The Tom's Barn Blog - Home Page
- See Press and comments for some facts and figures and comments about the barns
- See Parwich and Beyond for what’s on and what there is to see and do when you holiday here
- See Your photos for some happy snaps of Tom’s Barn and Douglas’s Barn and their surroundings, some taken by guests and some by John.
Availability:
There are absolutely no gaps now until a few midweek short breaks in January - plenty of opportunity still - at the moment - for February, but not over the St Valentine's week. Why be bound by a date in the calendar, though? Unless you are a teacher any spell can be just as romantic (don't get me wrong, teachers are just as romantic, but unfortunately just bound by school dates...!). It's not for nothing our two barns have gained a real reputation for being two very special romantic cottages for two, for couples at all ages and stages of their relationship.
Meanwhile, the bookings for 2010 are coming in thick and fast - seven weeks and one midweek booked within a few hours a couple of days ago, so if you are anxious to come here on particular dates it's probably as well to book sooner rather than later. Christmas 2010 in Tom's Barn is already booked by a returning guest not willing to miss out!
Don't forget that any weeks booked this year, for next year, go at this year's prices - and of course if you've been before you get 5% off the price for a week....
We are still getting so many requests for Christmas and New Year - about six over last weekend alone - although we have been booked for ages now. It is always worth asking though, just in case there has been a sudden cancellation (rare) or change of dates (more common!). If we can't help we will always do our best to suggest alternatives for you, friends or colleagues - mainly other Premier Cottages owners that we know we can recommend confidently.
Parwich and Orchard Farm update:
We are rather pleased with ourselves, having managed to buy some really super stainless steel cutlery for both barns. What we already had was fine, but this was such a good bargain and with more implements - 'place settings', from a lovely shop in Bakewell which sadly is having a closing down sale, that we couldn't resist them. The now redundant sets will move into our kitchen - you can see we have our priorities right (or the family might say, maybe not!)...
Do have a look at our Parwich village website. There is always plenty of news; the village hall has been razed to the ground revealing interesting novel views. They have dug out the ground to reduce the height of the new building done the drilling 100m (yes, really) down for the ground source system and are now erecting the steel structure - it is very reminscent of the old-fashioned Mecanno, on a rather big scale. Everything possible is being done to ensure the building is as 'green' and cost saving as can be.
Also on the website, there are some lovely photos of Parwich, many of them taken by John, our own resident photographer. As you can see from the two photos below, the leaves have turned and the days are very definitely autumnal if not downright wintery, although perfect for walkingalthough after the recent rain you mau be glad of the bootwarmers/dryers when you return. The B5056 - our main road into and out of Ashbourne is now more or less permanently closed for the next year and possibly longer while they decide what to do and then hopefully do it.
Finally, an idle rambling, but we are pondering what a 'boutique' holiday cottage is? Are our two barns actually providing a boutique self-catering holiday accommodation experience after all? A relevant website is trying hard to persuade us that we are (and to advertise, of course) but we have yet to be convinced. Apparently we are a boutique experience, and someone has even suggested 'bijou' but we don't really think that sounds right.
Autumn has come to Parwich (taken by John) this week First frost - the view from our back gate
SuperControl:
The online bookings have been coming in thick and fast, and it all seems to be working pretty well as the new system and we gradually get to know each other. We have benefited from a lot of very patient and helpful support from the SuperControl team and also all the kind guests who willingly - and occasionally unwittingly - became trial guinea pigs.
Anyone who uses the online system, please let us know if you meet any hitches. We do know that doing it online suits a lot of people's lifestyles these days and we really want it to work as slickly as possible with the minimum of hassle for all concerned. It certainly simplifies things this end.
You can make an instant provisional booking online - no more laborious downloading of the booking form for you, filling it in and sending it off by post with a cheque. See the How to Book page for more detailed information. Please note, until we have personally confirmed it, your booking remains provisional because of the risk of our having just the previous minute promised the dates you want to someone over the phone.
However, for all those of you who far prefer to do it more personally by email or telephone, everything will continue as before.
And of course, nothing will really have intrinsically changed. Lurking behind the sophisticated online booking system it will still be John and me here in our study at Orchard Farm and of course sometimes Debbie when we are away. It will still be us answering the phone and we will still be more than happy to take bookings over the telephone for those who prefer the human contact and personal touch.
Going green
Son Nick digging the hole for the green cone. He came home to relax. The green cone fully installed
At the moment we are on a 'green' splurge. We have bought some rather attractive compost crocks to use indoors and have replaced the normal kettles with 'Eco-kettles' . We have put in each barn a slow-cooker so that our guests can come home to some hot soup or stews or even rice pudding on their return from a day's walking in the Peak District (assuming they've popped in all the ingredients before setting off!). We are delighted to learn that they are already proving a great success.
