Category Archives: Work

Marketing World War 2 Militaria

Pick up any decent travel guide to Normandy, France and you will soon learn what a heartbreaking spot this has been in the not too distant past. So it has been an interesting experience to handle, photograph, and list World War II items as I am sitting comfortably in a gite (cottage) in Normandy. I am residing in a spot of great historical significance since all around me are places that endured some of the most destructive and prolonged fighting during that war.

One of the services that I offer to our clients as we travel is to act as the marketing agent for goods that they might wish to purge from their home or business. Have a peek at some of the military memorabilia I’ve been listing.

Marketing military memorabilia from our gite in Normandy

There’s a bit of everything and rather a lot of date-stamped khaki coloured bags that were taken by the British military into battle.

1942 date stamped World War II khaki webbing bag from the British military

This is certainly one assignment that I won’t soon forget.

Expanding Our Options for Work and Travel

Staying out on the road, enjoying the travel between countries, meeting new people, seeing new places, and not spending too much money out of our own savings has always been the goal ever since our departure from Australia in December of 2010.

Back in June, our friend Becky down in the Midi-Pyrenees of France recommended that I look into a website called Mind My House as a potential way to travel and have lovely houses to live in for free whilst house sitting and pet sitting. But it has taken me all of these months to get around to doing that because of our intense work schedule and travel back and forth across the English Channel.

A Client's Keys

This afternoon I created a new profile for us and you can find that at Deborah and Mark’s Mind My House Profile.

There are so many people who have caught on to this idea and who are travelling inexpensively by doing house sitting, but I am hoping that what will differentiate us from the masses is that we are not simply looking for cheap accommodation in foreign countries. We are following a carefully chosen path and we provide professional services along with the more standard house sitting and pet sitting.

In future posts I will keep you up to date on how it all works out!

Working Our Way Around The World as Ad Lib Artisans

I’m proud to announce that the new website for our around-the-world building, decoration, and renovation company, AD LIB ARTISANS, is now live at http://www.adlibartisans.com

Please enjoy the FIVE galleries which are full of pictures of our work on various projects in England, France, Scotland, Germany, and Australia.

Mark enameling custom cabinetry that he built in a period home in London

In a future post I will explain how this work has allowed us to work our way across the world over the last 10 and 1/2 months!

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Cozy on a Cold Day in France

I won’t lie — it took awhile to get the hot water flowing through the radiators efficiently — especially since the source of the hot water was the water jacket attached to the fireplace woodburner. Also, the nature of stone houses means that they might stay wonderfully cool in summer, but they are a bit of a challenge to get warm and KEEP warm in the winter. Constantly tending the fire is essential.

But here we are, almost 20 hours after our very late arrival back in France last night following a ferry trip across the English Channel — and we’ve enjoyed the most restorative day in front of the crackling flames with cheese and pate and a bottle of red wine.

Fireplace in our French gite.

We’re here to do another restoration and redecoration project in this marvelous corner of Normandy. The 5 bedroom gite we are staying in is one of two at the back of a historic but crumbling chateau. I’ll discuss that in greater depth in a future post.

Sitting room in the large gite

We’ve just finished a wonderful roast chicken dinner and are enjoying our quiet day of total rest. I’ll be back in a few days to document more of our adventures in France, so make sure to come back for more!

Last Days In London — Not What We Expected To Be Doing!

VERY short post today as a quick catch-up. It’s our last weekend in England and we’re still in London. But we certainly aren’t out in the steamy heat of the day seeing the sights.

We are WORKING all day — finishing up the renovation work on our latest commission. I’m enameling the front of a newly built wardrobe and Mark is refinishing the music room floors. We’re both so tired, but we’re also very proud of the work we have done here.

Deborah enameling the front of a newly built wardrobe

And just wait — you’ll be seeing the photo documentation online at our NEW website in a few days!

Those paragraphs above are going to come as a bit of a surprise for anyone who thinks that I am always a photographer and journalist and marketing consultant. Nope! Part of the time I work with my husband in our building and design company.

We’re leaving London tomorrow afternoon, going up to Norfolk to visit with Mark’s parents for a few days, and then next weekend we’ll be taking a ferry back to France with our new diesel van. And our first stop will be at a chateau in Normandy.

More soon — and a long post will be coming in the next week or two that explains just how we have been able to keep travelling for the last 10 months without settling down and getting ‘proper jobs’ again.

Bye for now!

Coming Soon: A NEW Page On This Site

COMING SOON
A NEW Page On This Site!

Coming Soon: AD LIB ARTISANS

We have registered a new business name — Ad Lib Artisans — and I will be posting pictures of the building and renovation work and the public relations work we are doing as we travel from country to country in Europe and other parts of the world. It’s been an exciting 9 months so far, so there are lots of pictures and information to share.

Come back soon and see what we’ve been up to!

A Bit Of A London Traffic Jam

How many pictures does each 8G memory card hold when shot in RAW format? Over 700 pics on each one??? And I have 4 and 1/2 full cards!!!

I have quite effectively created my very own traffic jam in the flow of my writing and photography output. Ouch!!!

Just a few traffic flow problems

In the last 2 weeks we have travelled from Edinburgh, through several stops in Yorkshire, and then we spent a week in London. During that time I took thousands of photos and never got a chance to edit them on the road because (to be bracingly honest!), I was simply too bloody tired to sit with a laptop and do it at night after being out and about all day.

So bear with me — there will be new articles in the next few days. But I simply must get through the culling and editing process and I have to complete the final submission of large-scale photography for a public relations assignment that I had this month.

Whew! Back to work I go!