South West – Rockpool Trading

February 9, 2017February 9, 2017

Bluebell Love! Spring is on the way (brrrrrrr)…

…although you wouldn’t know it in the shop today. I’m writing this post huddled up to my heater, wishing I’d bought the hound into the shop today so he could keep my feet warm.

Speaking of which, the Rockpool Pooch was strutting his stuff on the Barbican this week, sporting his rather fabulous Hootchie Mama dog bandana.

(Don’t be fooled by the sunshine – it was brass monkies that day as well).

Still, spring is surely on the way, and we’ve cracked on with the next video postcard from the shop, introducing our newest stockist, Bluebell Love from Chagford in mid-Devon. I’m not going to be troubling Davina or Claudia for their presenting jobs, but hey, one tries.

Bluebell Love

More next week! (Maybe I’ll have found someone who can make me a sheekskin onesie by then…)

December 21, 2015

To Did and To Do…

Seasons Greetings Rockhoppers! I trust this post finds you well, if not a little stressed (if you’re lucky) or downright desperate (if you’re anything like me and have only bought a pathetic smattering of gifts so far). Still – fractiousness, desperation, staying up until 3am wrapping gifts or making the cake – its all part of the Christmas tradition, right? RIGHT?!

Anyway – as the sun sets on 2015, I thought it would be nice to reflect on what, I think we can all agree, has been a pretty bonkers year for Rockpool. But no one wants to read a blog post about “these are all our achievements in the last 12 months, aren’t we great??, so in order to keep it brief, I’ve done what I always do; I’ve made a list. (One can never go wrong with a list).

“To Did List in 2015”:

1. Said goodbye to a job which wasn’t really my cup of tea, despite the lovely people I worked with.

2. Realised I no longer had an income and that, for some pinickity people (like the bank manager), this might be a problem, so agreed a lease on a small shop on The Barbican in Plymouth.

3. Turned said shop into a cosy little home for Rockpool Trading.

4. Grew.

5. Grew some more.

6. Ended up with double the number of stockists we had when we first opened, covering a broader range of products from candles to cushions, bags to bunting, spoon fish mobiles to fairy doors and everything in between, all of which are lovingly handcrafted in Devon & Cornwall.

7. Had a lovely summer chatting to folk from all over the planet who were visiting Plymouth, as well as broadening our customer base in the city.

8. Got nominated for a Plymouth Herald City & Waterfront Business award for Rockpool. Terribly exciting – never been nominated for anything before. Celebrated with a piece of red velvet cake.

9. Got shortlisted for a Plymouth Herald City & Waterfront Business award for Rockpool. Even more exciting. Bought a posh frock and attended our first ever awards ceremony where were were Commended in the category of “Best homeware, gift shop, arts and crafts, hobbies and interests retailer”. Celebrated with lots of bubbly.

10. Attended the Plymouth Christmas Market and met lots of lovely local folk and publicised our cosy Rockpool home on The Barbican. Also ate a LOT to keep warm. Nearly lost Christmas cheer, having to listen to Christmas hits solidly for 11 days.

11. Rediscovered Christmas cheer, and made the most of the festive season by selling at fairs in Plymouth, Tavistock and Edinburgh, bookending the country with our handmade wares, as well as online and of course in the shop.

12. Waved a sad goodbye to our buddies at Funky Poppy who are moving out of the House that Jack Built at the end of the year after 5 happy years in the wonderful independent shopping arcade.

“To do lists for 2016”:

1. Move Rockpool into the front shop at the House that Jack Built, and make it as cosy and comfy as our first shop was. (Squeeeeeeeeeee! SO excited!!!).

2. Sleep more.

See you in our new pad in 2016 folks!

August 9, 2014August 9, 2014

What I was doing when I should have been blogging…

A month. Shocking. But in my defense, I was out revelling in all the joys Devon and Cornwall (and…ahem…Scotland) has to offer. It is the summer after all – and as the Hurricane-formally-known-as-Bertha hoolies it’s way towards the South West, I thought I’d reflect on a fabulous 4 weeks in the Westcountry sunshine…

Week 1 – Watching the inimitable Elbow at the Eden Sessions. An unlikely Mother’s Day pressie from my 1 year old (he knows his Mother well), Mr RT and I were lucky enough to catch the boys from Bury in surely one of the most picturesque venues in the country. If you’ve never seen a gig at Eden, make it a priority – it’s breathtaking (if not a long walk back to your car). And speaking of breathtaking views, the following night we pitched up, with 20,000 others, to MTV Crashes Plymouth. (Yup – Elbow one night, Example the next – who says we’re not eclectic??). The event was certainly loud and proud, and while I’ll save my rant about the lack of bars for another post (and in any event I vented my spleen in a strongly worded complaint to Plymouth City Council to which, incidentally, I’m yet to receive a response), you can’t say this kind of massive event isn’t fantastic for Plymouth, and the wider Westcountry. Plus, on a scorching evening on the Hoe, it’s hard to be grumpy. (Even if you’ve queued for 3 hours for a beer).

