing this anyhow …

and just while I’ve been sitting here writing this, two orders (rather large) have come through over email from people who I’d thought must’ve gone somewhere else for their soap, so its nice to discover that they haven’t …

Can’t include any pictures for a while because my card reader has gone on the blink (or rather its driver has), but it may work on other pc’s …

have a good one everybody …

Tags: creams & Lotions, formulation, new projects, quiet days

Yes, you guessed, the ‘come-and-get-me’ sign is on the door again, and I just thought I’d do a bit of an update, and post some pics, so you don’t think I’m just a ranting creature all the time … :- )

I have my friends Yvonne and Ian staying with me at the moment (got my dinner cooked all over the weekend, and a Shropshire bacon sandwich this morning to set me up for the day …!  crispy-taculous …!! )

Here’s my girl:

Mindy

and a very good girl she is now too … mostly … :- ) galloped happily around Callanish this morning before the visitors got there …

My two favourite conifers in the garden are doing well too - you know, the ones that produce purple cones in the summer … so far only 5 or 6 of them each, however, my gardening consultant suggested that I feed them with ashes from the open fire, which I dutifully did at the beginning of January, and every month since, shovelling ashes around their bases … The rain must’ve washed the ashes down, because look what we’ve got now -

all the brown bits are cones ...!

and here, all the light green bits are cones:

Happy Abies Koreanus

When I was working in Germany, I was surrounded by sycamore trees, which were lovely in the summer, and I thought I’d bring a few ‘keys’ back home with me, but only one seed managed to germinate here, and I planted it in the garden in trepidation, but it did well:

My german sycamore tree

also last time I was in Nottingham, I was admiring my sisters eucalyptus tree, with its vapoury smell and blue-tinged leaves, and finding a small eucalyptus gunnii in a local garden centre, I transplanted it to my garden in the hopes that it would burgeon … There’s certainly a lot of growth on it now, after being kept in the cold porch for most of winter, and just only recently transplanted outside, but it’s still got a long way to go:

baby Eucalyptus gunnii

I planted loads of seeds at Oestara, but few have done well - I have a little bit of parsley which seems a bit shy of the cold indoors, and some radishes where very few of the seed germinated, and some foxgloves which didn’t come up at all …

Weather beautiful today … Yvonne and Ian off out house-hunting this afternoon, but they report that houses on Uists and Lewis particularly are shifting quickly even before they’ve had time to go and see them, after the last two years market sluggishness, so perhaps a bit of a boom is on its way again …!

Tags: Beltane, eucalyptus, happy abies, Mindy, sycamore

Tags: 'sticking it' to 'em, accountability, corruptibility, Dead Zone, election, local parties

It has been such a lovely weekend … Warm, relaxing and sunny, all was well with the world …

little white lambies pronking about in the fields again, reminding us all that time goes on and comes around reliably, again and again …

I did a little dance with Mindy this morning even, when I came downstairs and noticed that my parsley seedlings, planted at the Equinox celebrations were poking their leafy spindly little green heads above the soil …

Up until 11am even, I was happy, as I drove with the car windows open, inhaling the spicey flowery scent of heather being burned off the ground in the distance, making the fine day a little hazey …

Then comes work … Two largish parcels to transport to Belgium, because they have an active gaelic contingent in Belgium, you know …

All the hard work was done - a courier had been found to transport the parcels at a reasonable rate, and all I had to do was book it …

Doesn’t sound too bad, does it …?

Truthfully, I knew that it had a fair chance of breaking me though … cos I’ve had this experience before …

• Couriers *never* know how their own Company works

This fact constantly amazes me - do they not have an induction phase, which explains how mainland couriers operate with island pickups and deliveries …?

What happens is that the mainland (England mostly) courier outsources to a middle man who goes further afield than the mainland one.

And then the middle man outsources to an island courier who will pickup from the island and deliver to the middle mans headquarters.

This all results in a few days added to the journey.

This happens with DHL, and with FedEx, and with all other Companies I have used so far …

So when I got the email from the original courier exorting me to be at home between the hours of 9am and 5pm today for the pickup, I did what I usually do, and sat there with my tongue in my cheek and ignored it.

However, there was a complication. Special stationery is required, and I didn’t have it. The email told me that the DHL courier would give it to me when he arrived, today, between 9am and 5pm.

Knowing this to be a blatant lie, because not only will it not be today, but the Island courier *never* brings the correct stationery, I emailed back again, to ask whether they could email the correct stationery to me, outlining this reason why it was necessary.