Please note, we are keen to do our bit, but only where it is practical. We are not going to become obsessive about it, either for ourselves or our guests. We are keenly aware that people come to relax and get away from all the rules and regs that increasingly beset modern life; if you want to make compost and feed the green cone, that is lovely; if not, that is also fine.
Meanwhile, for the record, below is our Green Cone and other green (slow but well-meaning!) progress :
24 Oct: Our guests and we appear rapidly to be filling the pit; we are obviously putting stuff in faster than it can degrade. Perhaps we are going to need another. We won't tell Nick just yet!
17 Oct: Chicken bones, herring skin and bones...we keep waiting for it to start smelling but - so far - the perfume is sweet, believe it or not. The butts are now full to the brim, with no obvious need to use the water so far collected!
9 Oct: The pile of waste food in the green cone is growing impressively, with no obvious signs of it seeping away obediently silently. The water butts after some heavy rain last Tuesday are reassuringly half full already.
4 Oct: At last we've had some rain (never thought one would be quite pleased about that) and the butts are successfully collecting water: enough to mean that water will actually come out of the taps.
26 Sept: Water butts all installed - still not a drop of rain yet to test them out but we can't imagine this is a long term worry.
24 Sept: Shaun, our lovely Parwich builder, is coming on Saturday to install several water butts which will make watering all our pots easier. Since we ordered them I don't think we've had a drop of rain but that cannot be a permanent anxiety...
19 Sept: It is pleasing to be able to discard fat, bones, and stale bread crusts (hope the Parwich ducks are receiving enough crusts from elsewhere). The mound of food waste is growing with no obvious signs of self-digesting but we hope that is happening silently and unseen under the heap.
5 Sept: We are becoming increasingly impressed. We're absolutely determined not to become green bores or even bullies, but have been delighted to see that most of our guests are as intrigued as we are by the whole process and very keen to use it.
18 Aug: Reassuringly undramatic progress - the pile of sweet smelling debris is growing, slowly, and all being well will start digesting itself!
14 Aug: We and our guests have managed to muster some more left overs, including meat and fish and well-boiled up (for stock) chicken bones. Nothing dramatic seems to be happening down the hole yet, but remarkably it all seems to remain very sweet smelling and inoffensive.
1 Aug: A solemn procession - John, Janet and Marion - went to witness the first feeding of the cone! We had actually managed to accumulate some more left overs like bacon rind and some tired remains of a pudding. We were impressed how warm the interior of the solar heated cone had become.
28 July: Well, we are all set up but have nothing to go into the hole yet apart from a shoulder of lamb bone; I made all the vegetable left overs and gravy into soup! Have to do better than this if we are going to become competent green cone users. We will have to hope between us and our weekly guests we'll soon be making better use, but it is early days yet!
26 July: John did much of the digging until it got deep. Our son, Nick, up from London for a weekend of rest and relaxation found himself doing the rest - very competently I might add, and the green cone is now installed.
15 July: - No - all is well, only seven weeks after we ordered it , it has come, quite undigested but with no instructions at all... For those that aren't too sure about these things, it should 'digest' cooked food left overs including meat and fish but not the veg. and fruit etc which goes into the normal compost. It sounds more complicated than it probably is!
8 July 2009: We ordered about six weeks ago a Green Cone food digester; one hopes as John suggested, that it hasn't self-digested en route.
Trip Advisor
The Tom's Barn and Douglas's Barn Trip Advisor entry is live at last, and we are no longer listed as being in Teeside, which is a help! It certainly confused people, including us.
And another milestone - we have had a review. We eventually discovered who wrote it, lovely guests who are have just booked their next visit for February. Thank you both very much! We always get such wonderfully warm and appreciative comments to us privately, and in our Visitors' Books, and now also, anonymous ones on the Visitrac questionnaire; however, these are all very discreet and not aired publicly, so it feels good to have a Trip Advisor comment and let's hope it will spur others on to action! We do know that at least one other review has been sent to TripAdvisor but that one must be circling round Durham Cathedral rooftops - it never reached our site, anyway!
We have asked several of our many overseas guests (lovely Australian ones mainly but no doubt it applies to many other nationalities as well) how their fellows down under would find somewhere in England to stay and Trip Advisor seems the place they'd look so you'd be actually helping them find somewhere nice (or at least that's what we sincerely hope you'd feel!).
