The Mystery Shoppers Target Douglas’s Barn

Who are these people? Probably not the Hotel Inspector (no TV cameras about) nor Mary Portas unless she’s moving from shops into self-catering accommodation…

We can reveal that it was John and Marion from next door, no less, fond next door neighbours maybe but just as potentially critical as those paid to criticise because they/we want to make sure everything is as right for all our guests as it possibly can be. And we feel strongly that you cannot have any real idea unless you become a guest yourself (just as it would help anyone in authority or with power over others such as carers in old people’s homes to try a spot of role reversal. Things might improve rapidly).

So last Monday we moved in to Douglas’s Barn. There had been no booking for that short break and the last chance we had to stay as guests was just before Douglas’s Barn opened, in 2006; you may remember we stayed in Tom’s Barn last year. Interestingly, having just returned from North Yorkshire where we had spent four days in a very charming cottage near Ripon, we were well into guest-mode and it was helpful knowing the things that had made an impression on us then.

The first impression we had of our stay in Yorkshire was a smiling, warm, friendly face chasing down the pavement to attract our attention as we drove past for the third time. What a relief and how lovely! But of course, when we stayed here we couldn’t exactly welcome ourselves so there was no one to welcome us smiling or otherwise but we did feel very welcomed, comfortable and safe, as Douglas’s Barn is so bright and warm and welcoming.With all the lights on, music playing and the blinds drawn we felt completely relaxed and detached from the world – so much so that it was hard to remember we weren’t actually on holiday, despite how relaxed and detached we felt.

In fact we found it too warm probably because our own house is draughty and pretty cold so ended up with the heating turned off and the ‘fake fire’ lit up for atmosphere but not actually on. Having settled in we determined to use absolutely everything and I think did use everything apart from the hair dryer (my hair dried too fast…) and the boot driers, oh – and the rotisserie. (Nobody has used that yet, in 5 1/2 years!) Fortunately everything worked. While we were there Jason Fowkes our wonderful decorator was touching up the paint work and redoing things like the stairs (we had to go up and down without touching any of the sides or rails!); I washed and ironed the throws and all the cushion covers and took the red patchwork quilt to the laundry as it is too big for any domestic machine.

We cooked several full meals, and Janet and her husband Paul came to dinner on the third night so that they could gauge how it felt to be entertained and we could see how easy it was to cater for 4. Once again I tried a steak and kidney pudding in the slow cooker, determined to perfect it. Thanks to generous greasing of the bowl, it turned out beautifully this time; the others were very polite bit I felt it was overcooked (which in fact it was because we had been in Derby all day and had had to put the pudding on before 9am!). Catering for 4 was fine except there was not enough space on the table for much more than our plates and glasses so I had to do the serving from the kitchen counter, but that didn’t really matter.

We loved the bigger longer/wider bed, we loved the shower, I wasn’t too sure about the whirlpool bath – too noisy and unrestful for me but I always find that on the odd occasion I use a whirlpool anywhere. We loved the spacious bedroom – rather more spacious than ours next door. We missed having a log burner but enjoyed the ease of not having to do anything more than flick a switch for atmosphere or heat (and anyway, we were so hot all the time…).

My main/only criticism was about the kitchen cupboard layout which I spent one whole day and half the night rearranging. It is now – to my mind anyway – much more logical and efficient. It looked fine how we had it, in theory, but it was a classic case of doing what seems OK rather than what is actually going to be easy and convenient for people to use. We went straight to Derby to replace various bits and bobs such as washing up bowl, oven gloves etc and arranged for Panasonic to look at the brand new micro/convection oven which we discovered to be damaged, or we hope defective (think guarantees – it was expensive). We will replace the toaster which works fine but looks tired. And I bought a new rolling pin; I knew we used to have one but we could not find it… (in Tom’s Barn it was the frying pan that had gone AWOL that we had to replace).

So – our verdict – a very very happy stay for us with some constructive if somewhat exhausting changes made to improve the kitchen ‘workflow’.

