howies®

A bunch of fantastic people in Scotland are orgainsing a girlie downhill camp with Helen Gaskell the first weekend in October.

Looking to be a great event, drop them a line if you fancy taking part.

Our little garden at home has been overshadowed by a huge dying ash for the last few years.

Yesterday Huw, our friendly neighbour hood tree surgeon swung by to take it down. He cares about trees and knows lots about them. Makes sense I suppose considering its his trade.

He also knows about all about the nesting birds of which there where none in our tree. He explained to us that the tree was not thriving, the crown had no new growth and the trunk was encased in ivy.

So the cats hid inside, Donnie and I went to work, the kids off to school and when we got back there was a huge pile of ash rounds and plenty of branches.

Now we have sunshine in our garden again, room for the surrounding trees and shrubbery to grow, few hours of log splitting to keep my boys busy and a nice load of wood for when the winter comes again.

Progress.

Today is Madelyn’s last day working for howies.

She has had 2 great years on customer services.

She has taken some hard calls.

Put up with Ade and myself and made some great real coffee.

There have been a few tears but tons of laughter.

Her biggest development in the last 2 years, aside of course from her marriage to Phil, has been her now wicked sense of humour.

We will all miss you.

Come and grab Hayley, Hollie and me for lunch soon – Ruben will cover the phones if we ask nicely.

Good luck in your new adventure.

Emma xx

The new Lizzie black girl’s jeans are now in stock.

The new cut is amazing working really well across all the sizes we offer.

This is lovely Hollie showing how they look.

Thanks for taking the photos and your hard work, Lisa, you have made our day with the new cuts.

Hollie and I are notoriously hard to please, so this is good.

We had this really nice email about our NBL yesterday from one of our lovely customers.

It kind of sums how our merino range works out there in every day life.

Hi,

I want to share with you how I forget about something important to me.

About 3 years ago I bought a short sleeve NBL base layer after seeing a couple of rave reviews in a couple of mountain bike mags. My previous base layers and cycling tops in general were lucky to last a full season of riding before that ingrained stench began to make them un-wearable or the filth got into them and wouldn’t wash out. I’d be riding, catch a whiff and that was all I could think about.
Sure, my NBL now has a few snags and caught threads from brambles, sure the bottom seam at the back has started to come away but….and this is the thing….I’ve worn that one little t-shirt pretty much every time I’ve been riding for the last 3 years and I usually ride twice a week.
It’s not managed to:

• Make me a better rider
• Make me fitter (the hills are still a struggle and probably always will be)
• Turn me into the God of Mountain biking

But…I’ve warn it under waterproofs, under just another t-shirt or on its own. It keeps me nice and warm in the winter, nice and cool in the summer, doesn’t stink or itch me and doesn’t get soaking wet when I’m sweating. In fact I can put it on, forget about it and concentrate on my choice of line through the woods.

So, thank you howies for making something I can forget about.

I’ve told all my cycling mates and my family to buy something they can forget about.

Chris.

Hollie,  Hayley and I worked late last night.

Burning the midnight oil to keep on top of the first sale orders and making sure our customers get good service.

An hour into our nighttime shift I noticed a large crowd of cows escaping from their field just by the office.

There was quite a few of them, maybe about 30 large Frisians.

Not wanting to go it alone I called Hayley and Hollie.

Hollie stayed in the office while Hayley and I ran down the road to head the cows off and try and stop them stampeding onto the main Cardigan High Street.  Something like that happening in little old Cardigan is headline news and would probably mean we would not have been able to get home.

Hayley and I blocked, or so we thought,  their route to the main road.  I did that arm waving thing you see the local farmers doing when they are moving their herds around the local vicinity.  It was pretty effective, Hayley did not appear to join in with my enthusiasm. Suddenly a great group of the cows sprung from a bush further down the road.  Not be defeated Hayley sprinted further down the road and headed them off at the bridge.

Good move Hayley, tactical

The funny thing was people were walking and driving past us and just looking, pointing and laughing, no offers of help.

Eventually 6 of the local fireman came to help, first checking if there were my cows.  It must have been the arm waving thing.

The fireman finally herded them all  back into the field, shut the gate and all was well.

It’s a happening place Cardigan.

Over the last couple of years my vegetable patch at home has grown and become totally unmanagable.

I love gardening but last year I did not enjoy it.  Maybe it was a bad growing year too.

Time for a change.

I decided to make some raised beds.

The planks came from the local scaffolding company, thanks boys.

The compost from a huge heap tucked away behind our garden shed.  My partner dug it all out, digging is hard work.

Then we planted up the beds and waited.

The rain came and then the sun and now we are eating some of our home grown veggies.

Team work.

We are looking for a local believer.

To work in our Cardigan shop and customer services.

Believers have made our company what it is today. They have passion, commitment and incredible energy. Believers give great service, not from training but from the heart. The job is to welcome our customers like an old friend and give them great service.

Your job will have flexible working hours to suit both you and us. Being good with computers would also help.

If you think you fit the bill then contact Emma on 01239 614 122 or email

emma@howies.co.uk

The sample sale has kicked off in Manchester. 

Looks busy the bargains will be selling thick and fast.

Ade, Hayley and James are rushed off their little feet.

Ruben had a recent win on an in-house competition we ran here at howies.
Lovely Ruben decided to share his winnings with me and bought me the Fern BFJ ooohhh arent I the lucky one. Thanks Ruben it will be keeping me snug on our trip to London. Really looking forward to seeing everyone at the howies store on Carnaby Street, we will be the ones wearing the amazing BFJs.