We were talking to a colleague the other day, mentioned twitter, and before we knew where we were, he had registered us as tomsbarn and Marion F-Sessions as the luxury holiday cottage owner! Our first attempt to start 'twittering' was ruined by a violent thunderstorm which lead to a five-hour long power cut, so that wasn't a very promising start.
Our twitterings are very sporadic and dull as ditch water to boot! Anyway, those of you who are more experienced in these things may be interested to start following and spark things up somewhat if that's possible.... Our instant posse of four follower could do with a boost, please.
Garden and Parwich News:
Thanks to Keith and Karen who stayed in Douglas's Barn in June we have two or three lovely photos of the view they woke up to each morning. There is a lovely picture of the Rambling Rector (rose) which was at the time nearly falling down with the weight of its blossoms.
The gorgeous weather in June and during Wimbledon week appears to have been our entire rather short-lived summer. The tantalizing odd spells of sunshine and barbecues have been a treat rather than an expectation this year, but as long as it's not absolutely pouring down the all weathers are good for enthusiastic walkers.
Facelifts and improvements for the barns!
There is always some new development. The present thrust is greenwards, with eco-kettles going in, and slow cookers; compost crocks and green cone caddies.
Equipment-wise we are starting to research a really good replacement electric cooker for Tom's Barn. The current one works beautifully but it has been there for five years and the last QiT inspector felt it needed to be replaced with a more up to date model...
We have all got used to the what used to be pine cupboards in Tom's Barn galleried bedroom now being painted in Farrow and Ball String. The general feeling is very positively that it is a big improvement. The pine, which we loved, had become quite dark over the years, and and it all feels much brighter now.
We are also getting the hang of the new washer-dryer and the fridge-freezer in Tom's Barn. Both the old models were still working fine but we thought it about time they were revamped. We have taken the washer down to our son, Nick, in London, who has just bought his first flat. Getting it upstairs to his first floor flat was very seriously taxing for all concerned but fortunately Nick is young, fit and strong and John and I did our best and the machine is now safely ensconced.
The Vi-spring bed and mattress for Tom's Barn and an especially commissioned Vi-spring mattress to fit the slightly wider/longer bed in Douglas's Barn seem both to be going down a treat!
Tom's Barn bed was due a change but we didn't feel we could leave Douglas's Barn out of the picture, so both are now - we hope - offering blissful comfort (if not, tell Vi-spring, not us!). The 'old' mattress from Douglas's Barn is now gracing our own spare room bed so everyone is happy. In fact we have been somewhat embarrassed to realise how less comfortable our own house guests must have found the spare room bed in the past.
On a much smaller scale in each barn you will now find a little vacuum flask in each barn for those of you who feel happier walking with some hot or cold refreshment to hand. (This idea was thanks to a suggestion on our Visitrac questionnaire.) You will also find a small mug of teaspoon for cooks' tastings as suggested by Roger; the aprons are now proudly hanging up and waiting to be used, please note, Roger, and those other many men cooks. The aprons are suitably manly, and apparently made out of the same material as wet suits.
New Photos for our website
At last we have some new photos, on the Home and Tom's Barn and Douglas's Barn pages. There have been so many changes - colour schemes, furniture and equipment - since our last professional photographs; it is good to feel we are now a bit more up to date with what we show you and what you can expect when you come here. Do hope you like them.
John keeps taking more for the Blog Photos page, the delay is just a question of finding the time to put them up
Beat the Credit Crunch
As usual all bookings for 2010 (or even beyond) made in the current year are at the current (2009) prices. So, if you have been before you benefit doubly - 5% off this year's price for a booking for a week (or more) next year...! That can't be bad.
See our How to Book Page for how you might be able to set someone's heart alight by planning a surprise romantic treat for your husband/wife/partner. It is a guaranteed success - both generous giver and grateful receiver are equally happy; even just the looking forward to the break does one a power of good.
There is a 5% discount throughout the year for all weeks booked by previous guests.
Enjoy England Gold Award 2009-2010 for Douglas's Barn!
Earlier this year we received the news of this award. Apparently the award is 'for exceptional quality of accommodation and customer service' made to all Five Star holiday cottages that achieve 91% or over in their overall Quality in Tourism inspection score. We had no idea, so the whole thing came right out of the blue but very pleasingly nonetheless.
Tom's Barn, which is just as lovely and quite as popular (and we look after you all exactly the same!) just missed the boat, with 90%... We'll have to do even better next year.
Five Stars again, for 2009-2010
We had our annual (except it was only ten or so months since the last one) Visit Britain Quality Assurance Scheme inspection on Thursday June 4. It was conducted by a new to us inspector who was very pleasant, very thorough we felt, and very fair so we were somewhat surprised to discover, in spite of numerous 'improvements' in Tom's Barn since the last inspection, that our total score remained the same.
