Inky Drakey Plans

 (Oyster Fayre 2012)

 

All’s quiet on the Wyvern for sale front (if I’ve not yet mentioned, Wyvern Publications might have a buyer, but we’ll see how it turns out – I’m very excited about it! It means authors will have a chance to have their work back on the market and Wyvern itself still going).  Which suits me fine at the moment because it’s all about Seadrake in two days.  I never had a chance to finish the two brass leaf brooches – there were too many other things to do and my knuckles were aching in the cold, damp workshop (someday, after a lottery win, I can have the workshop insulated and have proper double glazing).  Today I’ve got to finish painting my Seadrake Creations banner for the Oyster Fayre.  I’m on plot A6, which is a big move up from last year and exactly the opposite far end of where I was before.  It’s going to be so much fun regardless of the weather.

 

Sales, however, will suffer if it rains… which brings me to the question I’ve been nagging myself over.  Is it all worth it?  This is the beginning of year 3 for Seadrake and I’ve struggled with it (as most new businesses will).  The difference is that I don’t really know if it’s worth the struggle anymore.  Goodness knows I’m not charging enough for my time or even enough to cover basic tools let alone PLI and pitch rentals.  There has been a renaissance in hand made traditional crafts but nobody outside London wants to (or can afford to) pay for the time and money it takes to produce something handmade and beautiful.  Something whacked out of the factory in the third world can give a similar effect for a fraction of the cost.  Let’s face it, we’ve all been belt pinching which is what brought on the handmade revolution in the first place.

 

And curse this whole issue of needing sleep and getting tired.  WHY can’t I get up at 5am all chipper and work and play with my toddler, get dinner on, bake fresh bread every Friday, grow fresh flowers and veg in the back, juggle Wyvern Publications, tackle the hedge, write two non-fiction books and one novel, keep a jewellery business going and still have time to write the blog without falling asleep or feeling like a zombie?  Okay, I get up at 7… but if I could, I’d wake up fresh at 5.  Can I pull the teen thing and say, “it’s not fair”?  It really isn’t.  My body can’t keep up with all these life plans I’ve got.  I’ll do the usual of working like mad, getting ill then having everything fall to a standstill for three months.  I know many people who struggle to get up in the morning just to face the day, so I am being greedy with wanting to do more.  Sorry peops, I’ll stop griping.

 

I do need to streamline again.  The allotment (you remember, the thing that was going to be my priority this year after family?) is on my axe list.  Every time I get on top of it, something happens to set me back months and not just the weather.  It’s time to move on and use the backyard as my growing space.  It will be after the season finishes, so I can harvest the last of the berries and rescue all my berry bushes and the shed and tools, water butts and composter.  The rest can stay there for next year’s grower. Shed BTW is going to be toddler’s own outside playhouse.  I’ll paint it up brilliantly for her.  The front is going to have a mini bridge over water plants (not real water plants, but plants that I feel represent water) and she’ll have her very own mini garden in front of her house to tend.  It will take some time (like, a year) but it will be good and I won’t have to worry about… well the things that have been helping me make the decision about dropping the allotment.

Now to bring on the Oyster Fayre and then I’ll only do Seadrake work for special orders for the next month as I’ve got to hammer out the draft of Three Victorian Women in Asylum and edit the Isabella anthology for Springbok Publications.  Forget the fact that I spent yesterday writing three new business plans.  Maybe I should just relax for a bit…