New Year planning meeting

New Bathroom

Finally the bathroom in one of the holiday cottages has been completed just in time for our annual inspection by Visit Britain.  Usually I have got all the decorating and deep cleaning done in time for the dreaded visit but what with the bad weather, getting married, going on holiday etc etc I haven't even started it. I only hope that the dreaded inspector can see that it is a work in progress and give us our 4* rating.  I have spent the last few days painting some reclaimed furniture for one of the bedrooms, they look really good now, pine with white doors now and I have lined the interior of the wardrobes and drawers with wallpaper to match the wall covering and compliment the bedding.  I really need to update the photos on the cottage website now. See this is what happens you do one job and it instantly creates at least one more.

Bedroom in Robin Cottage

On Sunday we had a new year meeting with Mike & Liz from Lakeham alpacas to discuss what we are doing this year with regards to shows, breeding etc.  As we hadn't seen them for a while we combined this with roast lunch and a good bottle of wine (at least they had wine I am refraining for a while)  We have a freezer full of pork so a good leg of pork was roasted and served with sprouts, parsnips and swede from the garden, not bad in terms of food miles and it tasted good as well!
After lunch and down to business.......... are we showing this year......... yes  what breedings are we doing, are we using outside Studs ? (I have my eye on one in particular)  What shows are we having a stand at ?  Lots of decisions to be made and then onto fleece and yarn, as I had just got my yarn back we had a good rummage with that and looked at the fleeces we had left.  The discussions then lead onto where we go from here................ who knows lots of things in the pipe line so I think this should be an exciting year.


We have decided to run a spinning course locally as we have been asked so many times what we do with our fleece.  I have learnt to spin recently and I really enjoy it so we have booked our local hall and engaged Jean Field to be our Tutor for the day.  Details of the course are now on our News and Events  page on our website.


On a totally different  subject Alpacas and Dogs ............. Steve was down the field this after noon when the females came charging through the gate between the fields............. not sure what was going on he spotted a large black collie dog running up the field with Bramble and Carla in hot pursuit, the dog got to the top corner of the field but couldn't get over the fence ............ frantically looking around he spotted Steve in the other corner, decided he couldn't go that way is only option was to run back down the field............ again closely followed by Bramble and Carla this time he managed to get over the bottom fence ............. just wonder what would have happened if it couldn't have got out !  Good to know the girls were on the ball and when Mr Fox comes around they will deal with him in the same way.