A (relatively) new addition to the blog

Quite recently (yes, the memory's going: I can't remember exactly when...), I realised that, if you're an Etsy member, you can add something called a "Mini Etsy" to your blog (or other website).

So I did. It started off in the "Retail emporia patronised by Lady Bracknell" section, because that seemed to me to be its obvious natural home. Until, that is, I realised that I'm probably the only person who regularly scrolls that far down my own blog. So I've moved it up to the top with all the other rather lovely clickable icons.

If, when you come to look, the box contains nothing more exciting than a rather abstruse message about deleting cookies, treat said message with contempt and try again later.

Mini Etsy is clearly designed primarily as a tool for sellers rather than purchasers. I'm in two minds about whether it was really wise of me to have added it to the blog, particularly given that, if you click through, you can get to my entire list of favourites which took me many hours of browsing to compile.

I am torn between my desire to spread the word about these talented craftspeople as far as possible, and my fear that my readers will all - for mysterious reasons - have exactly the same taste as me, and will therefore swoop down on my favourites and snap them all up instantaneously. I'd be ever so grateful if you didn't do that. My intention is to show the sorts of gorgeous things you can track down if you put your mind to it, rather than to supply you with a ready-made list of imminent purchases.


Should your name be Pop Larkin, however, I would venture to suggest that any item I have saved as a favourite would be infinitely more welcome as a gift than the course of colonic irrigation treatments with which you are currently threatening me. Or the box of spiders. Or the bound set of the complete works of Catherine Cookson. Or the bright orange cagoule. I say this not in any real hope that it will save me from receiving the Nightmare Joke Christmas Present From Hell, but merely so that I will be able to refute the piteous "But how am I supposed to know what you would like?" wails with which you generally attempt to justify your own impish choices.

The Editor