Romantic cottages for two in the Peak District
Romantic cottages for two in the Peak District
28/11/09: The November entries are going to be rather slim…
Meanwhile, the pile of waste food in the cone is growing rapidly, but still sweet smelling. We have resisted the temptation to explore underneath the surface. I do hope something is actually happening, though.
Meanwhile, with all this rain – nothing like the dreadful floods in Cumbria, but wet enough for all that – we could have filled the water a hundred times over; all our stone troughs are full to the brim and of course there is no call for any extra water at all at the moment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, see our separate Green Cone Log for other green (slow but well-meaning!) progress :
You can now book and pay online. Click on the relevant Vacancy Calendar or go straight to the How to Book Page.
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
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!
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.
I have had the pleasure of managing Tom and Douglas Barns for 10 Years and felt it was time to enjoy a bit more of my retirement. The barns will continue to be holiday cottages and will be maintained to the standard that all previous guests have enjoyed. The only change is that Sykes Cottages […]
The weather is a bit mixed but we are still getting sunny days. A perfect time of year to come and stay for a few days and have a walk in the lovely countryside, take a bike ride, visit one of the many attractions that all stay open or just relax in Tom or Douglas […]
The weather has been so wet but our barns offer a cosy retreat in beautiful countryside. Why not pack a bag for a few days and have a break . We have extended our spring prices until mid June and reduced our summer prices. It would be lovely to see you for a few days […]
