When we first moved here to the Cotswolds, seven years ago, the very first tree that initially captivated me in the garden wasn't the beautiful, crooked old cider apple tree, but one that looked even more enchanted as it had apples of the brightest red I’d ever seen. These photos were taken today, but by October this fruit will look like it has been plucked straight out of Snow White’s story. It is not only magical to look at, but delicious to eat with the pink blush staining the brilliant white flesh all the way through to the pale pips in the middle. To watch and look forward to this little tree valiantly bearing its gifts every year is a humbling experience and one that we all really appreciate, including our wildlife visitors. (It was so funny to see our sheep when they’d eaten too many of the windfalls, as they consequently walked along in a more zigzag fashion!) Mother Nature is so miraculous and clever, and it is a lovely task to be able to pick fresh apples in the dewy autumn mornings for the boys to take to college. What a great legacy to have been left by the person who first planted this tree many years ago… Thank you, whoever you are!


I could not go much further with these blogs and not include the Froud family! Brian and Wendy are a very special, wonderful couple - always delightfully surprising folk who are meeting them for the first time, with how warm and friendly they are - such kind people who live, as we would imagine them to with faerie – the most enchanted folk I have had the privilege to know and I’m sure I speak for many of us when I Thank them both from my heart for all their inspiration and insight, words seem rather inadequate at this moment…
Brian writes a brilliant regular column for Faerie Magazine International and I will talk about Wendy's exquisite dolls (which I adore) that she so wondrously sculpts, on another occasion. But it’s actually Brian’s faeries that we personally have to thank for us deciding to begin I Do Believe! This part of our journey would start years ago, with the momentous ‘phone call to Amy Brown’s publisher whom we’d met and become friends with previously on a life changing trip to New York, although I think I’ll fill you in on that part of our story another day… A few weeks previous to that, I had finally treated myself to one of Brian’s Faeries’ Oracle decks whilst visiting my much missed Glastonbury. Before we made this call of destiny, Drew and I sat down and, for the first time ever, did a Faerie Oracle card spread, with the specific question as to whether or not we should ship over hundreds of Amy’s first books to the UK. It was a huge decision, as this new company would have to be run in our spare time whilst Drew carried on with his career in the wine trade. Although we loved Amy’s book ourselves, it was quite another matter to persuade the main book distribution company to put them into the shops over here as it took a long while for them to understand how popular she already was. Years ago there wasn’t even a category in the British bookstores to shelve them under, as even Brian’s beloved books www.worldoffroud.com were often to be found in the general art section and the only other alternative for anything else on this subject was in ‘mind, body and spirit’ – not really appropriate. These days it's thrilling for us to browse in the bookshops and see a whole section finally dedicated to Fantasy Art and know that currently we at IDB are contributing over thirteen different book titles and counting… and all because we believed. Needless to say, we interpreted the cards we had pulled from Mr Froud's deck as a positive sign and are now extremely thrilled and excited to be working with the fine gentleman himself!

Magical Blessings, Be



“You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,” Peter explained, “and they lift you up in the air.” JM Barrie