Warm Weather Prognosis from Tom’s & Douglas’s Barns

What is the secret? You’ll have to wait and see how effective it turns out to be…

The icy conditions persist. We have had no snow recently, and none the night before last in spite of warnings and dire predictions of what was to befall. However, the old snow is still with us. Each day it starts to thaw slowly, then each night freezes hard again so conditions underfoot tend to be perilous and the drive not much better but everyone seems to be getting in and out so it’s obviously not that awful.

John and i have not exactly been skipping abut on the snow (unlike the lovely Springer Tweed whose photos we shared on Facebook) the other day but we are certainly teetering out a little more confidently, all thanks to some very effective Ice and Snow Grippers that daughter Ruthie gave us both for Christmas. There are various types around but these are the best we’ve seen, metal studs fitted onto a rubberised thing that slips over your boot or shoe (and very easy to put on and take off).

So impressed with how effective they are we have today ordered a couple of pairs for each barn so that our guests will be able to use them while they were here. And we’ve also bought some traction treads to put under any car or delivery van that gets stuck round us as I did the other day in the doctors’ surgery. To digress for the moment I would like to add a public thanks to Peter R and his granddaughter, Amy, who pushed me out of the frozen mounds of snow I was caught in on the surgery car park. Without them I might be there still.

So now we await the arrival of our snow aids. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed if it means that as soon as they arrive we find absolutely no need for them at all.

Five Stars and a Gold Award

We had our annual Quality in Tourism inspection last month and have just received confirmation that we retain our Five Stars and a Gold Award for each barn which of course is enormously pleasing. We try all the time to keep updating and improving but one never likes to take things for granted, aware that standards and expectations do keep rising.

We are pleased but we do have reservations and each year we have a gripe.  Almost inevitably there are inconsistencies in the scoring; the quarry tile flooring in both barns is identical, but are scored differently; both barns are decorated by the same professional painter, using Farrow and Ball Modern Emulsion: Douglas’s Barn gets 4/5, Tom’s Barn 5/5!

What does it all mean for guests who do not know and probably don’t care?  It’s an indication of quality and what facilities one can expect. Each section – Exterior and Setting,  ‘Management Efficiency’,  Cleanliness, Public Areas, Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Kitchens meets the minimum level for (in our case) Five Star:  What does it mean for the owner? It ensures one keeps up to date, and it is reassurance that one’s standards are not slipping. The inspectors see many different cottages and often can make very helpful suggestions.

Actually to us probably the most pleasing and reassuring element is the Gold Award is for ‘exceptional quality of accommodation and customer service’.

And for Janet, Carol and all of us concerned with the cleanliness and care, the 100% for cleanliness is worth its weight in gold!

So when a new cottage owner asks innocently whether it is worth being assessed by Quality in Tourism or a cynic claims doing so is merely a licence to charge more we would say that the system may not be perfect but it gives guests the chance to make an intelligent choice. Before selecting their holiday accommodation guests can ask themselves, “Is it important to us that our cottage should have a dishwasher, to know it’s super clean, well- equipped….?” Or indeed, “Perhaps we would be happier with unknown/lower expectations and possibly a cheaper price?”

Guests have a measurable standard by which to judge a holiday cottage and it certainly ensures the owners keep on their toes and don’t sit back and rest on their increasingly dusty laurels.

Snowy Update from Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns

Tweed, dancing for joy in the snow!

Just a quick post after a day of snow. Last winter the snow came with a vengeance at the end of November; this year we have had to wait until early February so it seems more exciting – there isn’t that slight niggling worry that it might be going to last for four months or so, and it has come at the weekend so the children and actually many adults could toboggan and not too many souls were worrying about getting to work.

Sadly our Douglas’s Barn’s  guests had decided, very wisely as it turns out, to leave yesterday after they had seen the snow forecasts as they had commitments on Monday that they could not risk missing.

People are getting in and out of the village but without a heavy duty 4×4 it would be wiser to stay safely put!

Orchard Farm: A Quick Gallop Through the Week

Our friendly Orchard Farm Robin

Judging by the absence of new posts on our blog you might think we at Orchard Farm were all asleep, but not so. We are in fact horribly wide awake…! So much has been happening over the past week, much of it fairly mundane although Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs might value getting one’s  returning on time as pretty important and I am glad to say we made the deadline! It was touch and go but all went through although one gathers that with the strike there might have been less need to panic.

We had some friends to stay for our little Parwich book club annual Christmas dinner when we invite the husbands too, on the condition if they want to eat they must have read the book. We had to relax the rules this year as not even all the actual book club members had managed to get through the nearly 600 pages that is Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey. Perhaps more of that another day.