In fact we would happily recommend Douglas’s Barn to anyone who asked. We feel it would wonderfully suit most people, of all ages, except anyone that wanted to bring dogs or those set on the idea of having a log burner. (They can find all they need in Tom’s Barn!)

Autumn Berries, Flowers and Fruit

After a truly wonderful spell in North Yorkshire it is still lovely to get home again. Autumn is creeping up, but the grass is still growing and there is still plenty colour in the garden. John had taken lots of photos recently, and a small selection can be seen in our gallery ORCHARD FARM GARDEN: Autumn 2011.

Isn’t this red acer beautiful (although I must confess since John took the photo heavy winds almost stripped it bare…).

Lots more colourful pictures to be seen… Meanwhile, this is pretty short and sweet as we are off to London first thing tomorrow morning for what should be a fun weekend, starting off with a cricket club reunion lunch for John and eight other members of a successful Trinity College Dublin cricket 1st X1 side. In case you’re wondering, two can’t come…

Fortunately wives are included and as most of us have known each other a very long time now it will be a fun occasion, with much nostalgic reminiscing and no doubt leg-pulling if any of the team start dwelling too long on their own particular contribution to the team’s success.

Then tomorrow evening Nick has arranged a supper party for ‘sisters, cousins and aunts’ and has tickets for something on Saturday. We have yet to discover what!

Which all points to a roundabout way of preparing for perhaps another delay before the next blog post, when I hope to write briefly about the pleasures of being on the other side of the holiday cottage fence, as guests rather than owners… Watch this space!

Borneo Cruise, Ruthie’s Report

You’ve heard from Casilda Grigg, via her report in the Spectator of 21st September 2011; now you can read Ruth’s long-awaited account…

My friend Casilda offered me a wonderful opportunity, totally out of the blue – to join her as she’d been commissioned to write a travel piece about a cruise for the Spectator.  Initially I thought a cruise? No way!  Like most people I thought a cruise involved extremely overweight people increasing their problem by taking advantage of a 24 hour free buffet and probably playing bridge all day.  Casilda persisted – for which I will always thank her – and my interest was piqued, along with a sense of how rarely such an amazing opportunity lands on your lap.  Very kindly my bosses let me take a trip at short notice, and it was all a bit of a blur of trying to work out flights and packing and clearing the decks so I didn’t have very much time to find out in detail about what lay ahead.  In some ways that was part of the fun.

The journey to Borneo was not bad at all – although it was 24 hours’ travelling in all – because we flew Emirates and they very kindly upgraded us, so we took full advantage of the extremely comfortable beds in Business Class and the Veuve Reserve.  We had a night to recover in a super hotel  then embarked in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo.  From the off I loved it all.  The Orion II was a small ship in cruise terms (50 cabins) and the people on the trip were all fun, fit and energetic (probably because they were mostly Australian; Orion is an Australian company).

Every day we were off the ship almost all day – often at the crack of dawn.  Our activities ranged from attending a very moving memorial service for those who died in the Sandakan Death Marches to exploring Buddhist Temples and Churches to visiting a modern Rungus Longhouse.  I went diving; I met Orang Utans; I swam in a mud volcano – probably one of the most fun things I’ve ever done as it met my requirement that a perfect holiday should involve some form of regression to childhood.  I went upriver on a sort of water safari and saw amazing wildlife, including snakes and monitor lizards.  And I think I danced back on the ship every night – Casilda and I saw it as our role to lead the charge onto the dance floor – and to be ready for that I had great fun experimenting with what I thought was Cruise Wear.

But there was a reflective side to it all too; it was called an expedition cruise, and for good reason.  We were in a different spot every day, moving at night – and how brilliant it was not to have to pack, and to get back to a luxurious cabin at the end of every (extremely tiring) day.  There was an emphasis on sustainability and helping the communities we visited: we planted trees to make a small effort against palm oil plantation deforestation and visited a school that Orion supports.

