  |
June 2009
The summer weather is mostly continuing which is fantastic for everyone. After last summer it is such a treat to be able to be outside so much and everyone is looking so brown. The sunshine is encouraging guests to spend time on the beaches and I suspect that the surfing schools are doing brisk business. The air is often full of the scent of BBQ's which is always good. It would be great to be able to find some locally produced charcoal but I doubt that it exists. With the weather being so good the plants are growing really well and at last all the digging we had done over the early spring to build the ponds is covered in green. We are having the outside of all our buildings repainted whilst the sun is shining. It is all starting to look very fresh and clean. We had booked it in for last year but it was never dry enough. The grounds are also starting to look really good which after all the gardening of the last two months is very satisfying. Before we started the grounds were just buildings in fields and now it is much prettier. Since we put maps of the grounds in all the houses guests are starting to explore them. Bookings for next year have suddenly started to come in again which is surprisingly early. I think a lot of people have been surprised by being unable to get last minute bookings this summer as until this year that was the way the English holiday market was. It will be interesting to see what the long term effect of the economic crisis is for UK holidays. People in the holiday business are starting to have the confidence to invest in their businesses which can only be a good thing as quality will increase. We are starting to think of what we can do during the winter to improve things though as most things are new there is not much to do. The recycling centre is working well and guests are splitting up their rubbish very efficiently. We have just ordered more bins as with every passing week more and more stuff is put out. We even had a note from the people who collect it, thanking us for making their life easier. A lot of people are collecting their vegetable waste for composting as well which is really helpful.
Our new photos have arrived and we are very pleased with them. They are all on our website and so now everything is up to date. We are intending to change and improve the website over the coming months and would appreciate feed back from guests as how best to proceed. May has started with good weather and the forecasts are all for a good summer. Let’s hope that they are right. We are getting just enough rain for the garden but not too much to stop guests from getting out and about. People are starting to sit out in the grounds and the BBQ season is clearly underway. The dam for the new pond has opened up our 10 acres of fields and we are very pleased to see that they are being visited. It is a lovely walk round them and the views from the top are super. We have put a picnic table in the lower field which has been discovered as a good spot for an early evening drink. It is taking an age for the new pond to fill and it is still some way from the top. We are waiting for it to be full before we buy our new ducks as we hope that by giving them more space that they will not fight with our present ones. All the wildlife is starting to get very busy. We have discovered that the buzzards we see flying over our valley are nesting in one of our oak trees. Fortunately they do not seem to be frightening our chickens. After a huge reduction in rabbit numbers last year they seem to be reproducing rapidly and are looking huge and healthy. Surrounding one of our vegetable patches with a rabbit proof fence last year is starting to look like a good investment. Lots of swallows and house martins are nesting in our various barns and they look beautiful when they are catching insects in the evening. Unfortunately we had a fox or badger attack on our birds last week, one chicken was taken and the coloured male peacock was slightly mauled. We now have to keep a very close eye on things to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. The upside of the attack is that we have brought forward our plan to get some alpacas, which are superb protectors of birds. We have bought a breeding pair with a white female and a brown male and hope to get a baby next August. They are very beautiful but are going to need careful handling before they get tame. As soon as the enclosure for them is built they will be living with the birds. We are making the most of the warm weather to start planting up more of the grounds. The edge of the pond needs to be full of reeds and the individual ones which we have dotted around look rather lost so we will have to be patient. We have also planted some giant Gunera which will look magnificent once they get to full size. The new lawned area in one of our fields by the pond is developing well and there are plans to have a turf maze here, though this probably won’t get done until the late autumn. A new flower bed has been planted in front of the Georgian House and as the plants are a good size they should be flowering this year. If time permits we aim to get more flower beds round the gardens. The vegetable patch is looking fantastic and we are expecting to get our first tomatoes at the end of this month or the beginning of the next which will be a record for us.
The photographer is coming this week and will take pictures of all the newly finished rooms. As we have done so much he is going to be here for 2 days. We will be using all the photos on our website and on the various other advertising sites, as it is important that guests can see what they can expect here. The pictures taken of last year’s changes were very successful and we will be pleased when we can replace all our home done photos with the new ones. Our new pond is now dug and we have to wait a month for the ground to settle before we can fill it. It is much bigger than the previous ones and has an island. Hopefully the ducks will have the sense to sleep on this and thus avoid the foxes. The fox is a constant worry but now that visiting dogs can get near the pond their scent should be a deterrent. The pond’s dam can be walked across so that it is now possible to get into our fields. This opens up easy access into 10 acres where guest can walk. There is a lot of bare earth where the work has been done, most of which will be re-seeded with grass. We are also planning on a fair amount of decorative planting and have ordered 1000 + plants from the suppliers. All we need now is good weather and then everything can start to grow. We are hoping to get another two pairs of ducks for the ponds. There is a very good waterfowl breeder near Exeter and we will have a huge choice of healthy birds. Our first pair of ducks which we were given turned out to be both male so we won’t get any ducklings from them. Fortunately they don’t fight and are inseparable. The chickens now have a much bigger new house which is easier to clean and much safer. The old house will be used as holding pen for new or ill birds. We are getting up to 7 eggs a day which is lovely and they are very popular with guests. If we ever get any spare eggs we make ice cream which is horrifyingly fattening but delicious. The weather so far is being kind to us. The last few weeks have been dry with lots of sunshine much to the delight of our early guests. We have even had to water the vegetables and find that we are pleased when we get some rain. The green house is getting very hot so we have to leave the door wide open and hope that the chickens don’t fly in. Birds do add another layer of complications for gardening.
