HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Time for the traditional, slightly tipsy, potentially over-emotional thank you to so many people! In no particular order, here goes:

Thanks to our customers...clearly we wouldn’t be able to do any of this without you

Thanks to our fabulous staff (seen here enjoying our Christmas party, this year held in the salubrious setting of the workshop....which was then abandoned....we have since realised we neglected to take home the leftover trifle....it’s going to be lovely by the New Year....)

Thanks to Mack&Me for all their wonderful IT help, sorting out all our postcards, DLs, website, emailers and a whole host of other things

Thanks to our fellow shopkeepers and workers at Burwash who make it such a lovely place to work and who don’t mind helping to move the odd bit of furniture now and again

And, thanks to family and friends who have, as ever, pitched in and helped with everything from looking after Martha so Kathryn can get some work done, getting printing done in record time (that’ll be you, Dad!), helping us with vans/muscle/buoying up and coffee whilst out buying and supporting us in everything we do

That’s about as soppy as it gets...we’ll be back on top ranting form in the New Year – see you then!

SUGAR RUSH

Well, I picked a good day to be in the shop...who decided to send a huge party of Spanish children to Burwash to practice their buying and English?!

In Nest, all they wanted to buy was flying saucers (at 4 pence each) from our sweetie display. My Spanish is rubbish so there was a lot of hand gesticulating and noise, and general pandemonium.

Still, at least I’m not the driver of the bus dealing with a bunch of incoherent children high on sherbet and food colouring!

VERY, VERY GOOD PRESENT IDEA!

Has anyone seen the TV advert for the online retailer ‘Very’ (fronted by Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby), that has the intention of solving all your Christmas gift dilemmas?

It shows an inept male trying to wrap up a stuffed seagull which naturally triggers a ‘bad gift alert’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do0sSXqbgbw

Well....now then....I have to say that if someone wants to go to the trouble (and expense) of finding me a lovely stuffed seagull, I will be very chuffed indeed. Replacing it with some horrible, mass produced, generic piece of tat would not make me chuffed.

As my wife pointed out in her ‘film-nerd’-attention-to-detail way, Ms Cotton appears to have a stuffed Polar bear in her ‘good gift’ headquarters. Surely this must be a mixed message or some sort of plot discontinuity – perhaps I’m reading too much into this?

Anyway, someone has just bought Henry, our beautiful stuffed Canada goose from the shop, so at least our customers have taste, style and a sense of the unexpected.

p.s. we do still have a stuffed seagull for sale at Nest, as well as loads of other unique gift opportunities! Buy quickly before Fearne and Holly dispatch a team to have them removed!

ANNOYING BUZZ WORDS

As some of you may be aware, we are a little upset at the word ‘vintage’ having been kidnapped by large companies, irritating celebrities and media types.

Well, these same people now can’t even recycle like the rest of us. Oh, no, because that word isn’t good enough – we have to come up with new, trendy, urban, cool ways to describe recycling.

‘Upcycling’ – it’s not about the mountain stage of the Tour de France, no, it’s a way that snobby people can allow something second hand into their home.

‘Recrafted’ – I’m not sure what this ridiculous word means. It sounds as though the present you bought your Dad wasn’t quite right and he twiddled with it to make it work better!

Our old favourite Kirsty Allsopp has a lot to answer for – one day she’s going to end up wishing she had just said ‘recycle’ instead of ‘homemaderecraftedvintagestyleretroinspiredupcycledb*****ks’.

YET MORE FURNITURE!

Oh my goodness....we have just bought so much furniture, even our shipper is worried it won’t fit in his lorry!

This wasn’t meant to be the December plan – while we bagged loads of quirky and interesting smalls, it was the volume of great quality furniture that we grabbed that is shocking.

Pardon the list, but: we’ve got Hungarian dressers, an English dresser, loads of tables including a couple of extenders, chairs, a yellow car (more of a display item!), a larder cupboard, a beautiful marble topped shabby console table, a fabulous fold-up snooker table (will need extensive testing at the workshop), a lovely little wardrobe, more cupboards, a massive glass fronted bookcase and much, much more miscellanea.

It’s going to get toasty at the workshop!

BIRD THEMES

As retailers, we’re always trying to work out what themes are going to sell quickly. Bird themes have always been a favourite and since we are, of course, called Nest, are also very appropriate. And I have to say, so far ‘birds’ are selling well this Christmas, especially pheasants.

Having just sold a stuffed pheasant, a metal pheasant sculpture, a ceramic handmade mug with a pheasant on and a set of 6 pheasant tumblers, this could be the hot seller!

I predict a robin backlash soon – I can’t see robins watching their traditional ‘now’ time being hijacked by a bunch of idiot pheasants. That said, the chickens are making a bid for the Christmas number one with growing sales and the recently formed collection of ‘native songbirds’ in cardboard  are also making their presence felt.

I think I need some fresh air.