Author: carolanneyeomanson

Recently I have opened a new on-line shop. Now you might remember that I used to be with Folksy and I moved. Well I moved to Stall and Craft Collective which has been absolutely amazing, but I have taken a while to set it up properly and I’ve now started to do that.

Although it does say ‘Craft’ in the Title it also says Stall which means we can have a Stall, so although I might have chatted about this before, this is just a reminder that I’m seriously up and running now. I’ve got some Christmas Books, and Jewellery that would make lovely Christmas gifts, but I’ll be putting a lot of other things up – such a set of crochet hooks.

Please feel free to ring me any time if I can help in any way. I do only sell in the UK though. Mainly because the charges to sell overseas are way too high sadly, although in saying that – if you want a piece of jewellery and your’e happy to pay the postage – then we can always agree.

Right, let me be honest. I had a bad experience. I sold a child’s tea tray through Etsy. I had put UK only on it. I didn’t check and then I found out that the buyer was in the U.S. The postage cost me over twenty five pounds for a tea tray they had paid £4 in British money for. I had made it quite clear on the price that it was UK only.

Anyway back to my shop.

You can find me at

http://www.stallandcraftcollective.co.uk and I’m VioletsandLaceCrafts.

I’m also on Instagram so please drop in there and you can see pictures of everything I’ve got in my shop and the usual Twitter and Facebook.

This is a very difficult blog for me to write and to be honest I thought twice about it. I talked to my Son who said No Mum. Do it. Be honest, tell the truth and I will confirm every word you say. You were hurt. You were humiliated, and I paid for this Stable Visit. I think Alan King must have forgotten about that.

So let me start at the start as the saying goes. We stayed overnight at a Country House Hotel which was lovely and where we met Alan’s Representative. It included a Full English Breakfast. There were five of us. My son and I were the last two to arrive at the table. As we sat down we were told my the others “There’s the teapot. Our first mistake – it was one tea pot and one coffee pot between five. They had all yours. By the time the tea pot reached me, it was almost empty and cold, so my Breakfast ‘drink’ if you could call it that was half a cup of cold tea! Maybe I should have caused a fuss and insisted that they Hotel Staff bring me a pot of Hot Tea but I suppose I’m just not that kind of girl because it had already been made clear by the others that we were ‘rather common’ and after all the other lady had in the past owned her own stables’.

Moving on, the arrival of Alan’s Deputy with a clip board under his arm. Read out all the necessary procedures that we had to follow. Yes Sir! I didn’t like to mention to him that I had done a Stable Visit before and that I did have a brain. Follow me, we are driving in Convoy, which we did. He explained that the Owners of the Land aren’t into Racing and might well sell it on which mean’s Alan might well lose his Stables etc. Believe me I soon lost any sympathy I might have had and you will see the reason why.

So we eventually arrive. Now it’s no secret that I have a back problem and yes, here is my big confession, I walk slower that most people, so is that a reason to shout at me, yell at me, humiliate me and make me cry? Well obviously this man thought it was, because that’s how I spend a lot of this so called Stable visit,

I happened to mention a Horse called Trueshan. That I had been told that I had been told I would be allowed to see him. This man absolutely flew into a near rage at me in front of everyone. You would never have be told that. He screamed. Ever! Those other people just looked at me. Now excuse me but who gave a Member of Alans staff to stand there and scream at me and accuse me of lying.

So here is the truth of what happened. The absolute truth. Trueshan is a very special horse to me and my son knew that. This visit was a 70th birthday present for me from my son. He rang Allan’s Secretary and said was there a possibility of my being able to see Truesham bearing in mind this telephone conversation took place early when my son first booked it.

She told him that they never knew if Trueshan would be there or not BUT if he was she would try to arrange for me to see him and have a picture taken and possibly they would let me hold him BUT if was only every a possibly and I knew that. I never once told anyone that it was a definitely and that man lied about me.

When we did get to the stable where Trueshan was the other three were already there. They had seen him, taken their pictures, and were ready to move on, so I didn’t actually get to see my beautiful Trueshan. Only just a glimpse as they brought him out to put him into a string on his way to a field I assume.

It was everything with this Tour for me and I honestly don’t know why. As my son said Alan’s Deputy took a person dislike to me and was going to make sure that I had the worst time I could. We went into the Secretary’s Office. Yes I needed to sit down. Is that such a crime that you made sure everyone stood around her desk and completely cut me out – that I couldn’t even hear the conversation and ended up playing with Alan’s Dog. You knew I was sitting down. You offered everyone tea or coffee and you left me out and I had to ask my son if he could pass me a cup of tea because you couldn’t be bothered.

