Love Sunshine, Love Being Outside, Love my New Bag!

Last week a package arrived for me at work. It was from miscellaneousadventures.co.uk - a new venture for illustrator turned woodsman Andrew Groves and his wife Emma Hughes.

Situated somewhere in the Sussex countryside, Andrew and Emma have managed to create a business which is a unique mixture of all the things they love - being outside, being creative, being with other people and sharing skills, knowledge and good food together, generally around a campfire. Which, it has to be said, are all things I love doing too!

With family visiting from Switzerland, and the sun having finally made an appearance in what must be the worst 6 months of weather I have ever experienced, we took the opportunity to explore some of the countryside around Goathland and found ourselves in Darnholm.

I'm pretty sure we'll be going back fairly soon. There was an amazing place for picnics, plenty of room for the children to enjoy, opprtunities for tree climbing, paddling in the stream and generally lazing about. What could be better!

I even took my camera out with us, for the first time in ages, with the express intention of taking some nice photos. My new bag and Shopify tin mug were willing models.

We wandered back to Goathland via the railway station, pausing to enjoy the passing steam train, the purple heather and the impressive fox gloves long the way. This really was the English countryside at its best.

And the bag? Well, it's really practical, very nicely made (by Millican, a firm based in the Lake District). It's a great colour (if you like blue) and the attention to detail is wonderful. There's a hand small pocket for keys, notebooks, pens etc. and also a large laptop pocket - so it's the perfect bag for adventure-loving laptop-carrying designer types like me!

Highly recommended - get yours here.

And if you're not so interested in bags, here's some nice purple heather: