It’s beginning to feel like Christmas here

Our previous guests left on Wednesday – they left a lovely comment in our guest book and were the first to buy jam and jelly from us, which is very exciting. So far Daisy’s Dairy – our local milk vending shed who also offer a whole host of locally-produced such as eggs, butter, and meat – are the main seller of our jams. We’re always looking for different ways to sell our other produce – it’s a labour of love more than a money-maker – so if our guests prove to like them then that’s a great opportunity for us.  

As well as the changeover (which John started on Wednesday and we finished together on Thursday), we decorated the Farmhouse ready for Christmas. It’s actually quite stressful decorating a house for someone else because you want to make sure it looks fabulous and they have a really special time. It definitely looks more festive than it ever did while we were living there! Our Christmas guests arrived on Friday and seem to have settled in and like the house, which has enabled us to relax a little more.

Our winter wood delivery arrived on Friday too – typically just as it started to rain. John did a sterling job moving it all into our Old Barn (the three-bed) as our interim storage area. We have a longer-term plan to build a wood store around the side of our new house, but that can wait until we start developing the three-bed barn. We have enough to do right now!

We also took some time to do one of the jobs in our house that’s been waiting for a few months – adding headboards to our beds. We’d initially thought we didn’t have space for headboards as the rooms are quite small, but once we’d built the beds we realised the design meant headboards wouldn’t take up any more space. We ordered the headboards a few months ago but have been waiting for a wet (or cold) day to install them when we wouldn’t be outside.  We had to take the beds apart and you can’t really see them with the pillows, but at least that’s one thing ticked off the list…

We had our first official business meeting on Saturday – at the pub because whenever we’ve tried to have a meeting at home we generally get distracted with other jobs that need doing! John prepared a number of slides that took us through our financial position and forecast for 2025, and we reviewed what we’ve learnt to date and discussed how we could improve our offering in future. One of the topics for discussion was when we might be able to start work on our one-bed cottage but we’re a long way away from that! Plus we decided it’s best to get through a year of renting out the farmhouse to make sure we’re used to that before adding more complications. We also listed out the major jobs we want to do in 2025 and prioritised the first few – there are a lot! Let’s see how we get on…

Our next blog will be after Christmas so we wanted to take this opportunity to wish all of our guests, friends and family a very merry Christmas. We’ve really appreciated all the positive comments and sharing of our blogs and social media posts as it helps to raise awareness of our little business and keeps us motivated (especially in the tougher and colder times!). We hope you all have a wonderful time 🎅🎄