It was also about learning: there were experts on hand (historian, biologist, naturalist, geologist) whose brains you could pick whenever it suited you – it usually suited me over dinner and wine.  They were all fascinating and generous with their knowledge.  The food was amazing – I loved it, and managed to have a three course breakfast on all days were time allowed, including an omelette cooked to my direction.  The thing that struck me most though was the Malaysian people we met.  Every single one was friendly, funny, and open, with a wonderful turn of phrase and naughty sense of humour along with a real sense of pride in their country and in Borneo.  I’d love to spend more time there and I would LOVE to do another cruise.  And I think I could even learn to live with a 24 hour buffet too.

North Borneo Cruise Update

Some of you may remember that our daughter Ruthie recenty returned from an amazing cruise round the north Borneo coast, thanks to a very good friend of hers, Casilda Grigg, who had been commissoned to write a piece on this Orion Expedition Cruise for the Spectator. We in turn have commsssioned a short personal account from Ruthie for our Tom’s Barn Blog but this has not yet materialised – she has not been as speedy as Casilda whose splendid article is in today’s Spectator.

Do read her piece! Their trip sounds just the sort of luxury-but-interesting cruise without the cowds that we’d really love too, in theory, not that we are ever likely to be lucky enough to go on one – the ‘starting’ price per person does not even include the flight there and back… The Peak District will happily do for us.

Casilda writes beautifully, and so evocatively; it’s enough to cause writer’s block in anyone with pen in hand (or sitting at a computer keyboard for that matter).  “Keep calm and carry on,” I tell myself as I plug on quietly, trying to remember that at least I am writing, when I do, it is for my own personal pleasure and others’ occasional mild entertainment, not as a highly respected journalist like Casilda Grigg.

John found this rather spendid photo of two Rhinecerous Hornbills, unfortunately not in the wild but in Singapore Zoo which explains the bowl rather conveniently attached to the bough!

Facing up to Facebook

I am rather proud of the fact that despite advancing years and general lack of ‘coolness’ we have been on Facebook for over three years. What isn’t quite so impressive is that in those 3 plus years I have done very, very little and have tended only to respond to others rather than initiate anything positive (rather the way I am with LinkedIn now, but I keep meaning to get to grips with that, too).

The pressure is now on. With apparently half the population of Great Britain on Facebook alone, never mind Twitter and all the others, one just has to accept that social networking is part of life already, just as email has become, and mobile phones and whatever else is in store for the future. We have been waking up to this in our little part of the world, helped enormousy by wonderfully inspirational training provided, free at the moment (thanks to European funding) by the ebusiness club which is run mainly I think by the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce for all small/medium sized businesses in the East Midlands.

Not surprisingly, the funding situation is becoming very insecure so we all tend to go to as many relevant sessions as possible while the going is good! The workshops and seminars are all designed to help what may be fairly isolated small businesses keeping up with website design and optimisation, online marketing, social media, wireless and mobile working etc. Most of the Peak District Premier Cottages owners have made full use of all that’s on offer and we have all benefitted enormously.

The emphasis on social marketing has struck home and as a group we have decided all to develop a Facebook page for our own properties, but we also have started our own Peak District Premier Cottages page which is building up slowly. Do please have a look! And while you are on Facebook, please have a look at our Tom’s Barn and Douglas’s Barn one as well and if you are that way inclined, please do ‘Like’ us as well.

Our terrific webman Jeremy Blough has worked hard in not very much time to design our Welcome page which is meant to reflect the feel of our website… Any comments, suggestions and (gently worded) citicisms will be gratefully accepted. We know we have a lot to learn.

How to Make a Prizewinning Cake

I have been baking cakes, pretty successfully, for many many years. I have never ever entered into  competition but for the Parwich Horticultural Show yesterday I was persuaded to do so, and some plum jam and some biscuits…

Pride comes before the proverbial fall, not that I expected to win but I fondly imagined I might at least come in with a Third. No such luck: my poor Victoria sponge  was not commended in any way at all. Nor was my jam (that was possibly less of a surprise, although I must admit it tastes pretty good but maybe it isn’t quite up to the perfectionist’s standard. The biscuits actually won First Prize, which I must try to remember but cakes do take more skill.

