A Sunny Southwold New Year Celebration!

It's been a year since I wrote my 'A Perfect New Year in the Seaside Town of Southwold' blog post where I introduced Southwold and picked my must-dos, and, as our trip is an annual celebration, here's 2014's travel review!

We arrived on the evening two days before New Year's Eve to get back into the swing of the seaside style of life and where else could we go first but The Lord Nelson - Southwold's favourite pub which stocks Southwold's famous Adnams beer. We had a lovely catch-up with friends and family who had arrived before and of course sampled their simple, homemade meals including fish and chips, veggie chilli and burgers!

There's lots of walking to be had in Southwold; on the beach, the pier, down the little streets but my favourite is the blustery Southwold to Walberwick walk which we do every year with the dogs. The walk takes you along the beach, through the harbour and across the River Blyth ending up in the pretty little village of Walberswick which contains one of my favourite pubs, The Bell where, I only discovered this year, they do the most amazing hot chocolate - perfect on a wintery day.

New Year's Eve came upon us and because we have three energetic dogs there was no relaxing before partying the night away but instead a very long walk from Southwold to Dunwich. I say very long, it was 8 miles but really enjoyable with ever-changing scenery from beaches, to woods, villages to fields filled with windmills. There were lots of photo opportunities on the way to The Ship - a lovely little pub in Dunwich. Getting a table was a struggle in this popular place but we managed to find the perfect place to sit all eight of us (and the dogs!). Here, we had planned on a light lunch ready for the journey back but the fresh-fish menu was too tempting so we stuffed ourselves and got a taxi ride back to Southwold!

It wouldn't be the same if we didn't see in the New Year with drinks at The Lord Nelson - Adnams Fizz all 'round, followed by fireworks on the beach. There's such a lovely atmosphere in Southwold on New Year's Eve... everyone meets at the beach, brings fireworks and the display starts before the countdown begins and Auld Lang Syne is sung by all. We returned to the house for a little party of our own before venturing down to the beach in the early hours with some wine and music... the perfect New Year's Eve!

After a morning walk to the pier, we decided to do something we had never done before in Southwold to celebrate the 1st day of 2015 - afternoon tea at The Swan - how very sophisticated! Some of the group were a little too jaded to come for delicious sandwiches, cakes and the most enormous scones I've ever seen so we had extra portions which no-one complained about! Despite it being 'afternoon tea', it's great in Southwold as everything is very laid-back and wellies, scarves and thick jackets are always acceptable!

A final run along the stunning shoreline next to the famous, brightly-coloured beach huts saw the end of another absolutely perfect stay in Southwold. I urge anyone who hasn't been to go, even for the day, although a day will leave you wanting to return as we're lucky enough to do every year.

This year's highlights (see others in my previous post!)...

• ·         The Lord Nelson every time - the best pub in Southwold!
• ·         Despite the moans the 8 mile walk from Southwold to Dunwich was a healthy highlight

This year's must dos...

• ·         Afternoon tea at The Swan - arrive hungry!
• ·         The walk from Southwold to Walberswick's The Bell for a gorgeous hot chocolate

Jane x

The Best Things in Life in January

2015 is upon us, a new year, fresh start and a time where we love to plan out our goals and dreams for the next year. 2014 was a fun and successful year for Katie & Jane and we look forward to all that 2015 has to bring!

Katie

Best things in life?

My new Happiness Tin! After reading my friend George’s new blog, I was so inspired by her thoughts on happiness I decided to create my very own happiness tin which she says will help to... 

“Consciously appreciate the little things in life that can so easily pass you by, not just so they can bring a smile to your face at the end of the year, but so you get into the habit of noticing the happiness and humour that happens all the time…if you choose to notice it.” 

This really reminded me of how much we like Happier, and as well as my tin I hope to start using the app a little more too! You can read our review of Happier here.

One way to avoid the January blues is to think about all the events and exciting things 2015 has in store! (although biased) I love using Countdown Keeper to collect all the things I have to be excited about, and being as organised as I am I love that I can keep them in custom categories that I’ve created myself too. To find out more about Countdown Keeper head to the App Store.

Who doesn’t love a Happy Birthday cake? To celebrate our second birthday we were treated to a lovely cake with our Katie & Jane dots on – it was so lovely to see those dots connecting and reflect on how far we’ve come in the last two years. We wrote our 2014 annual business review last week, you can find out about our highlights, challenges and memorable moments of last year here.

