Surviving Maldon Mud Race 2012

Yes, it's a cold, wet and windy Sunday morning and I'm not sure who maddest around here, is it me, for daring to venture out from under my warm duvet and only to drive 45 mins into the deluge of a storm which has been going now for over 24hrs. Or is it the mad Maldonites for inventing The Maldon Mud race, in the first place.

We arrive late, and snuck up to the end of a line of 5 stalls, not much was happening and we started to unpack. It was beginning to rain quite hard now, but we needed the gazebo up to keep our stock dry.

We got it half up when it really began to blow and despite having all four weighted feet and anchoring guy ropes on each corner, at one point I thought we were about to take off.

Anne did well, all 8 1/2 stone of her, clinging onto the flailing gazebo covers it looked like holding back a stay-sail on a gaff cutter. These pop-up gazebos although being quite well designed for a leisurely Sunday afternoon, sipping pimms by the pool, the designers clearly did not consider that anyone in their right mind would "put-up" the "pop-up" in a howling gale, but that is exactly what we were trying to do.

It is only half up, but also broken in three places and I find myself carrying out emergency field repairs, just to make it safe for when I take it down again. We're tied down with two extra make-shift straps, and Anne is sitting bravely, in the centre of the shelter, trying to sip a coffee as I survey how the locals have secured their shelters.

I realise I have to make a decision soon, we're beginning to look a bit silly now, our 5' gazebo, no stall, no products, not even a table, just Anne, sipping her coffee, now on the far side still looking very brave, and not getting too wet. Do I embarrass myself, ourselves, in fact Colne Soap Makers and admit defeat in front of these hardy Maldonites, or do I go for plan B, one box on the table, no table cloth and make all attempts to keep things dry !

You've probably guessed, we are still optimists, and the gaps between gusts seem to be getting longer, we go for plan B. And eventually probably about an hour and a half after arriving, manage to open our stall.

Anne bought a hot coffee & breakfast, our friends Noel & Belinda arrived, things were brightening up.
The race was shortened in the end, it went along not across the river this year due to the bad weather.

But Anne managed to get some photographs.

As we were packing up, the wind began began to show signs of easing off it was becoming a pleasant afternoon after all. A little too late for us this time, all packed up with steaming wet jeans the heater runs full bast and we head off to Maldon Little Ship club to enjoy some home made soup and rolls.

We were wet through, but not all washed out at Maldon Mudrace 2012.

Maldon Mud race 2012 photographs by Anne.

A Day out at School

We have just spent a very stimulating day at St Lawrence primary school in Rowhedge.

It is Community week at St Lawrence school and we as a local business had been invited to talk to the children this Thursday. We had planned a walk through of our production line from inception to wrapping and selling, hopefully fitting into the 45 minute slots that had been allocated to us.

It was a little daunting at first, but soon the enthusiasm of the children swept us along and I was honestly quite relieved that there were 3 teachers and assistants with the year 4's or else things might have got a bit out of hand during the scent exploration session, there were rose petals and cotton buddies everywhere. Apparently we were very stimulating, which is a good thing in this day and age of  play stations and X-Boxes.

Anne heard one little youngster ask the teacher at the end of the day, "Are we going to make soup now?".

So maybe we weren't quite as brilliant at getting our message across, as we thought.

Purple Herbal

The swirled, almost indigo hue of Purple Herbal complements the deep, musky, but still sweetly herbaceous scent of the Clary Sage.

The recipe for this soap begins with an inky purple infusion of alkanet root, which takes a few weeks to fully give up its colour to the olive oil in which it is steeped.

Careful measurement and trials help us to make natural plant colours with varying degrees of intensity.

Bladderwrack Seaweed

Bladderwrack drying in the sun.

Calendula petals

We started to cultivate an allotment plot this year. We grew Marigolds as companion plants with our vegetables, now they have been cut and hung to dry. Their colour is so much stronger than the petals we have used before. Anne wants to make a strong citrus soap with grapefruit and sweet orange, calendula petals will feature too.

Update 12 April 2012, we have made this now, Lou Lou's Belated Birthday Bubbles

Colchester Farmers Market

Unfortunately we will not be at Colchester Farmers Market tomorrow 3rd June,  this is not due to any fault of our own. 

 

We would like to apologise to our customers, that we can not be there this month, but En-Form (the local funded organisation that runs the Colchester Farmers Market) have asked us not to attend tomorrow.

The market is being held in Culver square and they told us that they have run out of space.

So you will be able to get your vegetables and meat at the market, but will have to trundle down to your super market and buy a detergent based soap, containing multiple chemicals, which has travelled miles, because they do not regard soap in the same category as the other stall holders' products.

I would have thought that soap (hygiene, washing your hands) is very much a complementary product with food.

You can contact en-form (Rowly Castiglione) via email localfood@btinternet.com or by phone on 01206 367776

New Hemp Bar - Quinti Scential, inspired by Katherin

Here is an image of our new Hemp Bar fresh out of the mold.

It it contains hemp oil instead of Shea butter, and has three strong colours deep burgundy, alkanet indigo with touches of pure creamy white.

We went a bit wild with the fragrances and mixed the deep base tones of Patchouli and Clarey Sage which is countered with a zingy citrus Sweet Orange,  this was rounded off with touch of Lavender and a little Geranium rose. 5 Scents in all and one of our most complex in terms of fragrances, but they have been carefully chosen to compliment each other.


We call it Quiti Scential