All work and some play

It's been another hectic week - is there any other kind? Spent the whole of yesterday (6.30am to 8pm) on Lynda and Carol's book. Michael Wicks was in London working on the file - madly slotting in pics, adding captions and polishing up, while I was on the other end of the phone making helpful suggestions!

It has now gone back to Liz for a final check (it's alarmingly easy to fall into traps and overlap text with pics, etc). Liz and Drew, our Oz designers, are wonderful. Liz used to set my Batsford books sometimes and she was always streets ahead of the rest, so we are lucky to have them for d4daisy.

Here's a close up of the cover to tease you - love that zapped Lutradur!

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So we are on course for launch later this month and have super give-aways for launch day. We'll also have a 'two for the price of one' mailing offer for a very short time so do let Fiona know - fiona@d4daisy.com -if you want to be told the exact date of the launch. No need to do this if you've told her before. I've finally managed to update the book pics (on the sidebar of the blog) at last.

I have been doing lots of talks lately - we were in Chichester on Monday and that was such a happy reunion. Loads of people we knew but hadn't seen for ages. I so enjoyed myself. Later today I am going to Oxford EG to do my Old Walls talk. I needed an extra piece of work for a section of the talk on Portmerion, the Italianate village in Wales, so I started this piece. It will be the top of a long thin hanging and I shall add more Old Walls images as I go along.

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Apart from the views of the village, I loved this piece of rough stonework. Good change of scale in the circles. I may do it as a repeat image with flower stitch circles.

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Thanks for the comments - I'll answer them here if I may but I have visited the catalogue killing sites. Heather's is stunning - so unusual. Gill's is really great and Chrissy - loved yours.

I've been so pleased with the reaction to the free classes that came with the last book. We are doing them again and I've persuaded Lynda and Carol to do some too. I've already seen Lynda's and you are just going to love them! We'll probably have a new Yahoo group for all the d4d classes - such fun.

Chrissy, those are good choices for a book. I'll make a note. We hope to publish three more later this year - Jae, Jean Draper and Sue Rangeley.

Jane - I don't mind the little shrews quite so much. Stevens brings those in but they are all suitably despatched. Smudge believes in live prey and runs around with frogs hanging out of his mouth while not letting us catch him. Frogs scream - it's quite horrible. He is staying with Claire until the 'easy prey' season is over.
I do miss him, though, and have to have access visits.

Glad to hear that other folks have photo climbing problems too. Thought it was just me!

Hey, Gill - I'll join you in the wine on launch day!

Christine - it would be great if we were long lost great-somethings. I'm stopping off on one of my trips to do some Sunderland research - I'll let you know.

It wasn't all work this week as it was time for the annual barbecue on a bucket. Actually the bucket is for Clive to sit on while the GCs giggle. They have sophisticated gas things and we have three diposable supermarket barbies. We have the last laugh when cleaning up though.

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Here's the gang playing 'What's the time Mr Wolf ("Mrs Wolf, if you don't mind", said Lozzie). They have all crept up on little Toby and he will have a fright when he turns round.

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Back soon. Nothing booked for a while so I'll be back more quickly than usual.