I love my job, but I have just spent the last couple of hours arranging and re-arranging the new stock of blankets Eleanor Pritchard has bought in, and at the moment, I would much much rather be at home curled up in one of these. With a fire, cheese on toast and a really good book.

All of Eleanor’s work is woven in Wales in a small traditional mill, using the best British wool available to her.

Her range of designs are very chic, there’s something very classic about them (someone’s been raiding the pattern books at the V&A? Possibly?) and by jolly I bet they are warm! Folded over the back of the sofa, or as they are intended, on the bed with the matching cushions. Beautiful. Toasty.

Now, I am going to choose  the one I am taking home and then count down the minutes until I can take it there…..

I think we can all say that summer is slipping slowly away. The autumn leaves are turning down in Dorset. Lovely days of pouring rain here to stay in London. Bridie and I are manic in the shop, finding christmas treats (yes, that happens now) and excitedly preparing for the CABINET of CURIOSITIES which opens on the 28th – more to follow very soon….

But as a fond farewell to summer, and on our wish list for a dreamy June in 2010, will you just imagine how excited we were to find, in 1980s classic cookbook ‘The Englishwoman’s Kitchen’, the Duchess of Roxburghe’s silver picnic boxes… made at lavish expense for shooting lunches by the nineteenth century so-called ‘American Duchess’. We are not into the shooting but goodness we are into the lunch.

The forks, the apple, the grease proof paper (containing Coronation Chicken sandwiches). Could there be any thing more perfect from which to picnic?  Let us dream.