I received a very haughty email back, saying that the DHL Couriers *always* without fail, carry the correct stationery, and that they would give it to me when they arrived … today …

Ignoring this was not an option. I want my parcels to get to the right place, in good time.

I replied again:

Did they really believe that DHL were going to drive right up to the top of Scotland, get on a 3 hour ferry, come and collect my parcel (after giving me the correct stationery of course), then get on the ferry back again, and drive all through Scotland back to England …?  All today between 9am and 5pm …?

So could they also please email me the correct stationery …?

I explained the outsourcing process to them also, and am now waiting for a reply …

I am hardening myself to the possibility that it may be a good telling-off email from a 16 year old supervisor, berating me for upsetting juniors, and wishing that I would just accept what they say, and allow my parcels to be delayed so that they don’t have to change their training processes. Have I no shame …?

That’s all it took to reduce me to this state …

additionally, I tried to rip a picture of a parcel from the net to prefix this blog with, but technology prevented me from completing it without bursting a blood vessel in the process …

I know its my own fault, but why oh why does AOHell always highjack anything I type into the address line to make me use AOHell search instead, resulting in half-typed addresses and necessitating complete re-typing …

Coffee is called for …

something more than coffee is desired …

but is not conducive to conversations with customers over the road in the shop which  currently has ‘come and get me’ on the door, while I sort out this delivery …

Postscript:

I just got a phone call from the Supervisor … Happily I had not distressed the Junior too much, but she just wished to explain a few things to me …

Now, with my living in a rural location, the way it worked was that my parcels will be collected on Wednesday, and the courier will bring all necessary paperwork … Was she sure …? Yes most definitely, she was …

I will update on Wednesday night. I expect to be a happy bunny, having received all necessary paperwork …

However experience tells me not to hold my breath …

Wednesday morning update …

They have been collected … By a very pleasantly-smelling courier

Who Had The Correct Paperwork … :- )

All is well with the world …

for now …

Tags: couriers, export, f*ckwit-age, frustration, Mrs Angry from Breasclete, parcels

Now if this opportunity had been around when I was looking to move to the isles, I’d've snapped their arm off …!

Margo the Post-Mistress of the Callanish PO has her house and business on the market at the moment: here’s the house:

It’s a beautiful house in the main part of Callanish, just two minutes from the Standing Stones.

But also with this sale goes the Post Office business - Callanish is the main Sorting Office for the West Side of the island, so as well as dealing with me and my parcels, and other folk from Carloway to Garynahine every day, you get to keep Donald and Helen the posties in line too …!

Callanish PO is a fairly busy business … I know well not to go in early on a Monday morning unless I fancy a long blether in a circulating queue of folk …

Of course there’s also a mini-market included in there - I’ve done my weekly shopping there today, because the weather is much too wonderful at the moment to be dragging into town and back … I used the time I saved by taking Mindy to Dal Mhor beach to jostle elbows with the wet-suited surfers who are there in droves this weekend …

Here’s the link to the details:

http://www.western-isles-property.co.uk/property.php?id=197

 

Tags: Business, Callanish, For Sale, PO

I don’t think I’ve ever been as glad to spend christmas at home, here in Breasclete, as I am this year …

My absence at family celebrations on the mainland was the result of a decision taken way before the weather became cold and the snow started to fall - more due to extraneous factors, and a wish to just have a good long rest, coupled with Mindy’s relief at not having to go to the Boarding Kennels for more than a week (though she points out that she’s always well looked-after there, and the foods not half bad, it’s just that she prefers her mum, and her comfy sofa … :- ).

I went home (to the mainland) for two weeks earlier, in October, and had a lovely time with my mum and dad, and my sisters. I think Dad was a bit startled that I didn’t want to ‘Do’ anything, or go anywhere, while I was there, and despite my protestations, kept up an endless list of invitations of places that Dad’s Taxi Service could ferry me to, shopping and the like … But I was more than happy just keeping mum company, helping to do meals, and generally watching tv together …  :- )

Now christmas seems finally to be here … and I confess that I listen to the traffic reports with a small measure of glee, knowing that I won’t have to venture farther than Stornoway as long as it continues …

Here, roads have been gritted, but ice re-forms overnight, and I’ve had to walk quite carefully and gingerly with Mindy (seeing her first snow this year!) just over our local roads … I’ve had one driving ‘fish-tail’ event, turning right at Leurbost, in a blinding snowstorm on Saturday - it was very frightening to feel the car going in a direction where it would’ve been impossible otherwise  to steer it, and I have to admit to driving the whole way home at 30mph, without full-beam, which just seemed to make vision worse …