I could go on and on about how one of the younger staff found me leaning against a fence, sobbing in that pouring rain, but instead I’ll just say I’m a great believe in Karma. It will always find you in the end.

While I was there I met the most amazing man called Roger part of Alan’s staff. Who told me about a piece of equipment that Jockey’s use when they’re injured that might be able to help me with an injury to a knee that I sustained at the Oaks.

If you might like to check the rules around group walks (given that my son if a Green badge Tour Guide) they say that you walk at the pace of the person who walk the slowest.

Please remember that you charge for those Stable Visits. I didn’t get a visit. I was humiliated, made to cry, shouted out and accused of lying, which I didn’t.

At least something made me smile. Mary – my son asked her where these so call stable of hers originally. Oh Richmond she said. I remember he said. You were a real pain in the arse! Missile fired!!!!!

One last thing – If you think it’s fine to humiliate me, shout at me, accuse me of lying, leave me to cry in the rain, pass me a pot of cold tea, and think it’s funny, at least use my bloody Title!

Or maybe I should start using it more often.

Thank you for reading this

Lady Carol Rowden (Or Yeomanson – ) whichever you prefer.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t really understand what all this panic about AI is and now I understand about AI – believe me I do and I don’t like the idea of AI one little bit. It’s almost like someone controlling your brain. At least to me – being an Author that’s the way I see it.

So I asked my son and Editor how it would affect me as an Author and this is what he told me. You put it Write me a book about A murder that takes place in A Horse Racing Stable in Yorkshire – and that’s it.

This AI does it for you – writes the whole book! Now that scares me. I’m not surprised that Amazon can close down your Account if you publish with them and try to publish a book that has used AI.

Then I’ve heard the other side. Well you can use AI and ask it for a recipe. It’s easier than looking on the Internet for one. Why would I want to use AI for that? Bit of a lame excuse that one.

I suppose at the end of the day the powers that be will make the decision for us, but there’s one thing that goes through my head. Probably all to do with my age.

It’s a song that was popular when I was young.

In the year 2525, if Man is still alive – was the first line. It went on to talk about something that did everything for you. Thought for you – made decisions for you in business – we used to laugh and say Well at least you can breath for yourself. Was this the start of what is now AI and we never saw it coming????

So who was John Henry Taylor. I didn’t know until this morning. He was an English Golf Professional. A very famous one, so I found out just in passing and he w

He is known as one of the pioneers of the modern golf.

Born in March 1871 in Northam and a Member of the Great Triumvirate. He also won the British Open sixteen times.

He died aged 91 having sat for nine Portraits. Some of which now hang in the National Gallery.

In 1975 he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Now I hear you ask – Why is Carol telling us about John Henry Taylor a Golfer? Given that my knowledge is playing putting very badly around a Green mainly on holiday with my son, I wouldn’t have known either until this morning looking on Ancestry, until I found something very strange out.

That John Henry Taylor, English Gold Professional, was a match for my DNA and was my Third Cousin! Isn’t that amazing??? Well to me it was.

I got this kind of warm feeling. Not that silly one about I’m related to someone famous that someone gets – but what me? Isn’t that nice to know. What would have have thought of his third cousin who could even hit a golf ball around a putting green without missing the hole by a mile???

For years now I’ve had an online shop selling my hand made crafts. Mainly on Folksy and then for a while on Etsy. I left Etsy because they charged my so much just to put things up let alone sell anything and then I became very fed up with Folksy because they started to charge me a monthy fee to put anything up which I felt was a bit high for what I got in regards to selling. You couldn’t put this up and that up because it broke their ‘standards’. You couldn’t put anything up made of wood. That kind of thing. Then they charged me so much a month for putting something up whether or not I sold it. Then of course Etsy sellers got fed up with Etsy and flooded Folksy which mean’t the smaller sellers like me didn’t even get a look in let alone the chance to sell anything.

Then I discovered the place I’m with now. Which allows me to sell anything I like. Well, I say anything I like. I mean I can’t sell live animals or firearms. I don’t mean you can’t go that far. It doe’s mean though that I can sell the crafts I make, and as you know I like to craft. At the moment I am making jewellery again especially for Christmas and for the lovers of Horse Racing. I’ve got some brand new Christmas books. Everything I put in my shop though IS brand new. I don’t put anything in there that isn’t.

