Fiona Robinson

7am. I’m more of a morning person than a night owl. Much to the consternation of my family, I immediately get every machine in the house going – the jug, the dishwasher, the washing machine... it’s all on! Once the house is humming, I’ll make up the horses' feeds and Rufus – the Jack Russell – and I head out to sort them for the day. Our daughter Milly is away at university, but I still enjoy keeping her horse in work for her. I also have one of my own I’ve started competing on again at a local level.

8:30am. We live onsite at the back of our shop so getting ready for work can be somewhat shambolic. I have been caught in my “home clothes” – or even worse, my dressing gown! – on more occasions than I care to remember. The aim is to be shop-dressed and ready by 9am. The hour before the shop is open is often when I whip around to my friend Jo, who is the best curtain seamstress ever – talented soft furnishing manufacturers are like hens’ teeth – and we work together on interior design projects. I’ll also do a quick roadside flower forage for shop vases on the way back. I am very lucky: our children, Hamish and Milly, were only six and four when we first opened to the public, and whilst there have been a lot of keep-the-noise-down looks, I didn’t miss out on their early years.

10am. Keeping the shop looking fresh and full is a constant job. We sell almost everything your eye can see, so when large furniture items leave it is the perfect opportunity for a re-jig of the entire layout! This can have quite the domino effect, but I love styling the many and varied wares that come to us. Throughout the day, clients will choose or finalise fabric details, order cushions or discuss upholstery quotes. During this time, I can also give road closure updates, provide washers for wonky trailer tyres and maybe even meet the farrier if I’m quick. We don’t always have a regular shopkeeper routine here!

2pm. Afternoons are a chance to cut and prepare fabrics for items to be sewn and sold. I absolutely adore fabric, as did my Nanna Marjorie, and I have very fond memories with her. Once the lunch dishes were done, Nanna and I would head upstairs and while away the afternoon. She would patiently teach me how to make dolls’ clothes, and whilst I was never an accomplished sewer, trawling her fabric stash to find pleasing combinations gave me hours of pleasure. Today my fabric room looks as chaotic as hers did and half an hour of every day is spent just clearing the cutting table. Assembling town deliveries and courier parcels is constant. We are half an hour from Cromwell with no local courier pickups, so I might only be given five minutes before my husband Matthew asks, “Anything needing to be dropped off in town today?”

4pm. Once the doors are closed, I’ll go out and work one of the horses. We are lucky to have beautiful Central Otago hills to ride over and around, and to be able to blow away cobwebs out there before the nightly chores begin. Nanna was also a great kindling collector and I have a little squirrel in me too, so you will often find me gathering pinecones.

8pm. With our two children away flatting, evenings now offer a few more hours to catch up on interior design quotes, paperwork and product research. Preferably, I would rather fiddle with more fabric and make greeting cards for the shop...idle hands I have not!

This story appeared in the Kōanga Spring 2022 Edition of Shepherdess.