I’m writing this on our last shop day of the year. The woodburner is chomping away at a rapidly diminishing pile of logs and through the back window the buddleia is bowed with snow. Orchestra Baobab are bringing a welcome sunny blast of tunes from the workshop.

All our manufacturing slots are full now so we can’t fit in any more bespoke orders like mattresses and futons, but we have one more despatch day for other items (Tuesday 21st December), although stocks are quite low after a Christmassy rush. We will be completely closed from then until the shop and workshop re-open on 7th January 2011. Although we can’t make up any goods until then we are already starting to pencil orders of mattresses and futons into the workshop schedule in the new year, so if you do know that you want something sharpish then it is worth letting us know by email before then.

In the meantime we’d like to wish everyone a warm festive time and a bright 2011!

Just a quick reminder for people who haven't been in touch or in the shop recently, we will be closed on Saturday 16th October all day as we will all be at an Aikido instructors meeting. Sorry to disappoint anyone who was hoping to call in...

Our workshop is closed for a week from Sunday 12th until Sunday 19th of September. This means our shop will be closed too, so please don’t call in to see us on Friday and Saturday 17th and 18th of September! Aikido classes will continue as usual.

We’re going back to school next week! We are off to an Aikido summer camp for a week down in Andover. Classes start at 7.30 am so it’s not as if we are taking time off again...
However it does mean that we will be closed for a week from Sunday 25th July to Saturday 31st July and since our ‘weekend’ is a Sunday - Monday the workshop won’t actually be re-opening until Tuesday 3rd August. Note that our EcoShop will be closed Friday 30th and Saturday 31st July.

We’ve been open again for a couple of weeks since our annual shutdown and we’re just starting to catch up and get in the swing of things after our camping trip to Portugal. The sewing machines are humming and mattresses and futons are rolling out of the workshop again. But we’re missing those starry nights already and we have a mini reminder planned. We’ve organised a camping and walking weekend in Wales with our aikido club. This weekend! The timing’s not so great, so close to our last trip, but for one reason and another this was the best weekend. And it’s shaping up to be a sunny one too...

So, we will be closed Friday and Saturday 18th and 19th of June. The workshop and the shop. There’ll be no-one taking phone calls or emails.

We’ve had this date on our site for a while - if you take a look at the ‘Contact Us’ page you’ll see where we list any planned closures. Always worth taking a peek at if you are thinking of making a special journey to visit us.

Time is racing towards our annual shutdown for this year. As usual we will be closed during May - from Sunday May 2nd, re-opening on Friday June 4th. Saturday May 1st will be our last day in the shop, workshop and on the phone, and we’ll be closing at 2.00pm on that day. After that the workshop will be closed and no messages will be taken from the answerphone. We may have some email contact but as we will be camping out of the country we won’t be checking emails frequently - we’re going to enjoy being unconnected for a while!

All our manufacturing slots before we go are now full and we are starting to fill up slots for when we return, so if you know that you definitely want to order then it is worth ordering before we close as there can be a bit of a rush when we return...

While we are away Aikido classes will continue as usual in the capable hands of the school 2nd Dan teachers.

Hasta la vista...

We will be closed over Easter from Wednesday 31st March, reopening on Tuesday 6th April. Time to get out and enjoy the daffodils!
Hard on the heels of Easter is our annual shutdown - we will be closing for May this year as we are heading off camping in Portugal for a month. This means that we are starting to plan our manufacturing schedule for before and after our shutdown. At the moment we are working on an approximately 10 day lead time but if you know that you will be wanting to order for delivery before May, or just after when we reopen, then it’s best to let us know soon so we can make sure everyone gets what they need when they need it! It does get very busy coming up to when we close and orders start to be booked in for completion when we return.
We’ll post exact closure dates after Easter.

The final parcel has gone off, the sewing machine stands silent, the last fire of the year is cooling in the woodburner. Time to head off to the hills for a couple of weeks of rest and feasting (and some bracing walks) after our busiest year yet. We re-open on Friday 8th January and the order book is filling up already...
So here’s wishing everyone a peaceful and merry Christmastime and hope and joy and the coming year!

Just a reminder if you haven’t noticed the note under our ‘Opening Times’ elsewhere - we are going to be closed from Saturday 12th September, reopening on Friday 25th September. During this time both the shop and the workshop will be closed and answer phone messages won’t be taken although you can email us. We are off for an end-of-the-summer camping trip and we’re finally going to visit the Eden Project and the National Botanic Garden of Wales...

We recently had a small issue with the site: it was hacked with code that was trying to redirect users to a malware site. The hack luckily didn't work correctly, but it disrupted the site enough so that you may have had difficulty accessing it. Also, it may have caused some browser to warn you about malware on the site.

The site has been fully restored and the locks have been changed, so everything should now be back to normal!