Gilbert and Stone

We heart Heartlands

A new attraction celebrating Cornwall's mining heritage opened near Redruth last weekend- No. 1 had an inset day today, so we headed down to Heartlands to check it out. I’m pleased to report it’s great! The adventure playground is huge and packed with things to climb on, crawl through and slide down, and there are endless smooth paths-perfect for scooting!
The restored mine buildings and workings were an interesting background rather than the focus of the visit, though I’m sure that’s not the intention, and there are a number of small gardens to wander round too, each representing an area of the world Cornish miners emigrated to.  And best of all, it’s free to get in!

Another interesting feature are the workshops and galleries- at the moment there are only a few occupied, hopefully they'll soon be all be filled with creative people selling lovely things.

I’m sure we’ll be spending more time here- I’m liking the idea of a morning here, followed by lunch at the Blue Bar (yum) and a wander on Porthtowan beach.

 

Clay days

I never thought I’d get this excited about a piece of plastic. Today, the long awaited logo stamp I ordered from America arrived! Another step along the road to setting up shop, it all feels a bit more real now I’ve got an ‘official’ stamp and it’s so satisfying to see something you’ve scribbled on a piece of paper made real.
 Needless to say I’ve been stamping bits of clay all afternoon- I think I need a bit more practise in getting the depth of the impression consistent. All my creations will now be branded with the lovely logo. G laughed and said in 100 years the experts on Antiques Roadshow will be as excited about spotting an original ‘Gilbert and Stone’ as they are now when they discover a Clarice Cliff!

The April showers have kept me inside the past few days, so I've been cracking on with the slip casting. Here's some of the recent output- practically every free surface in the house is covered with drying greenware!

Happy Easter!

Work on the burgeoning business has halted for the Easter holidays- we’ve been busy with the important job of Having A Good Time. This involved some lovely trips out and about, including a jaunt to Truro farmers market (every Wednesday and Saturday on Lemon Quay), walks on the beach and a ride on a mini steam train at Lappa Valley.

Even though the weather’s not been as glorious as previous weeks, we’ve still managed to get some jobs done in the garden, most importantly, the potatoes are in! I made the most of the free child labour available and set no 1 to work- we’re doing Anya and Duke of York this year:

 We’ve also been busy in the kitchen and rustled up Nigella’s Gooey chocolate Stack from ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’ to go along with our Easter Sunday lunch. It didn’t look quite as refined as the picture in the book (cow pat springs to mind!), but it tasted fab and wasn’t too difficult to make.