That was my Xmas food shopping trip, and I came away with the following adjuncts to my normal shopping: a tub of ice-cream, Pringles, ingredients for my christmas gooseberry fool (gooseberries donated from the friendly Workforce’s freezer :- ), plenty of dog and cat food, ingredients for my special coconut-fried basmati rice, seven packs of Tesco plain naan bread, some oven chips, gouda, halloumi, parmigiano reggiano and three bags of easy-peel clementines … (well no need to go mad, is there … I am cheap to run … :- )

I have also splashed out upon new vinyl on my kitchen floor, and each time I walk in there, it fondles my eyes anew …!  Makes cooking a bit more enjoyable …

Monday the duck-food was delivered by Lewis Crofters, and Tuesday the coalman staggered under the weight of five unfeasibly-large bags of coal, and four bags of logs, now residing in my shed, for use on my roaring open fire which I tend to look forward to making up each evening …

I have never felt more like a squirrel perched upon an exceptionally large and comforting pile of nuts …! What more can one wish for, at christmas …!

Mindy and I are looking forward, starting Friday, to a couple of weeks of good long walks (usually our walks are constrained by time of some sort), with me double-gloved, scarved and hatted, pockets filled with mint imperials and a packet of ten proprietary menthol cigarettes for those outdoor moments when you just can’t make a roll-up, and my firebird outdoor lighter which jets a useable flame up every single time, gales, rain or storm …

We shall enjoy evenings on the sofa, in front of the fire, me with one of my treasure-trove of books (currently Stephen King ‘Under The Dome’), and her with one of her calcium chew-bones … We shall eat in the living-room, as our own little pack …

I shall have much more time for meditation, in order that I can join her in Living in the Moment … :- )

The very best Compliments of the Season to one and all, from myself, the (slightly) smug Soaplady, Mindy the maniac, Finn the black terror and Fauvey the queen of fluff …

Tags: christmas, christmas dinner, foul weather, home comforts, squirrel and nuts

Well, it’s a lovely crisp fresh sunny day here in Breasclete, although the temperature is definitely cold, and the roads were suicidally icy this morning when Mindy and I went for our walk around Callanish …

I desperately feel that I should be doing something ‘outside-ish’, like hanging out the washing, or closing down the garden for the winter, so as not to waste a day when it didn’t rain or blow a gale …

Since the clocks have gone back, it’s been really annoying here at tea-time … It starts getting dark around 4pm, and is almost completely dark by a couple of hours later … This is problematic because it means if I close the shop at 5pm I have to walk Mindy in the dark, which is not adviseable, as I can’t see what she’s doing … So I took an executive decision, and decided to invent ‘Winter Opening Hours’, so now we close at 4pm instead (45 mins to go …!). What a nonsense this clocks business is - I see no need for it these days …

Was thinking about what Nic said about why we don’t blog so much … I think with me, BBC-IB was a very first footstep into blogging, and perhaps the novelty wore off somewhat … But I still feel a need to do it from time to time … My blogs are not very often (as tws says) ‘informative’ or erudite, more likely they’re going to be a rant, or a desperate scream (who was it said something about - ah yes … Pink Floyd ‘hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way’, although I’m sure another poet invented the term ‘quiet desperation’, though I can’t remember who it was, and I’ve read it recently too) …

But I try to convince myself that that doesn’t make them any more valuable or pointless than anyone elses …  :- )

Am reading Colin Dexter at the moment - Inspector Morse, reason being in the last digital shuffle, I lost ITV3 (hence Inspector Morse withdrawal), and gained Channel 5 … I am very disappointed with the books … John Thaw gave Morse something very dignified, with so much hidden depth … However Colin Dexter has a habit of sometimes making Morse an angry and vulgar man, something John Thaw would never have done … I expect I shan’t make it past the second story in the book …

on Saturday, dad was away, so he got a 2 person chinese food set for us for dinner, and gave me instructions on what to do with it (!) … Comes dinner time, and my mums wandering about with a plastic-wrapped piece of ham and egg pie and a margarine tub, telling me that’s what we’ve got for dinner, but she doesn’t know what to do with it … She enjoyed her chinese later on anyhow … 

Tags: blogs, books, floyd, morse, quiet desperation, samhain, weather