We are hoping that the weather is going to continue to improve as we will now turn our attention to the gardens. The first thing to get sorted out will be the vegetable patch as we missed the deadline last year for a lot of things. Unfortunately as we dig our friends the chickens are there with us and they cause havoc with any new planting. Hopefully they will have eaten the slugs which were a menace last year. We have ordered a new hen house which should be here for the end of the month. The old one is not as strong as we would like and a determined badger might get in. The new one is much bigger and will hold 20 birds if we wish to increase our flock from the current 8 chickens. The peacocks are getting frisky and showing their tails to anything; dogs, robins chickens and people. As they get older their tails are getting beautiful, though it will be another year before they are fully grown. We are going to build them a shelter right at the bottom of the garden to stop them from being too noisy. When the final pond is dug we shall get some more ducks and if we can get an island in the middle of one of the ponds they will be safer at night. We had more snow at the beginning of this month, though nothing like last month’s. It is very height dependent and on Exmoor it has been very beautiful again. The views from our grounds have been lovely and it is unusual to see all this snow so near to the coast. In a continuing effort to be green we have put small compost containers in all the cottages. These have filters in them to stop any smells, so should be fine indoors. We are regularly asked if we collect for compost as many guests are clearly happy to do this. When the vegetable patch gets going it will use a huge amount of compost so any help here will be useful. We have debated getting a green tourism award for all our work here but it seems to be a lot of money just for a green sticker. Many other holiday websites have an environmental statement which may be the way forward for us. The month has ended with fabulous weather. All our guests for the last two weeks can hardly believe it. The lawns all need cutting and our three mowers have gone on strike with impeccable timing. Maybe goats are the answer. February 2009
The village was cut off until the afternoon but the roads were soon surprisingly clear. The only problems are with the very small steep lanes and private roads. Our dog is loving it and charges all over the hills. He regularly takes a tumble down the slopes and forms a large living snowball. The birds on the other hand do not like it. Only one of our chickens will come out and the peacocks are spending most of the time on top of the oil tanks.
Our neighbours tell us that this amount of snow is quite rare here now and our first two winters in Exmoor were very warm. Despite the weather the renovations are getting on and the February half term is our final deadline. The new kitchen in the Georgian House is looking very nice and makes the room look much bigger. The two master bedrooms are being worked on, one is nearly finished and is looking very sumptuous and the other will soon look similar. The massive silk curtains are nearly ready to hang and will look fantastic. We have changed a lot of the old light fittings, mindful of the fact that we must use energy efficient bulbs. A big check of all the house and cottage contents have show that our guests are really very careful and we are loosing very few glasses etc. We are having a big order from our suppliers as we have decided to double the contents of the Old Farmhouse kitchen. This is the kitchen which guests use when both wings are let together and will save moving everything on busy changeover days. To our delight the bone china which we chose two years ago is lasting very well and it is good to be able to provide guests with fine china rather than the chunkier stuff so often used in the catering industry. We have decided to start providing toiletries in all the bathrooms. After a lot of research, which involved masses of free samples, we have chosen the French company Pascal Morabito and we await their delivery with some excitement. In addition we have ordered some beautiful velour bathrobes for all the double bedrooms. We hope that they will arrive before half term so that it will be a nice unexpected extra for our visitors. Due to all the melting snow and previous rain we can’t do anything with the grounds. A digger was coming to dig our third pond but just can’t cope with the wet ground. The frosts are also preventing plant suppliers from sending out all the bare rooted plants which have been ordered. So as soon as the weather improves and things dry out we are going to be very busy. This time last year the grass had started growing and we were cutting lawns as the weather usually is starting to warm up by now. We are very much looking forward to being able to be out in the grounds, after the last two months of working indoors on all the renovations and will be very happy if no more curtains have to be made for a very long time. January 2009 A new year starts amid constant news of doom and gloom. Here in Coulscott we are seeing people choosing to holiday in the UK rather than abroad and have to date an excellent start to this year’s bookings. So far nearly all the school holiday weeks have been taken, so people are booking well in advance with queries about Christmas already. Renovation work has restarted after the two weeks holiday and our next deadline is the end of this month. The Old Farmhouse is being completely redecorated and the Georgian House is now minus a kitchen. By the end of the month it will have a super new one with a slate tiled floor replacing the rather impractical old carpet. If we can manage, both master bedrooms are due to be redecorated with exotic wall papers and silk curtains, though we are at the mercy of the plasterers. We still await the arrival of the huge dining table for the Old Farmhouse which was first ordered in the summer; April is the new delivery date. New sofas and chairs have been ordered for all houses so except for the snug in the Georgian House all the soft furnishings will be new. As they are being especially made for us we won’t get them until March; we can’t wait. Rather boringly we have had to have an extra electricity supply brought in as we have been in danger of exceeding our capacity. This has meant that the garden has had multiple trenches dug and in parts looks like the Somme. The following hard frosts for several weeks, has prevented the gardener from putting things back to normal. Hopefully with the thaw we can now get on with it. All the birds are coping well with the winter. They are all very scruffy and are in need of some dry soil so they can have their birdbaths. To this end we have moved the chickens into the greenhouse for a week or two. Immediately they started rolling around in the dust and are now looking much better. The bonus of birds in the greenhouse is a reduction in pests and lots of manure. They are also still laying a huge number of eggs which in the absence of guests we are forcing on our neighbours. We have managed to get most of the Old Farmhouse finished for our first visitors of the season, with the new curtains going up the night before. The only major thing left to do is the slates on the kitchen floor and this will be done between bookings. We are very pleased with the way it is looking as were our guests. We will soon be fully open again and all work will then have to wait until next winter. |
