I am cheating a bit, I am sure blogging should be done on a
more regular basis but being a busy bee I am doing a bit of a roundup of the
last few months.
The good news is that the summer was very busy for us, the
weather was great and it was so lovely to be able to welcome guests from all over
the world, in the sunshine. The past
couple of summers have been pretty bad weather wise and even the most beautiful
country side cannot be enjoyed as much in the rain. We also gained our 4 star
AA badge as well as their awards for both Breakfast and Dinner – a bonus which
was unexpected – we are so pleased that our food is appreciated.
As already blogged, I also have been lucky enough to have a studio in the
garden. Les put up a new summer house
for me to paint in. When you run a
B&B most of your home is used up with guests so my painting has been neglected
recently due to lack of space. I had
been using the Gazebo in the garden but that wasn’t really successful; Les and
I are such hoarders that it had gradually been filled up with ‘stuff’ so there
was no room to paint in the end. So now that
too has had a face lift and a new coat of paint inside and it is now a lovely
place to relax and read in, or just enjoy the odd glass of wine. And of course
our guests can use it to. So instead of one not very useful garden room we now
have two!
We are already having
a nice autumn and although the thought of picking up all the leaves in the
garden is not one to relish, it is such a lovely time of year. But in fairness, Les will do most of it!
As autumn is also the time for bottling, jam and chutney
making, it is a busy time. I have
already made blackcurrant and gooseberry jam and now have 12 pounds of plums
and trees of apples waiting to be dealt with.
I normally freeze a lot of the apples for crumbles and pies through the
winter, but also love apple jelly though it’s a pain to make. The rest will be
chutney and I haven’t even thought what to do with the pears yet.
We have managed to have a break though and have just had a
long weekend in France – our annual Twinning get together. It was our turn to go to St Gregoire (near
Rennes in Brittany) and we had as usual a fantastic time. The weekend was spent
mainly eating and drinking with the added trips to Mont St Michel and
Honfleur thrown in. The French always
look after us so well and over the past 11 years we have been involved, we have
made some wonderful friends. Like many
organisations we are made up of mainly ‘older’ people but this year we had 11
students from our local high school join us which was fantastic, they all had
such a good time and we hope that we can continue to encourage younger people
to get involved.
Well must get back to the kitchen, the jam won’t make
itself.
