Welcome to the (New) World of Former Glory

Another long period of silence on this blog, I'm sorry. Unfortunately our son became very unwell after his treatment for leukaemia and although he remained mostly positive and the leukaemia never returned, he was so damaged by the potent treatments that there was no way back. He left us in July of 2018. It was devastating.

We're rebuilding our lives without him and are determined to help other people who find themselves in the same situation. Last December we held an open day at our shop, (oh yes something else that has happened, we bought a shop in our village). It was a French themed day, we offered coffee and croissants, a prize draw and a selection of quirky things that we had bought in France and then restored. It was pleasingly busy, we raised over £200 for the marvellous local leukaemia charity LEAF who had supported us so well during the three years of illness.

The shop

Me with Tash (Founder of LEAF charity) on the Open day 

So now we've made this a permanent part of our life. We have been so lucky to be able to earn a living doing what we enjoy - so it's pay back time. We'll be organising two or three events at the shop each year and also making a series of films about the trips we do to find the special bits and pieces for each event. I hope you'll enjoy them. The link above is just the intro for the films yet to be uploaded. The first two episodes show us travelling through four European countries in search of treasure. Our next open day is on 27th July this year, one year and one day since our son died, so a memorial to his life. Maybe we'll see you there?

Life Changes

It's been a long time since I gave any updates here, hope you'll forgive us. There have been so many changes in both our business and private life that I don't quite know where to begin.

We have been overwhelmed with work for the last year or so, some very enjoyable and interesting projects like the design of a Danish cord seat for a very beautiful rocking chair hand made for the "Masterpiece" exhibition in Chelsea. It attracted a great deal of interest, so much that we have four more similar chairs awaiting seats in the next couple of months. We decided not to take part in any exhibitions for a year, hoping that we could keep ahead of the workload and maybe take some time off.

Fluggadugga was accepted by the Crafts Council Directory.

https://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/directory/maker/kim-ravenscroft/

Elle magazine included Former Glory in their "Secret Address Book".

And some famous people were photographed by Vanity Fair under the Chiltern Firehouse lampshades.

Some fame perhaps, but not a lot of fortune necessarily.....

After my last post in July of 2015 we were beginning to enjoy a few weekends away and visits to friends - the lovely bonus of not having to work every Bank Holiday at an exhibition. And then at the end of August a bombshell dropped. Our youngest son had just settled back into a new life here in Dorset after a period of working away. He started to feel unwell....... the diagnosis was acute leukaemia.

It has been a rollercoaster ride over the last eight months or so, chemotherapy and cancer treatment in general is very difficult. However, our son has been a superstar - totally positive in attitude. He had a brilliant Consultant and amazing care in hospital. I won't go into detail, but thanks to the progress medical science has made, our eldest son was found to be a perfect bone marrow stem cell donor, so in March of this year our youngest son had a transplant to "reboot" his faulty system. Thankfully he is now at home recuperating. Fingers well and truly crossed for a disease free future.

There's still a long journey to make back to "normal", (whatever that is) but there is a light burning bright at the end of that tunnel. How lucky we are to have two such incredible sons.

Sometimes life throws lemons, so we make lemonade - by the gallon.