Romantic cottages for two in the Peak District
Romantic cottages for two in the Peak District
Just popping up my head briefly to say hi, and sincere apologies for an almost inexcusable silence. If I just mention a trip to London, theatre trip, taking my sister from South Africa on a tourist trip of London on the top of an double decker bus, the London Eye and a trip up the river, brand new iPad which arrived today, working on a mobile friendly version of our website which our wonderful web man Jeremy Brough is developing for us, entertaining some very dear distant cousins to lunch and finally a very preoccupied day involving two trips to Bakewell for (unconnected) meetings today, one on the morning and one in the afternoon it might help paint the picture.
Honesty also suggests I should add that the wonderful June-like weather also comes into the equation. We went down to London at the beginning of last week warmly clad in all winter woollies to swelter as the heatwave struck and here we are a week later, still enjoying the most heavenly weather in clothes one often doesn’t get much chance to enjoy comfortably even in mid-summer. We have sat in the really hot sunshine and had meals outside, as have our guests who are getting browner and more relaxed by the day which is lovely to see.
It is late but I wanted just to make contact today because tomorrow is going to be just as busy,. We have an early start with a trip to the Cheddar Gorge (delli in Ashbourne) 8.30am to pick up lots of wonderful freshly baked bread by Peter of the Dining Room for the last village Lenten Lunch of 2012 which we are hosting at 12.30 tomorrow. If you are reading this in Parwich tonight (Wednesday) night, do come!
I’ve made two enormous tureens of soup and a Bakewell Tart and bought some nice cheeses, catering for anything from five to 35 and we will not know how many until they arrive or not!
Finally, a couple of fun photos including a goldfinch which is eating the kernel from inside the pine cone from a tree near the Tom’s Barn garden but here he has just dropped the whole thing. We have to thank one of our guests for pointing out what the birds were doing, as we hadn’t noticed ourselves being so intent on watching all the birdly goings on in front of the house.
Douglas's Barn new garden table and chairs
So last week John ordered two arm chairs and a table from Pepe Garden Furniture. We are great Pepe fans – their stuff is reasonably priced, comfortable, well made and environmentally very acceptable, and we have recommended them to so many friends. Every time we order something or go to their stand at shows we always suggest we are due a commission but so far the suggestion has fallen on deaf ears…
But that is by the by; meanwhile we are pleased with our new purchase and hope the weather will soon prove so summery and warm that out Douglas’s Barn guests are able to try them out. So far our guests have found lots of occasion to sit outside their barns which is such a warm and sheltered spot the minute the sun shines. And now the camellia is out and the tulips ready to burst forth; the clematis and roses are in good leafy promise. What a lovely time of year spring is!
Tissington Tea Rooms
Tissington is one of our nearest neighbours, an estate village which has been owned and run by the FitzHerbert family for four centuries – 403 to be precise! According to them it is where heaven and earth meet in the Peaks – I thought that was Parwich but we’re not far away so they may have got it slightly wrong!
Anyway, to be serious, it is a lovely village and a great favourite with our guests and us who love walking over the hills to tempt ourselves in the White Peak Butchery there with the array of wonderful meats, sausages, black pudding and bacon; many of them have also discovered On a Wick and a Prayer wonderful candle workshop, not to mention Tissington Hall itself and the Tea Rooms where we often like to go for a delicious lunch or afternoon tea.
Sir Richard FitzHerbert and Mr Michael McLoughlin our local MP
The Tea Room have been shut for a bit, while very super fancy new loos and other improvements were put in. We were delighted to be invited to the official opening yesterday morning, where the Derbyshire Dales MP, Michael MacLoughlin (also Chief Whip) opened them and we all celebrated with champagne and a specially commissioned Tissington Tearooms cake.
Orchard Farm Goldfinch
As many of you will know by now, we had our third GTBS (Green Tourism Business Scheme) inspection last Friday. If you follow the link to their website you will see what this signifies, but basically, to quote them, it means we are ‘committed to sustainable tourism and minimising its damage to the environment’ which must be an admirable goal by any standards. The inspector, who had been before, said he was impressed with what we have done to make our two cottages as environmentally sustainable as is compatible with our guests’ comfort and ease. He was impressive himself, and very constructively helpful about what more we could achieve.
So far so good. He was pleased with our ‘greenness’ but criticised our modesty! We were always taught that it was very desirable to be modest, indeed wholly admirable never to brag or blow one’s own trumpet (too loud, anyway!). These days this restraint is probably less respected, and now we understand that far from being admirable it is totally undesirable if one has green holiday cottages, and particularly green cottages in the Peak District! (That’s another story.)
The GTBS inspector said quite rightly that our website did not “shout green” and I accept that it did not, to an unhelpful extent.
