A belated post about the end of our season – the longest yet since we first opened in 2019!
As it is mainly myself with the help of David & Carol it was hard work with no time off, but how wonderful to greet so many return guests – one family visited over the course of the season – first one group, then another, then another! We love that – its like welcoming old friends, and many of our guests have become just that.
It was a slow start to the season as many people were worried about finances, and I tried to encourage guests to book 3 nights at weekends and 3/4 nights during the week: this was to try to limit changeovers and the associated resources but it just didn’t work. So I went back to our 2 night minimum (and that really is the minimum for resource efficiency) and the bookings flooded in – phew! Many people were just having a weekend away rather a full week somewhere, or having a few days in several places. Towards the end of the season – our September was as busy as July & August, we had some lovely guests staying a whole week and it was so nice to see them exploring the area.
So now we are enjoying some time off, but the maintenance and ‘to do’ list keeps growing! We have managed some time away to relax, see friends and family and explore some great walks in our local area that we didn’t know (so we can recommend to guests next year). We are just about to take delivery of 100 apple trees that are the village’s Jubilee Project – an apple tree for every property in the village – and they are nearly all different varieties. David’s next project is to try grapevines on the slope above the building – I’m not convinced they will flourish there, but if we don’t try we won’t know. These will be for eating/juicing rather than wine – we have too many fantastic wine producers in Cornwall to need to go into wine production! I’m going to try some figs and apricots within the shelter of the building; our raised bed outside Barn Owl self catering was so successful that I am going to try another one.
Water last summer was a big concern for us; having a borehole meant that we really didn’t know how the ground water was doing, and although we didn’t run out, we decided that we need to try to prepare in case it happens again. So we have bought some reconditioned tanks that we are hoping to fill with rainwater over the winter. These will be for watering the orchard and vegetables not ‘clean’ water, but we will at least be able to filter it for non drinking in an emergency! Although we seem to have had enough rain already this winter to fill the borehole back up!
I am hoping to organise some ‘green get togethers’ in the coming year. Having talked to many guests about it I think there will be enough interest – I feel I need to try, as it’s something I am passionate about – passing on the information that David & I have learned – mainly by experience! I want to try to organise them into subject groups such as no dig growing, green living, eco building etc….
If you are interested please drop us an email – there should be a newsletter coming out as well, so if you sign up to that you will get advanced notice, and I will be releasing a few discount codes for next year before general release to everyone.
