Useless!

Post date: Jan 22, 2016 10:28:28 AM

Well, as has been pointed out to me by several individuals over the last few months, I have been shockingly bad and in fact it is nigh on a year since I posted anything here on our blog page, for which I am truly ashamed and apologise! Not so much as a Merry Christmas even, so herewith at least a Happy New Year greeting, just about in time, and a hope that everyone did indeed have a good Christmas and a great 2015!

Rounding off a very busy year for us, with all the cottages now up and running, the festive season went well here at Trenarlett, with lovely 7 foot real trees in each cottage ready for all our guests' arrivals and we even managed lights all round the buildings and pergolas so all was looking really nice and Christmassy, which we hope helped everyone to feel welcome and get in the spirit! Thanks to everyone who joined us to see in the New Year - a good night was had by all, but maybe the 4am finish and the embarrassing amount of recycling had someting to do with the not so productive New Year's Day!

4th January and all guests were gone or safely on their way so time to un-decorate all those trees and heave them out again - am sure we'll be finding pine needles for months as they seem to reappear no matter how much we clean!

Last week I did notice one of the Camelias at Ben's Barn had burst out into flower some time earlier without me even realising and it was a beautiful sunny day so a photo had to be taken! As ever, the infamous St Tudy daffodils were out well before Christmas (meant to take a photo of them under the village Christmas tree all decorated as it looked a bit bizarre really, but never quite made it - maybe next year!) They continue to appear increasingly around the area, including in fact our first openers here on the farm, again last week. Snowdrops all out, though seemingly less of them this year compared to last, but looking like the primroses should be good again as they are already springing up in leaf everywhere. Hopefully we'll get lots of bluebells in the woods too and see our orchids again.

We've been wondering down to check the woods and river whilst walking the dogs a lot lately as it was reliably reported on 3rd January by a certain witch that our little field down by the bridge was at one with the river when she, hubby and the mini-witches passed! Not a problem as it's all designed to do this being a water meadow, but it's always good to see it when it happens - photo below!

Many jobs to be done before the new season really kicks off so we are trying to crack on with those now, though there never seems to be a completely quiet time - not that we are complaining, and indeed we send our thanks to all of our guests for choosing Trenarlett this last year and we hope to see many of you again in 2016 - I can spot lots of already familiar names appearing in my bookings list, which is wonderful to see. We hope we are still doing things right and keeping our eye on the ball to maintain standards and service along with the wonderful locaton we are so lucky to have.

We have in fact had our annual inspection just today and are very pleased to say we have comfortably retained our 4 star Gold rating for 2016 so that was all good and hopefully reassuring to everyone.

We look forward to seeing all our guests, either returning or arriving for the first time and will keep everything crossed for a great year for all - oh and some sunshine of course! :)