The reminder on my phone has bing-bonged, tea is on the go (pork and apple meatballs – slightly experimental, so don’t know how they’ll work out) and the countdown to the Strictly results show has begun, so it must be time for the weekly RT update…
It’s been a fairly quiet week this week, but I sense a Christmas-shaped manic phase on the horizon, so I guess I should enjoy the calm before the tinsle-wearing, carol-singing storm. We’ve added a scrummy new line to the RT shelves this week – some rather funky children’s coin purses by the equally rather funky Hootchie Mama based in Hayle (West Cornwall, for those of you from further afield). I’m already a huge fan of the Hootchie Mama stuff, and we’ve been stocking their crayon bags for over a year (they sold fantastically at the Christmas fairs last year), so I think these will be another winner.
I’ve been a bit deflated at how long it’s taken us to add new product lines to the website this year – when we started up we had around half a dozen product lines, and in the last 2 years we’ve added several more, however 2013 has only seen a handful of new items hitting our shelves. This is in no small part down to the new addition to our family, who seems oblivious to my Rockpool empire masterplan and insists on needing attention pretty much 24/7. This, coupled with the length of time it takes to research products to make sure we get the best of the best from the West (catchy eh?), start a dialogue, agree terms and actually get the items onto the cyber shelves has meant we’ve tended to stick with existing stockists this year. Not that expanding the ranges we stock from the 14 designer-makers we already support is a bad thing – we love them and their fabulous work – it would just be nice to add to the RT clan. Still – we’ve noticed over the last year that new crafters are approaching us with their products, which is wonderful, not only because it saves us time sniffing them out, but also it’s nice to see that people value what we do and want to be associated with us. Hooray! Everyone’s a winner.
So fingers crossed 2014 will bring many more humongously talented Westcountry crafters into the RT fold. Come on in me ‘andsomes – the water’s lovely.