Later last night Ben’s wife let us into the secret. The secret, she advises, is not to wear too many clothes! No wonder I didn’t get a prize.

Anyway, the out and out winner of the cake section was our good friend Ben who to the best of my knowledge isn’t baking cakes every day of the week. It had risen beautifully (he did use five eggs as against my three…) it was light and airy and tasted divine (I know because I begged a mouthful off Kevin who successfully bid for it at auction at the end of the show).

FInally, to become a lot less personal, the Parwich Strongman Competition was held on Saturday afternoon, on the football ground at the bottom of the village – a lovely green and spacious setting with plenty of space for the children to run around in, and for the Parwich A52s ‘Folk-tinged rock from the land of the peaks’ to play.

Sad for Parwich’s reputation for manliness the competition was won for the second year running by a man from Belper, but – it must be pointed out – he was put under serious pressure until the last moment by young Tom Slater, Parwich born and bred. Plenty of photos on the Parwich blog: they certainly have to do some pretty amazing and alarming things

Borneo, Haddon Hall, Debbie’s 50th, Eden Day Spa…

Our daughter Ruth is back from Borneo, having had a wonderful time. She has promised to write a short account for our blog, so watch this space – we won’t pre-empt her news. Here is a photo of her waiting to dine at the captain’s table!

We can’t compete with cruises but last Friday we enjoyed a splendid evening with some fellow DRCS friends and supporters, at Haddon Hall. Matlock Rotary organised an ‘Evening Extravaganza at Haddon Hall” with all proceeds being shared between three local charities, one of which was the DRCS (Derwent Rural Counselling Service). The dress theme was ‘Dress to Impress’ and you must admit we did pretty welll?

To our disappointment most the other guests had obviously not taken the theme to heart but we felt pleased – and just a teeny bit smug – that we had! We haven’t yet heard how much the Matlock Rotary are going to dinate to DRCS but our party – all involved DRCS supporters – were very glad to support the event.

Throughout the weekend we have had the delightful company of our daughter Ruthie hot from North Borneo via London where she works, and Douglas and Beverley, two very good friends who used, a long time ago, to live in Parwich but Douglas’s work has taken him from here to South Carolina and now North Yorkshire!

They too were here for the weekend, the excuse being to help our friend Debbie ‘American Deb’ celebrate her 50th. Of course our Australian contingent, Sara, Derek and Tom, couldn’t be here nor Nick who was working all weekend; Allie Webster flew back from the states just in time to be at her mother’s birthday celebrations, barely – but successfully – escaping the hurricane .

Apprehensive?

Totally relaxed!

The final little bit of personal activity to report is a trip today to the Eden Day Spa at Hoar Cross Hall with Debbie, Allie and five other of Debbie’s friends, to continue to celebrate her 50th birthday with a day of self-indulgent pampering ‘treatments’ and swimming, saunas, steam rooms, massages,  facials even ‘nail treatments’ etc.

I hasten to reassure, we didn’t all do everything but we had the greatest fun and finished the day feeling totally self-indulged and relaxed (and quite exhausted, strangely!).

Thus ends our August Bank Holiday weekend news roundup: not a typical weekend by any stretch of the imagination!

Can you help identify these yellow flowers?

We have been asked to help identify the yellow flower in this photo. These were seen on Wolfscotedale by Graham and Margaret but are to be seen in profusion at the moment, nearly always it seems in the midst of harebells. The yellow and blue looks so pretty together.

John and I couldn’t help, being more admirers than experts on wild flowers (in other words, pretty hopeless!) and there seemed to be so many similar looking speciments in our wild flower books so thought we would throw the question open and hope someone will put us out of our misery!

Tom’s Barn Blog – Spare Our Blushes!