Anybody wanting to find out more than our Green Policy would have been a bit pushed apart from the odd snippet on the blog, although in the barns there are massive ‘Green Files’. All the information is to be had if you are actually here but that is no good if you are not.
Anyway, he tactfully hinted that if we got our act together, with Jeremy our wonderful web man, and gathered up all our green information together and available online in an obvious section of our website before he returned home from his tour of inspection to start upon his reports, that would help our final grading significantly. No promises… but it is worth the try. I have a full day of meetings tomorrow but all being well will be able to tackle it towards the weekend. As they say, watch this space.
No access to Orchard Farm!
For years and years there has been a leak/spring/stream sometime gushing down the road round the corner from Orchard Farm, just after you take the right fork at the grassy triangle with the Road Narrows sign when you are coming to Orchard Farm. We have more or less learned to live with it until the weather tunes icy or it snows and then the whole road freezes over in a most unhelpful fashion. Everybody has periodically complained to the District Council who until last Monday didn’t appear ever to have thought it mattered.
The suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, yellow notices popped up warning us that there were to be drainage investigations and Monsdale Lane was to be closed for week. We were however subsequently assured that the potentially entrapped residents would be allowed access so we did not worry too much. However, no such luck! By access they must have meant on foot: there is a large and deepish hole across the corner and some pretty serious barriers. It is very obvious where the so-called spring was coming from as there are two sections of drain visible, separated by a couple of feet. I trust it was waste water from drains higher up, not from someone’s metered water supply.
A muddy hole and one broken drain
Of course we can all go round the ‘back’ lane, Monsdale Lane ,what our children used to jokingly refer to as our back drive, so we are not really cut off at all by more than a mile or two of charming (we really love it and so do all the local and visiting dog walkers) but decidedly narrow country lane. All is well until one meets someone coming the other way which is fine if one has all the time in the world to back cautiously to the nearest spot where there is enough space to pass, and the moral is to be sure to leave enough time…
So at the moment it is a minor hardship to be endured and commiserated over. A week will be long enough, so let’s hope they will be finished as promised by Friday 16th although it isn’t looking very promising to the untrained eye.
Our first daffodils of 2012
Today, in the sunshine it was hard to imagine ever needing such things; however, it is still only February and goodness knows what icy spells await us before spring is really and truly here. And it is a lovely feeling that we shall be able to help our guests negotiate icy paths and roads, not to mention our own front ‘yard’ which John was very pushed to keep even remotely safely passable during the cold spell a few weeks ago.
Some pristine winter equipment
Talking about road conditions, those of you who have been here in the snow and ice, will know that there is always a particularly bad stretch on the bend as you turn left to go down into the village, or after you have veered right at the road narrows sign when you are coming here. There is a permanent spring or stream or is it a leak (perhaps that explains the predicted drought for the east midlands and the east of England?) Anyway, we have just heard that our lane is to be closed for a week in March while ‘they’ investigate the drains. We will keep everyone posted when we know more.
Will Parwich beat London – or even Baslow – for TripAdvisor’s latest Travellors’ Choice Awards?
This evening I received an invitation to rate these three destinations; could this be the first hint that Parwich has reached the UK’s short list for this year’s awards?
Sadly, probably not, but let’s see what the criteria is before we give up on the hopes of toppling London. I was going to give you the actual link to the page but fortunately I realised in time that TripAdvisor might blacklist us immediately if 15 or even 50 people filled in the form and rated Parwich as John and me; instead I write it out myself:
How would you rate Parwich for these activities? Answer 1-5 (1 being terrible, 5 being excellent)
Beach/Sun
Food & Wine
Outdoor/Adventure
Skiing/Winter Sports (almost could have said yes last week!)
Golfing
Nightlife
Gay/Lesbian
City Break
Spa and Wellness
Romance
Family
What is your score? Much as we all might love Parwich, it is not going to make it to the Awards…
Finally, to end on a slightly more serious note… TripAdvisor has been a lot in the news recently, with hoteliers I think, mainly, being very upset about malicious anonymous reviews that they cannot remove; others have claimed that often rivals would write themselves, or get members of staff to write, bogus rave reviews about their own establishment whilst slating the competition.
The fact that many millions of travellers use TripAdvisor to plan their holiday, researching accommodation, restaurants and destinations (vote for Parwich!) and finding the information and reviews extremely helpful has been largely ignored in the articles that I have seen.
As far as we are concerned here, being such a small, personal setup, we have not yet suffered any mishaps and we have played by the rules ourselves: we most certainly have never written a review ourselves pretending to be guests of Tom’s or Douglas’s Barns (not even when we have stayed as genuine guests!). We often do not know who has written a review but from what people say, and their destination one can be totally confident that so far all the reviews we have had are completely genuine ones, from guests that have stayed really here.
