This feels like a very quick week – the darker evenings limit what we can get done in the evening, and I’ve been away for most of the week anyway. We managed to get the sloe bushes planted out in front of the air source heat pumps at the weekend – it’s a condition of our planning permission that we planted something to hide these from view and we weren’t allowed trellises with [fast-growing] jasmine as these were deemed too suburban. John drilled holes in the planters (which are actually feeding troughs) during the week and filled them with soil; and the sloe bushes arrived on Friday. They’re not quite what we agreed with the council – we’d put in permission for cherry laurels as we had some left from when we dug up the yard – but then decided that sloes would be far more in keeping with the local area. We also added a random hawthorn bush that had seeded in the front garden – hopefully they’ll all bush out in the next couple of years and the air source heat pumps will be hidden from view.
We received our third AirBnB review this week which means we’ve finally got a rating! Thankfully all our guests have really enjoyed their stays and given us 5 star ratings which is a great position to start from. We’ve not had any more bookings through AirBnB since we changed our pricing structure to stop allowing super-cheap 2-night breaks so having a rating and more reviews should help push us up the rankings.
Our Sunday was taken over with by far the longest changeover yet. It took almost ten hours each to get the house looking fresh again – we have a few repairs to carry out too and it’s a good opportunity to touch up the various scratches and cracks that have appeared since we finished the building work. At least we can do those in the evenings before our next guests arrive on Thursday.
Ley Farm Cottages 