Family gathering at Christmas.

Isn't it great when the family arrive for Christmas get togethers ?


Especially when you are just a little princess.
But check out my favourite little visitor on my home page.
http://www.jillpendleton.co.uk/ He's called Oscar and he wears a cap.

Database in place and working.... yippee

Two little jobs sorted in time for Christmas. One is a canvas print of some delightful children that I had photoed for one of my family albums a couple of months ago. This shot of the young brother and sister blew up so well for a brilliant Christmas present. See details on my personal website http://www.jillpendleton.co.uk/ . The postcard is one that I designed for one of our bed and breakfast landladies in time for next year's season. Looks better if you click onto it to blow it up large. Her bill came to only £25 including the design.
Tom the website whizzkid came in to work this morning and cheered me up no end by uploading the b&b pages to include our new database, which means that all the listings on the pages will automatically rotate in order as each new surfer logs on. (Try it !) Up to now I have had to change the pages myself to enable everyone to have a fair amount of time at the top of the pages. This has taken a half hour chunk each time what with B&B's hotels and self catering, not to mention the odd rotation of the camping page.
BUT - NO MORE !!!!!! Yippee and ....
thank you Tom ... Great Christmas present !

Nancy for 2 days, work abandoned, who cares ?

Here she is the light of our lives. Little Miss Nancy Noodle.
Here with Granny and Grandad for 2 nights so that her Mummy Jennifer, now 7 months pregnant with baby number 2 can have a breathing space. So, the house is in even more chaos than usual, mealtimes are not to schedule and at 5 in the evening I feel ready to drop.
The only thing that I managed to do is keep up with e-mail, which is important at the moment as proofs for our new birthday card range arrived earlier today. 6 designs to sell online.

Tom the website wonder will be back in on Friday, and we should be getting a new website underway for ordering greetings cards and pictures with our Dartmoor photos.

That plus making Christmas cards that I do each year. So far, I have 52 completed and now that we are underway, it shouldn't take too long to sort out the rest. Each year it is a tree theme with 100% recycled materials. This year I found a fabulous size 20 ladies dress at Proper Job the re-cycle centre in Chagford, and I have picked off all the dozens of sequins that adorned the bodice, and cut out the sewn in petticoat that gave me yards of black netting ... all good stuff, and the dress is still ok for the dressing up box.

As for a present for Nancy, I feel very strongly that she has far too many toys, so she will be getting new knickers, new tights and a large bag of dog biscuits that can go into a special ' Nancy only' tin for giving to Topsy each time she comes to see us.

I had better be off now, because it was suggested to us by a certain 2 year old, that sausages might be a good idea for dinner tonight, so I need to mix and egg, some milk and water into batter for toad in the hole, and of course that will need some onion gravy, to go with the sprouts, carrots and roast parsnips.

I should have composed a piece all about Dartmoor Accommodation and how marvellous all our accommodation providers are, but the Granny in me is having such a lovely time, and now Rob and Nancy have started to decorate the Christmas tree, so it will all have to wait for another time.

Season's greetings everyone....

Oh and the picture ? Well it's son in law Ben's birthday on Friday and I didn't have a suitable birthday card for him .... but I have now !!

The Christmas rush with a helping hand from Tom

Apologies all round for not updating my blog but things have been fairly hectic of late.

To start with Rob, myself and pal Mark Sheridan held an exhibition of our photographic work in Chagford on the 13th November where a couple of hundred people came to have a gander.

And a few weeks before that I took on 24 year old Tom, a clever computer guy to help me in furthering the website by sorting out all those geeky things that leave me completely baffled.

He is currently building a database for my www.dartmooraccommodation.co.uk site, and we have worked together on building a new website for one of the bed and breakfast providers at Yelverton. The customer is delighted. Please take a look at the finished product by clicking onto www.dartmoorbandb.com and let me know what you think .... It would be good to pass a few encouraging comments in Tom's direction. We rub along very well together even though I am just old enough to be his Granny. You can see how clever he is by the picture of his Frankenstein fashioned pumpkin that he turned out for Halloween. And one thing that I find very endearing is that he is madly enthusiastic to help out in any way he can. I had a job taking publicity pictures for a new sock making outlet last week, and as I was struggling to show the socks off in the best way possible, he volunteered himself as a model bless him. We did have to crop the shot somewhat as the whole thing looked slightly as if he is perched on the edge of a piece of porcelain !

Our latest project is adding things to buy onto the website in time for Christmas, such as kites for children and gifts for walkers (how about a new Dartmoor map ?) in preparation for a commercial website that we hope to organise for producers who make goods exclusively on Dartmoor. That and the new wedding page on the site, should keep us busy for a while.

As you see in the picture of me above, I am currently up to my neck sorting out pictures in time for Christmas. The lovely twosome in the shot are 2 nippers at Tedburn where I took over 50 shots of a smashing young family in time for Christmas presents. If you would like to see details of what I offer have a look at my own personal website www.jillpendleton.co.uk

Hopefully from now on I should be sorting through the muddle of stuff on the desk and moving forward. I managed to bake 2 Christmas cakes this morning, all the while nipping in and out of the office to help Tom install information into the acres of pages on the database. He tells me that shortly we will be able to offer customers all manners of choices as to where they would like to stay and with which facilities - family room, with dog - this side of Okehampton etc.

So it's onwards and upwards and next step oh come all ye faithful. As usual I haven't bought a single family present, but as is usually the case, it will be alright on the night as they say ......

I very much hope !

Cheers for now anyway, and thanks for looking....

Jilly