My New Year's resolution is...

I don’t usually make resolutions, as it’s inevitable I’ll break them after January! However this year I do intend to take better care of myself. It’s easy to get into bad habits when you are focused on everything else but yourself and building up a business during the last two years has meant that I have put myself and wellbeing at the bottom of the list, so I’m trying to eat better, work out more, stress less, let go of worries easier and be more mindful in 2015.

What I'm most looking forward to in 2015 is...

Seeing more of the world! I first visited Bali in 2010, and I’m so excited to be taking a trip back there this year, there is so much more to see of this beautiful country and the islands surrounding it. I am also happy that when I come home I won’t be dreading going back to work at all, Katie & Jane is definitely more of a lifestyle i.e. non-stop! I wouldn’t have it any other way though…

The pin that sums me up at the moment is...

Jane

Best things in life?

New stationery! I'm a stationery geek so was over-the-moon to receive a big parcel all the way from Australia containing tonnes of gorgeous Kikki.K stationery for Christmas. I've filled out my new 2015 diary using my new pens and my iPad is looking pretty with its new berry pink cover on! Literally in stationery heaven!

Daylesford herbal teas. On a recent visit to Daylesford Farm Shop in Kingham, Gloucestershire, I brought two boxes of their tea; green and peppermint. I love green tea so have tried a few different types but theirs is just perfect... not too 'green tea-y' (if you've tried green tea before you'll know what I mean) and the peppermint is so smooth and has been delicious to calm my tummy after stuffing myself at Christmas!

Breezy walks along the Suffolk coast... I've just got back from celebrating New Year in the lovely seaside town of Southwold with my friends and family and my most favourite thing that we did every day was walk along the beautiful beach. Southwold's beach is perfect in Winter... a long stretch of sand with beach huts one end and a pier the other. Along with it's amazing shops, cafes, restaurants and bakeries it's just the best place in the UK to see in the New Year.

My New Year's resolution is...

To meditate daily even if it's for five minutes! Before the Christmas period I completed a morning routine of yoga, skin brushing and meditation which I really found improved my day even after a week or so of doing it. Unfortunately with all the Christmas and New Year celebrations, the routine went AWOL. Meditation reduces stress, helps concentration, increases self-awareness and happiness and slows aging (!) so I plan to do it every day in 2015!

What I'm most looking forward to in 2015 is...

I do want to say Bali but actually I am most looking forward to all the exciting business opportunities in 2015 for Katie & Jane! I love that we don't have a clue where our business will take us next and every day is an adventure! Anything with '5' in is lucky for me so I know 2015 is going to be amazing in so many ways. After a few weeks off for Christmas and New Year I'm raring to get back to work!

The pin that sums me up at the moment is...

Katie & Jane Annual Review: The Year that was 2014… Our Second Year in Business!

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to us! 

We are now officially two years old and into our third year of business. We have decided to make our annual review a recurring habit and so, as with last year, this blog post looks back over the last 12 months, selecting our highlights, the moments that mattered, what we have learnt, the favourite bits and the challenges we had to overcome.

Apps…

April 2014 saw the launch of our first app Countdown Keeper in the App Store. We developed Countdown Keeper as a simple app to allow us to learn everything we possibly could about the journey of app development and app marketing. We had spent most of 2013 evaluating trends in the App Store and felt that the countdown apps that were available could do with a makeover plus we could see lots of simple features that could improve the experience for consumers of this type of app.

One thing we did do was underestimate the time it would take to test the app – especially for two perfectionists like us, but, in April, we felt it was ready to launch the first version of the app. It was the first time we coined a term we now use frequently in the business; ‘minimum loveable product’ – as long as we know our target consumer is going to love it in its minimum form, we will get it out there and make improvements as we go along.

The most surprising thing of all is that 50,000 people have downloaded Countdown Keeper (something we never, ever thought would happen!) and the authentic app reviews and emails we get from our users are so supportive and exciting to read.