So where can you find this wonderful new on-line shop of mine

http://www.stallandcraftcollective.co.uk/violetsandlacecrafts

I’m going to be putting each item I sell up on Facebook, and Instagram and I’ve started a page on Instagram just for my things.

However, the difference is with this Collective is that once you press the buy button, we do the whole thing between us e..g. we talk to each other about postage, what you would like me to do. Where you would like it to go. There aren’t any set rules laid down by Stall and Craft. If we’re happy, then they’re happy.

So why is it called Stall ? Because they also offer their sellers a stall if we live locally? So if for instance one of our sellers lives in say – Hastings – and someone in that region is having a market – they e mail them and say something like The Church down the road are having a Sale in their Garden – would you like a Stall? So you see that’s how we work. Then we might be offered a pitch at a Car boot sale?

So please drop in and see me. You never know what you might find.

Blue Umbrella Walks offers guided walks of London and is run by one of London’s most popular tour guides, Jack Yeomanson. Jack has been a qualified guide since 2012 and writes his walks himself and covers a vast number of subjects including:

The Men who Would be King, taking people around some of the main sites associated with the English Civil War in Westminster.

Their Trade was Treachery: Walk through London’s spying and espionage stories from the Cambridge ring to Operation Mincemeat.

The City’s Great War Heroes: A guided walk looking at the history and links to World War One within the City of London.

Islington from A to B: Walk through one of London’s hippest neigbourhoods from Angel to Barbican.

A Staple Diet: Take a trip through the Square Mile looking at the main staples of daily and working life.

You can book any walk you are interested in by visiting http://www.blueumbrellawalks.com and seeing what is available or book a bespoke guided walk by emailing blueumbrellawalks@gmail.com

As you know, one of my great loves is crafting. What I’ve never really mentioned is that I have on on-line shop which is called Violets and Lace Crafts. I was with Folksy for a very long time, but then I found it very expensive and just not worth the effort of you can’t put this up and you can’t put that up, so I then found another lovely place called the Stall and Craft Collective. Which means I can put up anything I like.

Plus when Etsy started messing about, everyone from there came over to Folksy and people like me just didn’t stand a chance. Why? Well mainly because these people were what I called professional Crafters. They used knitting machines and other forms of help which mean’t they were turning out jumpers by the dozen whereas the smaller crafters were being left way behind.

So I joined the Stall and Craft Collective and to be honest I love being part of it.

So from now on I’ll be putting my Crafts up on their page. I’ll still be showing them on Facebook and Twitter and I try to keep my prices at a sensible level. I openly admit that the jewellery I make is custom jewellery. I don’t work in Gold and Diamonds. There are enough of those people in Hatton Garden in London! lol.

Any anyway you don’t have to get Insurance for any of the things that I make!

So please drop in and see Violets and Lace. If you do have any questions about anything I make, feel free to contact me. I’m always around and I’ll always get back to you.

It’s no secret that I love Horse Racing and I’ve got shares in Race Horses, but have I ever told you about my beautiful Bob Pebble. Without my Bob Pebble I wouldn’t be going to Race Meetings now.

My son Jack bought me a share many years ago in him. A beautful Grey Horse but a disaster. Now the problem was that they put him in a race, and all the horses went one way and my Bob would probably go the other way! Then they had the cheek to say that my Beloved Bob Pebble bit another horse!

Well as if! My Bob – falsely accused!!! To this day I maintain that other horse got in the way of my Bobby Pebbles teeth. He shouldn’t have got so close to his mouth!

Anyway, I think that the Syndicate we were with realised that my beautiful Bob was never going to make it as a Race Horse, but who had a heart of gold, even if he did have a rotten sense of direction, is now Show Jumping and Hunt Chasing.

So a few days ago one of my Horses was retired due to ill health. I adored my Cottam Lane, and I admit I cried for a long time, but once I stopped crying I looked for another horse. This time it had to be a Grey horse. Nothing else was going to do. I found a beautiful Grey. I always say that’s it. No more horses. Who am I kidding? But I’m sensible with my horses. I love my racing but I don’t buy what I can’t afford. I bet sensibly. I have a limit – and I never got over that limit.

Are you a group looking for a public speaker? Do you live in London or close to it? Then I might know just the person who would be perfect for you. His name is Jack Yeomanson and he’s public speaker who has been giving talks for some time now. He’s available mostly at weekends or evenings but it’s very easy to get in touch with him and he can normally sort something out with him.

