We really thought things would quieten down once we started letting the Farmhouse out, but this week seems to have been particularly busy. Our second set of guests arrived on Monday and stayed till Saturday – they’ve been perfect guests – they were very friendly with two gorgeous dogs and left the house clean and tidy. Bookings are starting to pick up – we’ve had three bookings come through this weekend including one over Christmas. Although I learnt this week that having a house ‘decorated over Christmas’ means the decorations need to be up by 1st December – Christmas is coming earlier this year then!!
As we’ve had guests in the Farmhouse this week, John’s attention has been focused on getting the Games Room closer to being completed. He’s spent the week installing the sound system and projector, and sanding the skirting board ready for me to paint. We still need to furnish it properly (we only have the sofas that wouldn’t fit in the farmhouse) and there’s a bit more building work to do once painted – it’ll be great to open that as the winter weather sets in and people don’t want to stray too far from home comforts as it’ll provide a new space and more entertainment. We’ve ordered a few more board games for the Farmhouse too this week to add a bit more choice, which we put in when we did our second changeover on Saturday. This time was a little less pressurised and easier as we only had one bedroom to change and our next guests aren’t due in until Friday – but we still did the full cleaning list so it’s kept fresh and clean.
We’ve spent some time picking the remaining damsons and some of the apples from the orchard. It’s been incredibly disappointing this year – most of the stone fruit trees haven’t produced anything which is a real shame now we’re properly set up with our Environmental Health rating and a couple of sales channels. We’re not sure whether it’s the impact of the builders digging through roots; last year’s tree damage (we lost several large branches particularly in the plum trees); the wet and windy spring we had (a lot of the blossom was blown off before it really even arrived); or because we didn’t have time to prune all the trees with everything else going on. At least it feels like we’re getting the codling moth situation under control, as very few of the fruit seem to be damaged (although we haven’t had that many plums and damsons to tell yet). After our first year here we started spraying nematodes on the trees as a biological solution that’s safe for wildlife – the nematodes eat the codling moth larvae before they can bury into the fruits and ruin them. This weekend we started our fourth spraying cycle (we do it three weeks in a row in Autumn) – while it’s a pretty exhausting evening job it’s worth it to see the results. Hopefully we’ll be able to get rid of them completely, but that feels a little way off yet.
Our new house signs arrived on Friday so we decided to catch up on a few outdoor jobs on Saturday morning. We only ordered two to begin with so we could see what they’re like, but we completely love them! They fit perfectly with the slate roofs so we’ve ordered signs for the remaining buildings as well. It’s always a challenge drilling into stone as you can never guarantee where the drill bit will go and you need to find a position where you’re not drilling into mortar – as a result our laundry sign is not quite centred and definitely not straight! And neither sign is flat up against the wall so if you look carefully you can see the rawl plugs behind them. As long as we don’t get any heavy winds!
And we also (finally!) put up our two remaining swift boxes on the back of the three-bed barn. We must have bought them well over a year ago but needed to wait for the building work to finish. Our builders have been kind enough to leave us their platform so we didn’t need to climb a ladder and drill into the wall while precariously balanced – as it was we ended up putting them into the fascia boards above the plant room so they didn’t get in the way of the shutters for the big window. It would be brilliant to get swifts living there next year – the two we put up on the front of the Farmhouse were inhabited by sparrows this year, which was a bit of a shame given we’ve put up sparrow hotels too and I’m not sure they’ve been used.
We’ve managed to make a bit more progress in our house – we now have another wardrobe (which means fewer clothes piled up in the spare room); and we finally built our bed! No more sleeping on a mattress on the floor; plus we’ve gained extra storage space underneath. We’ve still got so many boxes to unpack but we’re getting there one step at a time. We also had a bit of excitement at the start of the week when we found a common pipistrelle bat in the log burner! We thought it was able to get out through the chimney by itself but it ended up going through one of the vents and into the house instead – cue a bit of frantic waving until it disappeared through the French windows! So cute watching it wake up in the evening.
On Sunday we mostly took the day off and walked with friends from Stockland village up to one of our local pubs for lunch – the Flintlock Inn in Marsh (run by other friends of ours). It’s always lovely to have the chance to appreciate where we live – we don’t get to do it often enough together and were extra lucky this weekend as the weather was glorious and we had amazing views down the valley. The photos never do it justice!
Ley Farm Cottages 