You can find Countdown Keeper in the App Store here, free to download, but to unlock access to all of the features you can upgrade the app for £0.69/$0.99. Our first major improvement and update will be completed by the end of this month.  You can see how our growing community of users love Countdown Keeper and join in with all the fun we have on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter & Google+ too. www.countdownkeeper.com

Social Media…

2014 saw us further establish Katie & Jane as a social media training offering. We had a whole lot of fun working with the team at Virgin Trains in 2014, helping them to further their expertise in social media – they really do have one of the best customer relations team we have ever worked with. Working so closely with the team we have realised how valuable social media toolkits are and so, for 2015, we have some exciting changes on the horizon resulting in lots more toolkits and an online hub especially created just for them! Watch this space…

We also spent a lot of effort on our own social media channels in 2014. We know how effective they are as a marketing tool, and more importantly an amazing way to hear from customers and people in the network. We currently juggle 11 separate social media channels for our business all with their own strategies and target audience. We are enjoying watching them grow organically and testing which are working best for us too – you can’t go too wrong with social media if you are learning from it all the time! 

You can find all our social media channels on our relevant websites throughout this blog post, and to see Katie & Jane across social head to the hashtag #katieandjane on Twitter, click here for Facebook and follow all our inspiring images across the whole of the business on Instagram and Pinterest.

Our ‘By Katie and Jane’ blog is still going strong and we truly love documenting our journey. We can’t wait to look back on our posts ten years from now and we hope you enjoy reading them, but mostly we hope they are helpful and inspiring – as simple as that!

Food…

The greatest, scariest and challenging step forward in 2014 came about this time last year when we decided to start taking the idea of a vegetarian hot dog truck seriously… and there was no turning back once we’d decided our new venture would be called Not Dogs!

Not Dogs was created because we struggled to find mouth-watering veggie food and trustworthy meaty meals while out and about at festivals and outdoor events. Ever since we created the idea, we have put the consumer and our brand values at the forefront of the many daily decisions we make, most of which we had absolutely no experience in at the beginning.

What a difference a year makes, from concept to us making it happen; our highlights have been Lovebox, Festival No6 and ending the year at the Oxford Christmas Market. We were runners up in Virgin’s search for the 'Tastiest Start Up', just missing out on the title but finalists as Virgin Food Entrepreneurs. You can see our pitch to Richard Branson, Paul Lindley, Hemsley & Hemsley, Michela Chiappa and Mina Holland in the video below (we're at 5 mins 47 seconds in!) Write ups in Stylist Magazine, making the final 30 in most inspiring women and praise from Elle Magazine, then finishing with wonderful review in the Oxford Times Business Section ended the year on an incredible high.

It’s been the hardest work of our lives, Katie has chef fingers now and Jane has endured many guacamole and French’s mustard explosions, but we have had the best fun, met so many amazing and supportive people who already love Not Dogs and of course some of the funniest characters who have had us in tears laughing. For 2015 we have lots of plans yet to be finalised but could involve a London pop-up venture, Summer festivals, European adventures and much, much more! Keep up to date with us on Twitter, Instagram and find out more here www.notdogs.co.uk

2015…

Who knows what this year has in store, but we are already working on lots of changes to Katie & Jane – all good we promise! We have an exciting new online project which we will be launching by Spring, a new app to start developing, Not Dogs events, social media projects and lots of fun! As always, you’ll find out about it first here.

Have a positive and motivating January, here’s to the next 12 months!

Katie & Jane x

The Top Blog Posts of 2014 by Katie & Jane

Our 'Blog by Katie & Jane' is now nearly 18 months old and as we're nearing the end of another year we wanted to look back on the top five blog posts of 2014...

5. Our 2014 Social Media Awareness Calendar is here!

We launched our first social media toolkit at the beginning of 2014 with the aim to help inspire social media content for brands and businesses by sharing over 400 awareness days, national holidays and topical events in an easy-to-use format. 

We're putting the final touches to our 2015 calendar (watch this space) which has even more information added such as big film releases and sporting events. We've researched the all-important social media channels for all the awareness days too making it easy to link-up with them to increase reach and generate even more social media content.

4. Captivating Crete: A Travel Review

In June 2014 I travelled to the beautiful island of Crete and stayed in an amazing hotel in a lovely part of the island. Despite staying for just seven days, the trip was jam-packed with fun activities from delicious meals to island-hopping days out. Victoria Hislop, writer of my favourite book The Island which is set in Crete, was a fan of the blog post which helped it become one of our most popular blog posts of 2014. 

