Update - with mixed news

Isobel just looking in with a quick update - and as the title indicates, the news is mixed:  mostly good, but some problems are looming, which may mean a break in blogging activities for a week or so, but hopefully not!

Let's deal with the problem first:  my digital camera has succumbed to a recumbent position!  In other words, it's kaput.  Was in the middle of doing a shoot of Slaters Barn (where we held the MacMilllan Cancer Coffee Morning on September 30) when everything just jammed.  Even turning it off, taking out the batteries, putting in news ones all resulted in the same thing - a black screen with "Version 1" blinking.  Occasionally, the pics would come back when I hit one of the buttons (I tend to panic when technology goes wonky!) but it would be accompanied by a pathetic beep, so I realised things were bad.

On Saturday morning, I took the offending equipment to the only place in Warminster that might have been able to give an opinion - the local photograpy shop (we don't have such a thing as a camera shop in town!)  The young man there said the Menu button was stuck - and without that, the camera was definitely unwell, if not terminally ill!  I cannot even get the memory card to load onto the computer, which the young man in the photographer's den said might be a possibility.  So, the pics I had in the camera - some blow-by-blow accounts of the latest Christmas Rabbit as well as Slater's Barn - are on the memory card, but I don't have a camera with which to load them onto the computer.  Without a camera therefore, blogging is going to become somewhat boring for you nice folks to read;  hence the possibility of a break in communications.

However, all may not be lost.  Tomorrow, husband (P) and I are due in Salisbury for one of his regular hospital check ups.  I know they have camera shops in that city, and one is  near a shop that we have on our shopping itinerary!  So, will take said dying camera in to see if they can resurrect it - and if not, well we'll have to see about getting a replacement.  The camera in question was purchased some five or six years ago, as a special offer (saving some 30-40 GBP) and was not quite the latest thing at the time - only offering 6.0 megapixels, when 7.5 or 8.0 megapixels were the latest thing!  Didn't really know what that meant then (am not sure that I really do now, actually!) but I know cameras that are on the market now offer a whole lot more.  When I got it, I was fearful of it - now cannot do without it, whether it be on www.coldhamcuddlies.etsy.com business or general family duty.  P and I have decided a replacement must be considered, so.....watch this space.

Thus, all may not be lost, because I presume that the memory card I have should be useable in the new one?  Unless, of course, like everything else related to technology, they have moved on and the one I have has now been superseded by some whizzy new version that will not accept my current card!

So, having covered the bad news - and got it off my chest!  What's the good news?  Have got two more orders.  Yes - two of them, all in one week!   Another Uncle Brendan Brown Rabbit has been requested by Mme. AB a resident of Versailles in France (and the replacement for Uncle Brendan currently en route to Everett, WA has yet to be started!).  Then the funds arrived by the usual route from MB-P in Saudi Arabia for the four customised Baby Rabbits.  

Incidentally, I am indebted to MB-P for the title, tag, label - call it what you will - for the Purple Baby Rabbit she has ordered.  When I make a batch to list on www.coldhamcuddlies.etsy.com, once the project is complete and the Birthday Present is on it's way,  they will be entitled "Lovely Little Lavender Rabbits"!  (If they were French, they'd have to be "Lapins" would they not?)  Think the alliteration rather catchy - don't you?  Anyone got an idea of how to label the Pink ones that are also part of the custom order?  All ideas welcome, as I'm not really terribly original when it comes to catchy names!

Christmas Brown Rabbit is almost complete (he was originally meant to be Uncle Brendan's replacement - but I got hijacked by some other material I came across when sorting out fabrics for the replacement project, never dreaming I'd get another order for him so rapidly!  His leather boots are stuffed and ready to be fixed to his legs, his coat just needs to be firmly attached over his waistcoat - and he's going to have a bow-tie rather than a stock to finish off his oufit.  Then he'll be brushed off and get listed (once I've got the pictures ready to do so!)

So, guess what - not only may I not be blogging because of lack of professional equipment, but I'll be busy sewing the rabbit families in order to get them off.  Wish someone could invent a way of sewing, blogging and photographing all at the same time!  Life might not get quite so complicated then!

William White Bear - looking a little wistful.  He'd love a new Christmas home!

Wish me luck - on all fronts.  Bye for now.  Isobel