The friends staying with us and we did the RSPB Birdwatch on Sunday. Sadly no dramatic sightings to report, and only one goldfinch when most days there are at least five or six to be seen squabbling over the nyjer seed at any one time.  Our friendly neighbourhood robin did not let us down nor of course did the blue tits.

I have just been down to London for one of my regular jaunts which I always love because it also means the chance to see Ruth and Nick, our two ‘English/London’ young as against Sara our Australian/Sydney daughter (how we’d love Sydney to be just that bit nearer!). As well as having a lovely family time with Ruthie and Nick and getting a much needed hair cut I did some useful research in John Lewis into kettles and toasters for both barns and a new lamp for over the Tom’s Barn kitchen table, all of which we shall now order from their online store.

The most dramatic piece of news, Tom’s & Douglas’s Barns wise, is that we have had our 2012 Quality in Tourism inspection already. The inspector rang up on Monday evening, and arranged to come on Wednesday which was a bit of a shock and involved us in a fair amount of rather hurried paperwork, making sure things like the inventories were updated; I did also have to very quickly order some small tumblers as directed by last year’s inspector . Anyway, to cut a 3-hour inspection story short, all was well although until we actually receive the certificates and report there is always that ghastly feeling that we may have misheard her when we thought she said we retained our 5 Stars and Gold Award for both barns, and 100% for cleanliness in both barns. So, more about that when the time comes too.

Orchard Farm Marmalade Production

John the Orchard Farm Marmalade Magnate

The lengths one goes to to avoid doing the tax, but the organic marmalade oranges and lemons have been sitting in the kitchen since Riverford delivered them on Friday, and we have at least six batches to tackle, so needs must. Perhaps I don’t need to write a blog post as well, but any marmalade maker will recognise that sense of excitement and achievement and the need to share it… The achievement actually extends to having caught the Seville oranges in time,  before they disappear for another year; the season is so short,  one flash and it’s gone and one could easily have missed it altogether.

And now that we leave a little jar of homemade marmalade alongside the bread, milk, butter and eggs for every couple when they arrive we find we are getting through a LOT! We started off just trying it out on our guests after we had made some last year, thinking we would stop again quite soon after a temporary flurry of marmalade sharing, but such was the reaction, with public comments in the visitors’ books and on the blog that we felt almost compelled to carry on. And we are glad to do so,  because anything we can do to make our guests’  holiday here enjoyable and a little bit special for them is a pleasure for us too.

The marmalade production process is very much a joint affair as you can see by this fairly rare photo of John. It is not often he is in a photo as he is usually the one behind the lens We are now using a relatively new recipe I got off the internet recently when I was making between season  grapefruit and lime marmalade, which we are rather pleased with. It involves boiling the quartered fruit first and using slightly less sugar than the conventional idea which means you can eat more.

Let us know what you think, if you still have a holiday here ahead of you before the current batches run out!

The Minute the Sun Comes Out…

Like pretty well the whole of the country, we have been having some very unpleasant blustery, grey and wet days. We have escaped the terrible wind which we can hear roaring over Parwich Hill which deflects it all nicely away from the village so the trees in Parwich are untouched.

I had to go to Bakewell for a meeting this morning and had an interesting drive along country roads which hadn’t been so protected, through deep and lengthy puddles, and skirting very delicately at one stage around a large tree which had fallen across the road.

In spite of everything the sun did manage to get out this afternoon, and outside in a flash was John with his new camera at the ready (the bad weather has been a serious frustration for him, photographically, but it has been good in that he has been able spend some time poring over the manual and a couple of really good books he has been given which are very helpful but which to those whose camera is on their mobile phone, could be in another language. (This new camera is not a toy…!)

So when the sun came out, and the birds flocked to the seeds and nuts, John managed to catch some lovely action photos of bird in flight

Happy New Year to you all!

What a year 2012 promises to be! From the depths of financial despair and gloom we soar to Jubilee and Olympics hysteria… Meanwhile most of us just plod on as best we can; whilst horribly aware of rising costs for all and job insecurity for many and although the timing is unfortunate it is great that we have some exciting distractions ahead and certainly Visit Britain and VisitPeak District are very upbeat about the possibilities that this year will bring for tourism and the economy.

Life has to go on and like many of you we will just continue to do the best we can and to do our best to ensure that all our guests have as good a holiday as possible. Unfortunately we cannot control the weather, but neither can anyone so that’s a relief… And to continue the financial theme for one more minute, our 2012 prices have now kicked in and I am about to put them up on our website. They have been on the online booking system for some time. The prices have all gone up a rough 5% which actually is somewhat less than our costs have increased.

Bank Holidays this year include the Jubilee celebration tacked onto the Spring Bank Holiday (June 4th and 5th). That week has already been booked in both Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns as have two of the Olympics weeks by folk anxious to escape from London for the spell!