3. Introducing a New Katie & Jane Creation: the Vegetarian Food Truck - Not Dogs

Katie and I were very excited to announce the launch of our new brand Not Dogs in June 2014. We'd been quietly working on the veggie project for a few months prior to June so couldn't wait to share the news on the blog. Since then we've been to six festivals, one Christmas market, met tonnes of amazing new Not Dogs fans and taken hundreds of #SausageSelfies. With opportunities coming in already, we're very much looking forward to seeing what 2015 will bring for Not Dogs.

2. A Perfect New Year in the Seaside Town of Southwold

As I write this I'm sitting by the fire in another cute Southwold house on day two of our little Southwold holiday. We've spent the day walking along the windy beach to Walberswick for another delicious lunch and it's games night tonight! Last year's blog post was the second most popular By Katie & Jane blog post of 2014... Wonder how this year's review will do!?

1. Carrie Green: Founder of the Female Entrepreneur Association talks to us about empowering women, building an online business & a few of her favourite things...

Our 'Entrepreneur Interviews' section of the blog are always popular posts with our readers so it's not surprising that our interview with the Female Entrepreneur Association's Carrie Green has reached the top spot for 2014. In this blog post Carrie spoke to us about her inspiration, goals, motivation and of course a few of her favourite things...

Here's to a happy, successful 2015! Jane x

The Best Things in Life in December

December is a busy month for everyone but it's been even more so for us as we get ready to move Not Dogs to Oxford for the Oxford Christmas Market from the 11th to the 21st December... there's been times we've definitely needed to remind ourselves to...

Katie

The Best Things in Life...

I love gift buying for others in December! One of my favourite places to go for the perfect present is Not on the High Street, the hard part is trying not to go too overboard with all the unique gems and personalised options to choose from. We wrote a blog post all about why we like the company so much & what inspires us most about its founders & you can have a little read here: http://www.bykatieandjane.com/2013/11/not-on-high-street-perfect-place-for.html

When it’s bitterly cold outside there is nothing I love more than lighting the room with candles. We recently attended a Red Magazine Network Event with founder of The White Company; Chrissie Rucker and we came away with a lovely gift bag which included the limited edition Symons Candle, a gorgeous mix of smooth white amber with crisp, cotton cedarwood and delicate peony (so it says on the website!) It not only smells beautiful, it also looks very stylish in its glass holder too.

We’ve spent lots of the month so far in planning meetings, and one of our favourite spots to visit to work and socialise is Middleton’s The Fig & Olive, set next door to the amazing Coppice Garden Centre which has just unveiled all its Christmas delights in time for the festive season. It’s well worth a visit to find some truly beautiful items for the home, finished off with a lovely spot of lunch too.

Christmas is the perfect time to...

Remember how lucky we all are. Christmas can be the best time for some and a sad time for others, and sometimes we get so wrapped up in it all that we forget how lucky we might be! This year we will be serving up Not Dogs at our local Homeless Shelter on Boxing Day and between 11-12pm each day at the Oxford Christmas Market we will be donating profits from every Not Dog sold to Oxfam.

My favourite thing to cook at Christmas is...

Christmas Spiced Caramelised Onions and haven’t we been cooking up a storm! These will be served on top of our 8” juicy Not Dogs in a bun this week and finished off with a sprinkle of good old English Stilton and the name; Santa’s Stilton Surprise of course!

The pin that sums me up at the moment is...

Jane

The Best Things in Life...

The Cotswolds is my third favourite place in the World and we try to visit as many times during the year as we can but I do love it best in the Winter. We went for the day starting with breakfast in Broadway at the Market Pantry before heading for a 5 mile walk to Broadway Tower where we had the most amazing views over 13 counties. We then drove to Kingham for a late lunch at The Wild Rabbit, somewhere where I'd wanted to visit for a while - we were not disappointed! Created by Daylesford Organic's Lady Bamford The Wild Rabbit is a beautiful take on a traditional English inn with a cosy pub, bright open dining area and a place to stay too. The food was delicious and it was lovely to watch it being cooked from our table by the very smart chefs; the staff were second-to-none and the styling of The Wild Rabbit is absolutely gorgeous. Of course no trip to The Cotswolds for me would be complete without a visit to the Daylesford farm shop where I stocked up on their amazing range for Christmas.

