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The Things You See When you are Looking.
10 May 2020

When you have longer than the school run would allow, we’ve been looking at the way that Monty’s face has changed as he grows from our baby to a young boy as he approaches his 11th Birthday on Tuesday.

Having long stretches in the garden meant we have found both of our tortoises: one we successfully hibernated (Mo), the other (Baxter) had been on the missing list since last August. It felt wonderful to find him again on Monty’s birthday as we promised Anita the tortoise lady that we would take this image every year.

We commemorated by naming our new table lamp after him. The Baxter lamp is part of a whole series of lights that have a knuckle feature and can be table, wall and double wall lights. Next week we will be slowly adding them all to the website.

We’ve loved having Eliza (aka the lodger) home from boarding school. It’s not been as joyous for her as she misses her friends and boarding school desperately. But we’ve loved seeing her face every evening when she emerges from her room to be fed and to call her brother a little tw*t. You realise how much you missed her in the weeks before the Covid crisis happened.

We have had six weeks of lockdown and it hasn’t necessarily meant hours of listening to podcasts or reading. We’ve been working harder than ever before, managing small teams in the workshops to finish the orders to get them out the door - some of the people who work for us have been the most incredible support. The change is the pace of when we can get orders dispatched, but there hasn’t been an issue with the production of our designs.

The major change is the Pimlico shop remaining shut, but for now we have managed our sales through the emails and website, alongside our Ainsworth and Jasper partners. The longer stretches away from Pimlico galvanised the feeling of how lucky we are to have our garden and home.

We felt strongly to give to those who don’t during these times and raised £8,000 for Shelter Charity in one week by organising an auction of mantels from the collection.

We want to continue auctioning our designs for charity and will be part of the Christies NHS auction in June where we will be selling our lanterns.

None of us are infallible from the feelings of darkness through these times. Sometimes the propinquity of your family and the ensuing arguments are too much. Silly things like Richard e Grants Instagram account, Caitlin Moran’s funny observations of lock down each week in the Times, and the Queen’s speech have been little pops of brightness. Not to mention our local pub the Camberwell Arms making the most delicious food for home delivery being a saviour. ( No amount of tinned tomatoes would suddenly make us good cooks and no one could take another omelette)

Being with the rest of our families has become an ardent want, but until that time comes we will carry on as we have been and try to make the children chess champions if we get them away from their phones and tiktok.

Written by Charlotte in Camberwell 9th May 2020.