Week 2 – Saw Rockpool attend The Wild Tribe Children’s Festival; the first children’s festival to be held in Plymouth. As new parents we were probably a bit biased, but we thought it was fantastic. Theatre performances, puppets, storytelling, marshmallow toasting, all sorts of messy crafty type things, bands, stalls, amazing food (including Yum and Stuff and Thorough Bread – check them out) and, of course, your local, friendly online retailers. Fab day – can’t wait for it to come back next year.

Week 3 – Did Accounts. De-fleed the dog. Packed for…

Week 4 – Holidays in Scotland! Too much to cram in – amazing evenings at Hampden watching the athletics at the Commonwealth Games, shows at the Edinburgh Festival suitable for 1 year olds, fabulous fun with much-missed family and more wine than is probably healthy when we all have to get up at 5.30am for the little ones. Even though it’s a long way from the Westcountry, Scotland feels very much like home – can’t wait to be back there again soon.

So home we are, and back to the lovely day job. More fairs coming up in the next few weeks, and who knows, maybe even the odd new product line. Keep your eyes on the skies Rockhoppers…

July 2, 2014July 2, 2014

When craft fairs go bad…

So – new experience for the RT team at the weekend; trying to battle the wind, rain and, yes, THUNDER to take part in what should have been a homage to the traditional village summer fete. (Come to think of it, maybe it was…?!). Anyhow – if you think I’m exaggerating, take a look at this…

Yes, the Great British Summer looked down on us in Exeter and thought – “d’you know what this outdoor event needs? A good, torrential downpour…”. Or make that three separate downpours and some rumbles of thunder thrown in for good measure. Naturally, these conditions weren’t exactly conducive to achieving high sales (hell, we were just grateful not to be washed away), but it got me thinking – why on earth can’t you get insurance against this kind of thing?? Losses? The cost of driving from Plymouth to Exeter and back again, parking charges (which, incidentally, are astronomical in Exeter), obviously the fee for the table, and then incidental costs incurred in trying to cheer ourselves up whilst sitting, cold and damp for 6 hours (to wit, two large and rather delicious calzones from the food stand a few metres away, 2 very large coffees and countless cupcakes from the cake stall). It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that, due to the lack of people meandering by our stall (they seem to prefer to dash past us on their way to the main event indoors in the Exeter Pheonix – I can’t imagine why…), we didn’t have the most profitable day.

Still – we take these things in our stride, curse at the skies, take a big breath, start planning for the next one (which, incidentally, is on Sunday 6th July at Mount Edgcumbe) and pray to the weather Gods for clemency. After all – we’re a small business and don’t have “Ridiculous and Quite Frankly Unreasonable Weather” insurance. Please have mercy.

June 17, 2014June 17, 2014

El Blog Espanol

Hola Amigos! Como Esta?

Ummm… una cerveza por favour?

OK, embarrassingly that’s all the Spanish I know. In case it wasn’t already clear, the RT team waved goodbye to the rain and gloom of the UK last week and made for the sunshine and sandy beaches of the South of Spain. (Because it obviously poured with rain the whole time we were away DIDN’T IT???).

And whilst I was sipping Sangria by the pool, watching mini-RT paddle round in a rubber ring, it occurred to me that, obvious stuff like language, weather, and the price of beer aside, the South of England and the South of Spain aren’t so different. Beaches? Yep, we’ve got a few of them. Stunning scenery – si, in abundance. Lovely people – definitely. Laid back attitude? Well they have Manana and we have ‘Dreckly – pretty much the same thing when push comes to shove…

And of course, there’s always the beautiful, locally handcrafted items. Here’s Mrs RT indulging in a little local shopping (and yes, I did check, they were all “Handmade in Spain”).

