Warmest wishes to all our agents, customers, friends, family & blog readers this New Year. We hope you had a peaceful restful break with your loved ones and are looking foward to a happy healthy 2010.

After a very busy run up to Christmas, we had a lovely quiet few days off here in the pretty hills of East Devon. We had family from Axminster and Exeter over for Christmas lunch and we had a noisy (but good) time at the big family get together at my husbands Aunties farmhouse in Churchinford, just over the border in Somerset. There were a lot of children there this year and more on the way so the annual gathering of the clan is set to be even noisier next year!

New Year is never a big event in our household, but it was nice to share the evening with my sister and her little boy and my brother this year, who all came to stay for a few days and managed to escape back to County Durham before the snows came, although they’ve have plenty of their own up there for a while. Our New Year sale started on the 31st December and will run throughout January. We have lots of great offers like this Noah Activity Ark below for babies over six months, reduced from £26.99 to £19.99.

Tish Tash had her 8th birthday on January 6th and woke up to a birthday surprise of a couple of inches of snow! It snowed more throughout the day and now we’re on day three of being snowed in! We’d checked the weather forecast earlier in the week so it wasn’t as much of a surprise to us. We’d done a big shop on the day before including packets of bread mix, extra milk, extra tins and frozen bits. We stocked up on locally produced veggies at Millers Farm Shop in Kilmington.

School was supposed to start yesterday but it’s closed along with lots of other schools here in Devon. Tasha enjoyed her birthday with her very very special gift – 4 month old Gabriella (below) rescued from East Devon Cats Protection. Isn’t she adorable!

Even though we are snowed in down ‘ere in the Westcountry, we’re keeping busy with a brand new website to indulge our love of blogging. Blackdown Blogs is a new project started to help out fellow small businesses who don’t have either the inclination or the time to blog regularly. I’m also getting involved with Green issues here in East Devon and have started a blog called sharonpavey.org

That’s all for now folks, back soon – and don’t forget to add your own comments below to tell us how your Christmas was – or how you and your little ones are coping with being snowed in too. Any ideas for fun activities for restless 8 and 4 year old appreciated!!

Picture at the top – Tasha & Aleck helping clean out the chicken coop!