The world's biggest coffee morning - with Sylvain and Maisie

Like many of us, I went along to one of the events organised for the World's Biggest Coffee Morning last week - and of course I took a couple of little friends with me.

I lined up all the candidates in the morning before I left, and decided that the lucky pair would be Sylvain Rabbit (he is home with me at the moment, but will be off on more travels soon) and Maisie doll - in her pretty floral outfit I just felt she was perfectly dressed for meeting girlfriends and chatting over coffee and cake.

 

We had a lovely time at the the coffee morning, organised by Rayeesa of Rayeesa's Indian Kitchen - and even enjoyed a cup of proper home made chai as a coffee alternative. Rayeesa makes it at home from her special mixture of spices - you should have seen the size of the cinnamon sticks! Well, they weren't sticks. They were more like branches. I had quite a struggle keeping Sylvain from having a nibble. But Maisie behaved impeccably - and we all had a lovely couple of hours out of the office.

Comfort zones - gym and networking

Last night I did two things that, a year ago, would have been beyond me.

First of all I went to a gym class. It was a new Tabata class at my gym, Wye Leisure,  really hard but good fun. A sort of circuit training, working in pairs. A year ago I couldn't have done it. I mean, physically I might have just about managed it - you kind of work at your own level - but I don't think I'd have been brave enough to walk into the room in the first place. But these days I love these sort of classes, they are good for me in so many ways.

And then I had a quick shower and headed off to a WiRE meeting - Women in Rural Enterprise. Again, 12 months ago I would have been seriously out of my comfort zone - anxious about networking, worried that I'm not professional enough blah blah blah. But I enjoyed last night so much. It was only a small meeting but some really lovely, interesting women - I'll list the businesses at the bottom - and as ever there was coffee, cakes, confessions and laughter. Again, good for me in so many ways.

I didn't take my camera to either so here's a little recreation, starring some Maileg mini bunnies (available here, along with their gym wear - check out the leg warmers on uppy-eared rabbit!)

At the gym....

 

Quick shower and change, then off to WiRE...

The WiRE members at the meeting were:

Rayeesa (our host) who runs an Indian cookery school and makes frozen cooking sauce, Anna who does something financial to do with payroll (baffles and impresses me), Anne who runs a fabulous sounding business rearing pigs and creating ethical pork sausages and so on, and Katie and Charlotte from Lime Green Marketing - it was seriously good to listen to proper marketing and PR people in action, just the ideas they came up with over a rock bun were brilliant!

And finally, a note about the long-promised new website. It is nearly, nearly, nearly ready. Honestly. I fear I am starting to sound like the boy who cried wolf, but trust me there is a wolf and I am very much hoping he will be ready to meet you this weekend.