Still – you’ll never find us upping sticks and joining the Ex-Pats community in the Costa Del Sol. The weather may be great, the booze may be cheap and the locals may be friendly (and tolerant of our basterdisation of their mother tongue), but we’re with Dorothy on this one – there’s no place like home.

June 3, 2014

Oooops – There Goes May

Oh my God I haven’t blogged in nearly a month. That is disgraceful! Rest assured I feel suitably ashamed… And on a completely unrelated note, the RT team are off on hols to Spain soon, so next week’s entry might be affected as well… Normal service will resume shortly, I promise.

Anyway – aside from my poor blogging over the last month, life in Rockpool Trading-land has been pretty swell. The news in brief is as follows…

New lines have been added to the website, the sun has been (mostly) shining (aside from the odd clap of thunder), have attended fairs in Devon & Cornwall and had a lovely time nattering to lovely people, attempted (and failed) to find a dog groomer to sort out our walking bush of a labradoodle, continued the ongoing quest to teach myself to crochet, carried out more research new suppliers who might join our happy RT family, realised mini-RT can now turn the gas hob on, banished mini-RT from the kitchen until he’s 10 and old enough to make Mummy breakfast in bed on her birthday, successfully got tickets for MTV Crashes Plymouth, watched in horror as some Polish lass in the in the Eurovision Song Contest did something unspeakable with a butter urn, got mini-RT his first mini-passport for his upcoming travels, went to the cinema twice in one month and felt momentarily young and extravagant, voted (and then ranted at anyone who would listen about the results), and had a mini-pedicure.

All in all, May has gone off without a hitch.

Finally, had a quick semi-business, semi-pleasure trip to Liskeard last weekend, and Mr RT was highly amused by a sign he saw in the window of the local Boots. Only in Cornwall people, only in Cornwall…

May 7, 2014

Dogs, pinnies and Gruffalos…

Evening All.

OK, so tonight’s Rockhoppers blog-writing tipple of choice is a well known brand of alcoholic Ginger Beer. (“You don’t have to have a drink to write a blog, but it helps…”). Scrum.

Anyway – like bin day, the blog is a day late this week due to the Bank Holiday. (Insert your own joke about rubbish here). This Bank Holiday weekend saw the RT team revelling in our gorgeous Westcountry surroundings, including a sponsored walk on Dartmoor to raise money for pooches with epilepsy (who knew eh?), enjoying a rather splendid meal at River Cottage in the Royal William Yard (fabulous food from Mr Hugh F-W) and finally a trek through Cardinham Woods in search of a Gruffalo (No joke. You really can go and hunt a Gruffalo…).

All of this was rather splendid, but also rather outdoorsey, so it was lovely to spend Bank Holiday Monday in the serene surroundings of the Moorland Garden Hotel, manning the RT stall at the Moor Things Vintage and Lovely Summer Fete, organised by the always reliable Miss Ivy Events. As always, the day was well organised with bags of character and atmosphere, and from a personal point of view, we had a stonkingly good day with loads of interest in our products (especially our beautiful range of handmade pinnies from What Jess Did Next – after all you can’t get much more vintage than a frilly pinny…). The only dampener was the fact the hog roast pretty much sold out before I got to it (humph – too busy having such a lovely time with the bloomin’ customers, honestly…). But my empty stomach aside, the day was a big success – it’s great to see the vintage and handmade scene is alive and well in the outskirts of Plymouth.

Therefore it’s with a twinge of sadness that we wave goodbye to the May bank holiday. Oh hang on, another bank holiday on the horizon, you say…?! Why, splendid – don’t mind if we do…

April 30, 2014

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Cornishman…

OK, so this week has actually seen quite a momentic (word? Possibly not) change in our rather little but rather marvellous corner of the world. The fair residents of Cornwall (including at least 6 of our lovely suppliers) woke up on 24th April to the news that they have now been granted official minority status, bestowed on it, via several committees and frameworks, by Europe. Hoorah! The Cornish can now officially refer to themselves as Cornish. I’m sure they would have done this without some committee telling them they can, but still, anything which recognises and celebrates Cornwall’s unique position among other UK regions in terms of language, history, culture and character can only be a good thing.

So congratulations Kernow! You truly are unique and minoritnous. (Non-word number 2), and we loves ya for it.