Having so many things to look forward to on my Countdown Keeper app... Oxford, a Christmas Eve meal with friends, Christmas Day (of course!), New Year in Southwold, the start of 2015 and Bali in February! Before we launched Countdown Keeper I didn't use countdown apps but now I love to put everything I'm excited about in there!

The return of Starbucks' Egg Nogg Latte! I usually wait until December to purchase my first Eggnog Latte (no nutmeg!) but this year I couldn't contain myself once I saw those famous red cups! What makes me love Starbucks even more is their Selfridges Birmingham store is one of only two in the country to be adorning their festive drinks with gold sparkle - all the other stores are silver - plus I had a field-day buying lots of gold glittery cups!

Christmas is the perfect time to...

Relax with friends and family... I like to plan the food, presents and outings in November so that December is less stressful and I can actually enjoy the whole festive month. I always look forward to having a casual Christmas and Boxing Day and then prepare for our annual seaside visit to Southwold for New Year.

My favourite thing to cook at Christmas is...

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Pistachio Fudge. I adore this green-studded fudge and make it every year to give as gifts and to snack on straight from the freezer at home. It's such a simple recipe from Nigella Express, although I never seem to be able to find already-shelled pistachios so you can usually find me standing in the kitchen for quite a while taking the shells off! The mix of deep sweet chocolate and salty nuts is just perfect!

The pin that sums me up at the moment is...

Just 21 Days to go till Christmas! #CountdownToChristmas with Countdown Keeper

It’s officially the month of Christmas and what better way to get excited than to have a countdown on your iPhone to share with friends? Here are a few of our favourite ways to use Countdown Keeper at Christmas time…

Countdown to Santa’s Visit

A great one for the little ones in your life! As well as weeks, days and hours, you can countdown in minutes and seconds too which can make it even more exciting for those excited to see Santa and Rudolph on Christmas Eve. 

Why not count down to the children’s bedtime on Christmas Eve and set an alarm so that when the app notifies you of Santa’s arrival it’s time for bedtime too (Santa doesn't visit when children are awake!). You can have fun by uploading your very own background image from Facebook, your camera roll or use one of our pre-loaded backgrounds in the Countdown Keeper Library.

Christmas Gifts

With every event you add to Countdown Keeper there is also a ‘notes’ section which during Christmas is especially handy for keeping a note of gift ideas for friends and family. Just add a countdown to Christmas or a Christmas Gift deadline countdown and start adding your gift ideas from the notes button, et voilà! – a portable present list on your iPhone. You can keep all of your Christmas related countdowns organised in your very own custom-created category too, away from the usual countdowns and everyday events you use Countdown Keeper for.

Happy Christmas!

The big event! This year instead of setting an alarm or waiting to be woken up, create an alert to your Christmas Day event in Countdown Keeper and be woken up with your very own Countdown to Christmas! You can then share this across social media with your friends and tag those loved ones in to wish them a Happy Christmas wherever they are.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas from the Countdown Keeper team!

To download Countdown Keeper from the App Store just click this link or simply search ‘Countdown Keeper’. In the free version of the app you can add up to three events, and to upgrade to the PRO version it’s 69p/$0.99 which unlocks the ability to add an unlimited amount of events, create your very own categories to organise your countdowns, use images from your Facebook albums and add notes too!

Find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for lots of positivity and more countdown inspiration!

www.countdownkeeper.com

Katie x

Not Dogs at Oxford Christmas Market

We're very excited to be embarking on our very first Christmas adventure with Not Dogs in December... the Oxford Christmas Market, where we will recreate our little purple truck within a traditional German chalet adorned with purple and orange decorations of course!

We'll be there between the 11th and the 21st of December staying open for the duration of Oxford's magical market. Our Christmas recipes are now perfected with three new additions; the Cha-Cha Chili Dog, Santa’s Stilton Surprise and Beau the Banana Brioche Dog, along with our usual tasty favourites; The Plain Jane and The Original Frank. Eating so many Not Dogs can leave you a little thirsty so we’ve also added a special 'Cranberry and Apple Christmas Concoction' to our Winter menu; a very tasty alcohol-free tipple!

To celebrate us being at our first Christmas market we wanted to give our social media fans an early Christmas present with the opportunity to win free Not Dogs for life! Find out all the details here or on our Twitter and Instagram channels.

Read our full Winter menu here - we'd love to hear what you think!