With a birthday and a wedding on the way, Stuart’s ready to celebrate!
Stuart x
Spring is just around the corner and things are getting busy at home and at the farm. We are expecting lots of lambs and goat kids to be born soon, with ducklings and chicks hatching too. Amid all this I still have quilts to make for my new book, recipes to develop, sock yarns to design and TV to film. My feet won’t touch the ground!
I also have a birthday to celebrate and as we are confined to the farm right now, I thought a little afternoon party in the barns would work best. I’ve got a couple of friends who have just announced their engagement and would like to hold their wedding at the farm so I’m inviting them along to see if we could make it work. We’ve thrown some lovely parties here and I think the secret of our success is that we keep things ‘rustic’ – that’s code for “don’t expect perfection and you won’t be disappointed!” Simple and relaxed is the way to go and the nature of the farm helps to seal this.
My birthday plans would also work beautifully for my friend’s wedding as they love the countryside and simplicity. Trestle tables and stacked hay bales make for perfect tables, and once covered in white tablecloths and hessian runners – ta-da! I’ve asked Godfrey our trusty woodsman to cut small slices from a tree we had to fell, and we’ll use pyrography to ‘burn’ the date and a guest’s name into each one to make our place cards. I’ll also create a larger one for my birthday cake to go on and decorate the tables and cake stand with fresh evergreens and berries. I might add a few fresh flowers too, popped into jam jars and milk bottles tied with twine.
Real candles are an absolute no-no in the barns, so I’ve invested in a decent stock of battery-operated ones. They are brilliantly lifelike plus you