And that’s not all – there’s also exciting news Eastside this month; the South West is now connected to the mainland again! Yep, that’s right, rather unexpectedly, the train line at Dawlish was actually finished ahead of schedule (Rio Olympics committee, take note) so west of Exeter is now not completely inaccessible to everyone without a car and/or private jet. And on a personal note – hoo-bloody-rah! No more replacement coach services, no more standing on the platform at Tiverton waiting to get on a train to take me the last 10 minutes of my 2 hour journey to Taunton and (sadly) no more free drinks vouchers as compensation for the whole ballache.

But seriously, it’s fantastic news for all those local businesses who risked losing oodles of income due to reduced tourist numbers. So well done to Scoop, Muck, Dizzy, Bob, Wendy and whoever else was responsible (that’s one for the parents); perhaps now we need to address the bigger problem of making the South West more accessible and not entirely dependent on one solitary rail line in and out of the region for the future. After all – we’ve got a protected minority down ‘ere now. We’ve gotta look after them.

April 7, 2014April 7, 2014

Raisins at 30000 feet

This entry comes with a big BIG dollop of sorryness. I dearly wanted to be vigilant with my blogging when I started Rockhoppers, and I guess getting 5 months in and writing pretty much every week isn’t bad. But unfortunately life went bonkers 2 weeks ago and blogging went to the back of my head, and here’s why…

(NB – for the record, these aren’t excuses, but explanations…Honest…)

Firstly, we took our 1 year old for a long weekend in Scotland. (Random, but true). Recommendation for any other crazy parents contemplating the insane endeavour of taking a wriggling 1 year old on a plane? Raisins. And enough of ’em to sink a battle ship. Our little one was so busy scoffing, he didn’t have time to worry about the fact he was 30000 up in the air in a very confined space. (However, a word of caution; what goes in , must come out…).

After the heady heights of the spontaneous weekend away, we were then thrown into dealing with said child getting chicken pox. Or some other nasty, blister forming disease – not quite sure what it is, but whatever it turns out to be, it’s looks angry. A tad unfortunate that we unwittingly took the incubating bug up to Edinburgh, not only potentially infecting our hosts but also all the other passengers on the plane; but hey ho – share and share alike I say. (Hope this little indiscretion doesn’t prove to be some pivotal turning point in the Scottish independence question?!).

And now the final explanation; whilst dealing with a pickled littl’un, we’ve been getting all geared up for the beginning of the craft fair season! (Woohoo! Bring it ON!). It’s time to shake out our tablecloths, brush off our shelving units and get on the road to craft fair giddiness. We already have 6 fairs booked in for the next few months, and frankly, we can’t wait. I love our online business, and it genuinely gives me so much pleasure selling Devon & Cornwall’s finest designs to customers all over the planet, but nothing replaces nattering to people about the items in person. So first up with at Diverse Events Easter Show in Saltash, Cornwall on 12th April.

So come along and see us sometime in 2014 – we love seeing you lot.

(PS – We promise we’re pox free).

March 3, 2014

Rockpool on the road…

Evening Rockhoppers!

Tonight’s blog will be short, sweet, and a little bit all over the place, but hell – lets see if we can pull it together by the end…

So I’ve spent most of the last week back on the craft fair trail for 2014. We maxed out on fairs in the run up to Christmas, and had a splendid time, but now we need to get over the winter blues and get back out there for the spring. I’ve already booked in fairs for April, May and (randomly) November, but our aim is to do at least one per month, across the length and breadth of this fair region of ours. Now – here in lies part of the problem; when you’re new to the scene as we are, booking a craft fair is a bit like walking up to a prospective partner in a bar; they may look good on the outside (snappy dresser, nice hair, not wearing white socks), but delve a little deeper and before you know it, you’re sitting in a freezing church hall next to some ol’ dear who crochets her own toilet paper.

(OK, so my metaphor may be a little muddled, but hopefully you get the gist).

And don’t think it doesn’t happen! Luckily the RT team have so far managed to side step most land mines when it comes to disastrous fairs, but even we experienced one occasion when we travelled over 60 miles only to sit in a venue for 8 hours with just a handful of customers. And this was a fair that, on the outside, seemed like the George Clooney of fairs – nothing to suggest the Baldrick of an event which lurked underneath…

Anyway – punts have been taken, caution has (to some degree) been thrown to the wind, and we’ve booked some more dates and venues in the calendar. Keep an eye on our home page for more details, but needless to say we’re hitting the road big style in 2014. And hey – it’s a numbers game: you kiss enough craft fairs, you’re bound to find your prince… (or something like that).