Starting 2025 – Happy New Year!

And suddenly it’s the start of a new year, which also means we’ve been operating our business for four months now. It’s strange to look back at this time last year – when we were still painting the Shippon in the cold, and the roof was going onto the New Barn (with our laundry and games room). We had to make the decision whether to put solar tiles on or not – National Grid were taking forever to review and confirm our application but we couldn’t delay the build to wait for them (and lucky we didn’t as they didn’t come back to us for months). The whole thing was a bit of a saga. We decided to install the tiles in January, and finally received retrospective approval in April. However we then needed to upgrade our electricity meter (which took another 6+ weeks) and eventually the tiles were hooked up to the battery and inverter in late July. It’s taken us until mid-December to sort out an export tariff with our electricity supplier where we get paid for any excess electricity we generate and put back into the grid. Almost a year since the tiles were initially installed! Crazy…

It’s been a good opportunity to reflect on how we’ve done so far. We’re grateful to all our guests who have chosen to stay at our Farmhouse and make family memories, and who have supported us through their positive feedback and sharing our social media posts (and continue to do so, thank you!!). It’s tough at times running your own business and always be thinking about something or catching up on some unfinished job, so the feedback we get really helps to keep us motivated. Looking ahead to this year is nerve-wracking with so many gaps in our diary, but gives us something to aim for at least. While we have various jobs to occupy us in the Farmhouse, we’d still prefer some bookings coming in through January and February.

One thing we’re taking as a good sign is that a bullfinch has returned to our garden! We last saw a bullfinch just before the sparrowhawk started visiting a few years ago – understandably that must have put him off. Now we’ve moved the feeders down to our new garden and closer to natural hedges, he’s returned. It’s exciting to see the bright pink flashes when he comes to feed.

We had some downtime this week which we spent walking in our local area – mostly to The Kings Arms pub in Stockland village. We did go further afield to The York Inn in Churchinford in Somerset, which was a lovely walk albeit with several inclines as you make your way up the Yarty Valley and over into (and across) the Otter Valley. The pub lunch felt very well deserved after that! We’ve had some beautiful frosty mornings and sunny days so it’s been rewarding to get out and about and make the most of them.

Our New Year guests left on Saturday so the weekend has mostly been taken up with packing up the Christmas decorations in the Farmhouse and doing the changeover. It feels so much bigger now the trees have gone away! We found time to catch up on a few inside jobs – including sorting out our infused alcohol. Since we moved here we’ve been infusing various alcohols with fruit from our orchard – typically you leave the fruit for 1-3 months and then you strain it through a cheesecloth to remove the fruit and large bits of sediment. The longer you leave it the more flavoursome the alcohol – which is good as we didn’t get time to strain anything from 2023 until now! We’ve also found that if you leave the strained liquid for a little while to settle, and then put it through a coffee filter, the result is much cleaner and crisper alcohol without any sediment. So we now have sloe gin which is infusing; a range of plum, damson, apple and pear flavoured alcohol waiting to settle; and more apple, crabapple and quince alcohol ready to drink. We have plenty to see us through to next year at least!