Chatsworth House reopens on March 9th but there are talks and things going on before then which clicking on the link will reveal; the Horse Trials are 11th to 13th May and the  Country Fair is 31st August to 2nd September. Haddon Hall I suspect may open at Easter (April 6th to 9th) but so far I have failed to discover the exact date. The Buxton Festival is 7th to 25th July. And of course throughout the summer we have the famous Derbyshire well-dressings, with the local Tissington celebration from the 17th to 23rd May being a special highlight.

This just skims the top of the barrel – check this page of the Visit peak District website to see just some of the events there are, not to mention the permanent activities and sights which are here all year round – the walks, cycling, sailing etc at Carsington, hang gliding,climbing and so on…!

And finally one has to eat and who could be better placed than we are round here for good unspoilt pubs serving great food

Happy Christmas to you all

Happy Christmas to everyone!

We had great hopes of sending Christmas greetings to everyone personally but practicalities – namely shortage of time and skill- prevailed and now all we can do is wish everyone most sincerely a very happy Christmas holiday and a happy, fulfilled and healthy year to come.

We will certainly continue as best we ever can to make sure that our two holiday cottages remain the happy, peaceful haven you have come to expect and for those of you already planning your holiday here next year, we look forward very much to seeing you /seeing you again.

Tom’s and Douglas’s Barns News Roundup

Both barns are ready for Christmas! Unfortunately that is more than can be said for the owners who as usual are weeks behind with the cards and the presents.

Glossing over that I’d like to start by just reminding anyone that Christmas is taking by surprise that 2012 follows shortly after and that is when the 2012 prices kick in (at the first chord of Auld Lang Syne!). We always get an enormous number of bookings in early January, when the post-festivities reality and depression hits in and everyone needs something lovely over the horizon to look forward to, to cheer them up. We’d rather our ‘old faithfuls’ like all of you a) got in first with the dates you might want, and b) that you benefit by the returning guests’ double bonus – 2011 prices and 5% off so you end up paying less than you might have paid this year for the same holiday. Hope too many accountants aren’t reading this…

Onto possibly more mundane but possibly more pressing subjects, like the weather. Will it (really) snow for Christmas? We had light snow this morning but nothing to stop the traffic so to speak. So far, for this winter unlike the last two, the weather has been wintery but OK, although people travelling tomorrow need to keep an eye on the situation, or so we gather. It feels very still and calm tonight I must say and we’re all pretty cosy and snug indoors; it was dark before 4pm this evening but of course very very soon the days start to lengthen which is a lovely thought.

Finally, John has already received his Christmas and birthday (November 27th) presents for this year from the entire immediate family and is busy now trying to get to grips with a new camera and lens. He has got such good results from his now old one (which he will of course still use as well) apparently against all odds given the limitation of the equipment, especially significant when he was taking for example, swallows swooping over the water. We all did a lot of research into what might be best for John’s needs within our budget, including our nephew Tim Cragg who knows a thing or two about cameras but of course ultimately it had to be John’s personal choice.

In making this final and very big decision we were just so lucky to have the great fortune to have two charming and very talented photographers staying next door in Douglas’s Barn! They very generously shared a few hours with us over a bottle of wine, showing John their cameras and various lenses and by the end John felt confident to come to a final decision.

However, the photos here are from the old camera. Hopefully soon you will be noticing even sharper, better pictures, and when next summer comes some fast flying swallows and other fast moving creatures

Up to the Minute Views of Tom’s Barn

It’s been a busy few days and today has not exactly been a rest cure, but we got there thanks to a lot of effort all round: new carpet, ‘new’ paintwork, everything that can be washed/sent to the dry cleaners has been washed/recovered from the dry cleaners and our Friday guests are safely and we hope happily gathered in luxuriating in all the newness…

John took about 20 photos yesterday (Friday) evening when we were finished and they are all to be seen – in a somewhat random piggledy piddledy fashion (and as yet untitled) in the blog gallery. Here are one or two tasters. For those of you who haven’t visited within the past year, the most obvious new things are the oak tables and the carpet; you can’t really tell about the redecoration because this year we have stuck with the same Farrow and Ball colours – Slipper Satin on the walls and Old White on the woodwork. (Year after year we stick in Douglas’s Barn with Matchstick on the walls and Buff on the woodwork because we seem to have struck lucky first time; with Tom’s Barn we have had several attempts before finding what we like now.)

John’s photos were taken in poor light but they give a good idea of Tom’s Barn generally, and not just the new bits. We always try to keep everything absolutely spotless but everything is even more spotless having been cleaned/washed/polished and dry-cleaned…!