Tom's & Douglas's Barns and our guests - the heart of it all

There I was early this morning at Derby’s Pride Park stadium overlooking the football pitch, all ears, concentrating intently. No, I wasn’t watching a football match although one day I perhaps should; rather, I was hoping fervently to pick up some tips from Liam Lally, today’s E-Business club trainer at their Breakfast Briefing for today, ‘Blogging for Business’.

The briefing was as predictably helpful and stimulating as these seminars always are and I did indeed pick up many tips (and many ‘don’t dos’) which I won’t list here but would happily share with any colleagues or friends interested. One warning though was to avoid wriitng a blog if one didn’t like writing and didn’t feel a ‘passion’ for the subject. I came away realising how lucky I am: I have always enjoyed writing so that is no problem and I can take no credit for it, and John and I absolutely love our ‘job’ running Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns, and all the happy links and memories with our guests and friends that we have been privileged to enjoy over the years. You seem to love coming here, and we love having you. So writing as it were to all of you on the blog has always felt very natural and right, rather like an extended correspondence with a really good friend, about simply anything that comes to mind that might just conceivably interest them but loosely at the heart of it all, is the shared link with Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns.

At that rate, we are doing extremely well, but we would appreciate more responses, so please start commenting even more!

There is a problem though. One hopes the friend would reply, occasionally, and occasionally and rewardingly the friend does but as I confided to Liam afterwards when I went up to reveal my identity (the blushes had started subsiding by then, keep reading…) that not as often as we had hoped. I did feel reassured when he told me that if one wrote one blog post a day for 365 days one could expect one comment a year! So there’s a challenge…

But before we get bogged down with challenges – why the blush? And if Jeremy Brough our wonderful web guru/friend had been there he should have taken nearly all the credit when what should appear on the screen as the last slide of the morning but the front page of our Tom’s Barn Blog!!! Liam presented it as a good example of a local blog. It came so totally out of the blue I felt very startled and really did find myself going a deep purple to the consternation of some of the people on my table who had absolutely no idea why. I was so overcome I don’t even remember all that he said, except that it did seem to be quite complimentary.

Keeping Up With Technology

We have been so lucky in the Peak District in Derbyshire to be able to take advantage of some wonderful and completely free training that is provided for small to medium businesses many of whom operate in very rural areas, bringing employment and money into what are often deprived – if very beautiful – parts of the county.

Having taught for a lot of my adult life, I am an absolute glutton now for being on the other side of the fence, for learning rather than imparting; since John retired he has started coming to many of the sessions as well, all of which are to do with running a small business as well as possible and using all the technology available to help.  On Wednesday I went hotfoot to Buxton – on my own this time – to a workshop on ‘Social Media for Business’. As we are struggling to make something of our new Facebook Business presence this couldn’t have come at a better time. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… we have been dabbling half-heartedly on the edges of all these for a while, Facebook for nearly 4 years now, but all rather – actually very – half-heartedly.

But now we are assured, and actually are well aware ourselves,  that this is the way things are going so there is no point in being half-hearted. We are trying to be more grownup and positive, and have decided to try seriously to develop our Social Media presence as well as we can. It is all fun and actually I am finding it very exciting but of course there are only a few hours in every day, and one thing we have discovered, you are never ever finished. In the old days one could tackle a task, identify when it was achieved and settle back with a sigh of satisfaction. Twitter and Facebook etc are never finished. They are alive! One has to be very disciplined to hold back – new messages and comments keep pinging in…

In an obscure way, it is almost like having a second website but one based on communication rather than explanation. Because of the instant communication, it is a constantly changing scene, with the ‘owner’ having much less control. To my surprise, I find I am beginning almost hooked. Our Facebook page is becoming more interesting to us and hopefully it will soon be  a bit more interesting to others. We are hoping to be able to cheer things up a bit; at the moment everything all looks a bit dull and unexciting, but we have hopes….

Dullness notwithstanding, , please have a look at – and if you would care to like – the Tom’s Barn and Douglas’s Barn page, we would still be pathetically grateful! And if you have any suggestions about what might be useful, essential or just entertaining and fun, please let us know… We are on new ground here and eager or any tips we can get!