The fact that the reviews have been very positive is very encouraging and rewarding for us but we are well aware that one day we may have an upsetting one. Things can go wrong in the most ordered of setups (fridges giving up the ghost on Christmas Eve, water pouring through the kitchen ceiling, keys getting stuck in locks – yes to all of those!).
One can imagine that very often people who write damning reviews are feeling so aggrieved is because they feel nobody has listened or cared enough to do anything about their grievance at the time at the time .
This is where people like us, being on the spot, have an enormous advantage. We would always hope to be able to deal with the problem instantly which thanks to a wonderfully loyal and willing team of local tradesmen, builders, cleaners and general helpers we almost always can although it can be very fraught at the time.
So we think TripAdvisor is great… But, back to the destination rating. How has Parwich fared? 55/55 is the top mark but we have no beach, no nightlife, no one offers city breaks and the skiing is not well established. Perhaps it will be Baslow, or even London.
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.
Anything to distract from the acutely pressing need to do our tax before the end of Jan but I couldn’t resist adding (and I still haven’t mastered how to do it neatly) one or two photos that John has taken in the last couple of days. The most lovely one of our Orchard Farm robin, on our doorstep this morning in the (relatively) warm sunshine this beautiful frosty winter morning, you can see here, on our website Home page.
John was up and out early this morning, enjoying the wonderfully frosty peaceful scenes as Parwich wakes up to a new day after an extremely cold night. Peaceful it may be, but the woodpecker can be heard now, every day, down by Church Farm…
John is still trying to capture birds in flight, and there are a couple of rather amazing pics here of bluetits with the sun shining through their wings. They look so beautiful and their movements so graceful, but watching them outside they don’t seem quite so gracious, although not such curiously bad-tempered little creatures as the goldfinches who are always squabbling with each other and fending off any other birds who also want to come to the feeders!
We always love it when our guests let us know what they’ve done and what they’ve enjoyed; we’re genuinely interested but it also helps us keep up to date and we keep learning new things about the area which is useful, even humbling to realise we live here and are constantly learning new things from out guests who have only been here a week or two at the most, although to be fair many come back so often that they do have a slight advantage. However, I would be embarrassed to compile a list, but we have never yet been to the Crich Tramway Museum nor to Poole’s Cavern to name but two, both places guests have enjoyed…
Walks and cycling are two vast subjects which one couldn’t begin to condense into a sentence or two; there are just so many walks, and variations on routes. All our guests love to go out, some for serious day-long hikes and others for less demanding shorter walks possibly with binoculars, camera – maybe even a picnic – in hand. One of the lovely things is that there is such a choice. If the choice is overwhelming, you might enjoy as one guest did recently, asking Sally Moseley to devise and take you on a walk that she can plan to fit in with your requirements. Whatever your stye of exercise the fact is that the countryside all around us is stunning and just being out can make you feel good; even better is the joy of returning to your warm, cosy barn, a hot bath and a cup of tea by the fire afterwards…
Of the more extreme sports we’re quite happy to remain ignorant, although there certainly is scope locally for ‘proper’ climbing, abseiling, hang gliding etc but we have never been aware of any of our guests enjoying such things while staying here – or if they did they have remained discreetly silent. The only guests to book (it was a surprise from her to him) a helicopter flight over Ladybower – I could cope with that – had the flight cancelled because of apparently poor weather so we can’t report on that even at second hand. Actually, it was a wonderfully bright and sunny day, so there was the sneakiest suspicion that maybe he wasn’t as keen on the idea as she hoped… We’ll never know. (You can actually go from the Cat and the Fiddle too, high up on the Pennines towards Macclesfield/Cheshire.)
Bookshops are popular, and we’re on stronger ground here, able to speak from personal experience. Scarthin – a quaint bookshop in Cromford crammed with second hand books – is much appreciated, as is – on a very different scale – Brierlow Bookstore, which is enormous with over 20,000 books.
And finally, because I can’t go on for ever, we come to the pubs. Consistently, the Gate (which now has a website!) and the George (which now has a new website!) are rated favourites, with the pendulum swinging one way then the other. The Gate with its fires in the lovely old ranges – and especially if you go into the room on the left – scores better for atmosphere although the George, if you can sit in the pubby part on the right, runs it pretty close. The food at the Gate is good, and generously served. You can’t always say that about the George whose portions can seem small to the greedier of us although I would say the food at the George is better, and perhaps better suited to more sophisticated palates; some find it a trifle expensive but good food does tend to be. Like the majority of our guests, we just love both of them!
To end fairly, the Packhorse at Crowdecote has pleased a number of guests recently; the Druid comes and goes, like its owners.
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