What kind of talks does he give? I suppose I would say anything and everything. Give him a subject and he will write you a talk. Jack is actually a Tour Guide and Historian, so his knowledge is vast.

He’s also a Green Badge Tour Guide and runs Blue Umbrella Walking Tours in London if you are looking for a walking Tour, but that’s on another page.

Anyway, if you are looking for a speaker why not get in touch with him?

jhyeomanson@aol.com

My son and I love History and for a long time we had been meaning to visit Hever Castle in Kent where King Henry VIII of England courted the young Anne Boleyn and would eventually marry her and then have her executed for being unfaithful to him.

You can only stay one night at Hever Castle so I booked my son and I into the Castle which is the Hotel. It’s all a bit complicated if I’m honest. The Hotel is in the Castle Grounds. The Castle grounds themselves are massive, which you are completely free to walk around and enjoy, then you have to drive to the Castle itself where ‘it all begins’

I’d booked us two single rooms which you would expect as Mother and son. Single rooms? My son had a bedroom, a bathroom and then leading off his bedroom he had a sitting room, complete with sofa and t.v. That’s right – this was a single room. I had a bedroom that was so big you could have held a football match in it and a bathroom almost the same size. When I looked out of my window I looked out straight onto the Castle. Then the slight problem happened. We had a raiding party!. Nothing as simple of people. Ducks and Geese. Straight under our windows. Why do these sweet little visitors think you want to be woken up at the first sign of light by their constant quacking? Actually though to be honest they were so gorgeous because they were looking straight at our windows because we were on the ground floor.

Next breakfast. Breakfast? Well it was more like King Henry had come for a visit. I’ve never seen to much food in all my life. Help yourself from the buffet said the lovely Manager. Which we did. The over she came and said. Right now we move on to the Main Menu? Pardon? Sorry you get both Dear – now Porridge to start with??? And then the full English Breakfast as it would have been, and then of course Toast and a selection of Jams and Preserves.

Nest it was onto a walk around the part of what would have been the stables. That was lovely and very interesting although for me there was too much information able the Astors who had lives there and Winston Churchill but maybe that was just me because I wanted the Hitory of Anne and Henry. The actual Castle didn’t open until later so we made our way up there anyway and that was a good thing to do because there was a lot to do when you go there. There was loads of comfortable benches. You could sit and watch what what was going on in the lovely pond, and you were very close to the Castle which was only a very short walk away. You could literally breath in the atmosphere of the past. If you wanted you could buy a little bag of duck food. There was a shop, which Jack and I went into at the very end.

Next it was our ‘turn’ to head for the Castle. The moat was full of the moxt amazing fish. No – I’ve got no idea what they were. We did queue up but for no time at all. Fifteen minutes if that? They made sure that queue made fast. I’ve been in so many Castles over the years but for the first time I could feel myself wanting to cry for this very young girl. As you walked around you could almost hear her. See her begging him for Mercy. For her life because he had hadly been Faithful to her. What we didn’t understand was why there is a picture of a Lute Player in there? The Lute Player was the man in actually cost poor Anne her head!

Then I came face to face with the piece of History that I had come to see.. The Book of Hours.

All I would say about the Castle itself is that it hasn’t been modernised. There are no lifts, no new stairs and no chairs where you can sit for a rest. There are spiral staircases, and the stairs are the same as they were in Anne’s day. You have iron things to hold on and rope at the sides. I use a walking stick and walk slowly and at one point I thought If ever I am going to die – it’s going to be now! But somehow I drew in my breath and did it – because the Book of Hours was waiting to me.

Then of course I had to get down again and nearly had a heart attack when the Security Man said those stairs can dangerous. Please be careful. Could my son have helped me. No because there was no room for him to turn around to help me.

Suddenly the young man behind me said. Take as long as you like love. I’m watching you from the back. You don’t fall.

When I got down I thought I was going to faint believe me. Until I found out that if you tell someone that if you have something like a breathing problem they will have a seat ready for you so you can sit and have a little breather. It’s stuff like wheelchairs they can’t accommodate.

So the actual Exhibition in the Castle isn’t all about Anne Boleyn. It’s also about Catherine of Aragon and then you get the bits that I don’t like at all. This is the costume that this Actor wore when he played King Henry VIII in this film and that film. Yes? Well? What’s that got to do with History if it’s all the same to you? But that’s just my personal opinion!

So I would say if you love the History of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and would love to see Hever Castle and the beautiful Gardens, or take the children where they can enjoy the Jousting and the other attractions pay them a visit.