We had been hoping we might notch up another percentage point to get a Gold Award for Tom's Barn as well as Douglas's Barn (see paragraph above) but apparently the fact that the cooker in Tom's Barn is now being outshone by the newness of the fridge and the washer dryer meant we can't, which seems somewhat tough. We had already indicated that a new cooker was on the agenda for next year but one can only do so much each year. Oh well. At least we still get 100% for cleanliness
Tom's Barn in the Daily Mail
Tom's Barn gets a (very small!) mention in the Daily Mail of Wed 15 July, we were delighted to see. You'll find it in the bottom left hand corner of page 59 in the Travelmail page in a pale blue (colour) section entitled 'Summer Loving'!
It may have been small but obviously a lot of Daily Mail readers are very sharp sighted and spotted it easily. Unfortunately the telephone no. in the article is incorrect: our no. is 01335 390 519. However, all is not lost by any means since the slightly bemused friends - who couldn't understand at first who this Tom was that everyone was suddenly asking for - cottoned on to the problem and have been acting as unpaid agents ever since!
Also unfortunately the price quoted for a week is actually the lowest - midwinter - price for a short break but most people have realised that a luxury 5 star holiday cottage in the Peak District is going to cost quite a bit more than £275 for a full week even in these straitened times.
Tom’s Barn and Douglas’s Barn video
The short video clip is now live!
As you will see, it is short. You can't hope to say everything in about two minutes, but what we hope is that it will add another dimension to the images and text on the website and brochure, and the comments from our guests.
It was shot on a fairly typical leafless November day; fortunately on this day it was sunny and actually quite warm but of course there is no evidence of all the vibrant summer colours.
However, as both Tom's and Douglas's Barns are practically just as busy during the winter as the summer (the appeal of bracing walks and home to a soothing bath and cosy warm evening by the fire) it is probably no bad thing to show it in the winter, but we hope to be able to add some more colourful hot weather shots next year because there is no denying it is just absolutely lovely here then, too.
The clip is by no means comprehensive (see above) but the intention always was simply to convey a mere hint of the flavour. We'll be interested to know whether everyone will think we have succeeded. Please let us know. We won't at this stage be able to do anything about it, but we'll learn for next time!
These days the possibilities for publicity both good and - but we hope not – bad, are enormous. Our son Nick helped us set up a Facebook site Tom's Barn Facebook about a year ago and to be honest, we rather forgot about it after that only to discover to our surprise that we now have eight or nine fans.
Rather confusingly, Tom's Barn and Douglas's Barn appear twice on Facebook! Our daughter, Ruth has started a group on her site called Holiday Cottages in the Peak District and this now has 20 members. Perhaps somebody who knows more about these things will tell us how we can amalgamate the two but if you care to have a look do click on Tom's Barn Holiday Cottages in the Peak District Group and perhaps become a member of that group as well!
So – all you Facebook fans and addicts – please think about swelling our band of friends if you’d care to or simply leaving a comment!
Strictly Come Dancing then, now Waterloo Road
Tom Chambers 'Our' Tom Chambers has now transformed into the new headmaster of that gripping - to some - school drama about the ultimate nightmare school which anybody who has ever been a teacher feels glad they're not part of: John absolutely loves it! After the first few episodes it seems clear that there are many more crises simply waiting to happen and the new headmaster seems to be creating some of them himself.
For those new to such things, Tom used to be in Holby City as Sam Strachan; last autumn he thrilled us all in Parwich by winning the recent Strictly Come Dancing competition. Tom comes from Parwich, where his parents still live. The village followed his progress through the competition with enormous interest and pride.
We last saw him and Clare at the Remembrance Day service, when, as he always does, he played the Last Post on his trumpet as we all stand outside in the graveyard in front of the Parwich War Memorial. For more info as we discover it see Parwich and Beyond.
2010 Premier Brochure
The new Premier Cottages 2010 brochure is now out. If you would like a copy let Premier (or us) know that you'd like to be added to their mailing list. There are plenty of exciting changes planned for a revamped website; and the brochure definitely has a new look.
As many of you will know, Premier Cottages is a 'co-operative' of holiday cottage owners (not an agency), all committed to very high standards. There is a rigorous selection policy and only Five or the very best Four Star cottages are accepted. We feel privileged to be members.
Miscellaneous highlights
See Your photos for some happy snaps of the two holiday cottages and scenes around it, some taken by guests and some by John. Any guests' photos will be gratefully received.
