With everyday life on hold, I have more time to spare, so I’ve volunteered a couple of days a week in a local food project, taking orders & packing up deliveries for vulnerable members of the community.

The charity (Halff - Project Food) usually run cooking sessions for young careers, people living with health problems and other vulnerable groups, but with those on hold it’s all hands on deck getting fresh, local food out to families and people who need it. 

I have been answering phones, packing orders and making soups and ready meals to send out. It’s very busy, but good fun, and very well appreciated!

Today in the Reeves & Reeves office we have only three dogs often it can be four or five. Smudge Reeves has had his face on our website once or twice as has Mr Chips.

In an effort to keep our office tidy we have reverted to putting our shredded paper into a box so that we can dry the dogs after our lunchtime walkies around the stunning grounds of Forde Abbey. In my opinion, this has somewhat back fired as now there are little bits of paper all over the place.

We had a lot of fun expanding our dog collection – check out just a few of our favourites above.

 

 

As we are so deeply embedded in the countryside, it’s second nature to notice the natural world, but we’re trying a bit harder to make sure that our activities sit more lightly on the planet, and make a few changes to make us that bit greener.

Reduce, reuse, recycle is a brilliant mantra to keep it simple. We reduce our packaging, both in & out, wherever possible, and reuse an awful lots of cardboard boxes, packing materials and bubble wrap. In fact, our friends give us so much, we never have to buy bubble wrap!

Our jewellery arrives to us in little plastic bags - these are incredibly useful, and get used for storing jewellery in the office (plastic bags are actually a brilliant way to keep jewellery in good condition), and are used again and again. Deliveries from India come in wonderful aluminium boxes, sometimes with a little padlock! We fight over these as they are very cool for storage, and are easily customised to make brilliantly quirky containers. All correspondence is shredded, and makes lovely cosy bedding for Caroline’s chickens (who were a Christmas present from the girls in the office, her previous bunch having met a sorry end with a marauding dog just before Christmas).

Our building is a very old converted forge, built into the hill below the gardens, so it could be cold & damp, but we are very lucky to have biomass heating provided by a system that warms the whole of Forde Abbey, using wood taken from maintenance done on the estate. We used to wear woolly hats in the office, but not these days!

Even getting to & from the office is getting greener - we all live locally, and Heath often walks down with Smudge the dog, and our newest recruit plans to walk along the valley through the water meadows in the summer. For our accounts lady, it’s literally about 50ft door to door! 

 

There is much more we can all do, but we’re taking it on bit by bit, and hopefully it will all add up to make a real difference. We are always looking for new ideas, so if there’s something you are doing to make your workplace greener, we’d love to hear about it!

We’ve been having a bit of an argument about our top ten favourites from the Equestrian Collection - it seems we all have different favourites! What do you think? What would YOU include?

 The Boot & Golden Stirrup is a classic, wear-anywhere, while the Chunky Snaffle Bracelet is more of a statement. A Friendship Bracelet is a great gift, and the Continuous Snaffle Necklace looks fab with a low neckline.

 

Caroline often wears this Horseshoe Shadow Necklace, with its gold highlights, and the Large Stirrup Cuff is also a favourite. Not everyone wants bold pieces though - these little Silver & Pave Earrings and Leather Snaffle Bracelet are a bit more subtle.

 

Finally, our Racing Horse Necklace and the Rose Gold Snaffle Friendship Bracelet - very different pieces, but we love the friendship bracelets for their everyday usefulness, and the race horse is a brilliant gifting piece. 

 

So, what would your favourites be?

We’re all worn out after a fabulous few days at Home Farm Rest!

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It’s been half term, and as a change of scene from the office, I decided to take my daughter for a surfing lesson. However, who did we see but the Reeves clan, out with their boards to catch some waves!

We are lucky to be near some incredible beaches, and Heath and Caroline are seasoned surfers, having surfed all over the world. 

It’s such a fantastic, all-absorbing activity, getting beaten about by the waves and fighting the surf, it’s the ultimate escape!

We had a totally amazing family holiday in India, with three generations revelling in the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of India. We saw some incredible scenery, saw tigers and the Taj Mahal, and the children even rode on an elephant!

We managed to squeeze in a visit to our Indian makers, who make our rough gemstone jewellery, and the children were very impressed by the skills and craftsmanship on show.

We came home full of inspiration; the colour, decoration and detail everywhere is amazing, and we have already designed some wonderful pieces with our Indian craftsmen, which will be hitting the website as soon as we can get them here!

Lyme Regis swaps fossil hunting for star spotting as celebrities arrive for new film!

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We all had an enforced snow day on Friday, except for poor Caroline, who managed to get to the office to hold the fort!

With a brilliant hill just behind the house, and a neighbour with a quad bike, we were fully set for a day of snowboarding, sledging and general snowbusiness.

It's lucky Caroline made it in, as we are getting busier in the run-up to Valentine's Day. Our Devotion Collection has been especially popular, and there are still lots of items in our sale, if you like to combine romance with thrift!

See behind the scenes at our Christmas photoshoot.

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