A new year, a new blog.    We haven’t really been very good at posting updates and to those who take an interest, we apologise.   It’s not that we haven’t wanted to, it’s just that there has always been something else that needs attention, as lame as that sounds!   Anyhow, turning over a new leaf, this year we will do better.

For our first season, last year went very well.  We were relieved to find that all our guests were lovely, polite and friendly, just as we hoped!.   Tanya’s sister gave us a special book for guests to scribble in at the end of their stay and it has become stocked full of wonderful comments.  We must find time to share them on our website (anonymously of course).  What we did not expect was the vast distance that some of our guests will travel to get here, to our little village of Wootton Courtenay on Exmoor.  From Argentina to Australia, it has been really interesting to meet so many different people from all across the globe.

After much stress and worry leading up to the inspector’s visit, we were proud to be awarded a maximum Food Hygiene Rating of 5 from the Food Standards Agency in August.  We run a tight ship in the kitchen but that still felt like a huge achievement.

We are now closed for the winter months, which gives us the opportunity to relax and reflect, to undertake some maintenance, and prepare for this coming year.   Top of the list was to smarten up the verandah by tearing up the ageing concrete floor and replacing it with proper sandstone slabs. What a wonderful difference that’s made.  Guests can look forward to sitting here while admiring our marvellous views of the moor and enjoy a drink or two from our licensed bar.

We are also in the process of updating more of the bathrooms by replacing some of the older shower trays and enclosures.  All the kit has been delivered and we just need our plumber to return from yet another skiing holiday!  Preferably, with all his limbs intact.   

With the storms already coming in quick succession this year, we are looking forward to more settled weather as spring awakens around us.   Indeed, despite the wind and rain, the daffodils here in the South West have been in full bloom for weeks and yet we are still in January.  Amazing!

Bookings for this coming season are starting to come in, mostly through our website, and this is the best  way to make a reservation (for us and our guests).   We offer the same cancellation terms as all of the online travel agents (OTAs), such as Booking.com, and our rates should always be better if you book with us direct because we have to pay [exorbitant] commissions on agents’ bookings.  We say “should” because we have sadly found that one site in particular has used the commission we pay them to narrowly undercut our own rates.  We are getting wise to some of their methods and if anyone has any advice to share on OTAs then please get in touch.   

Anyway, we’d best get back to it.  There is a skip full of hard-core out front that needs collecting…

All the best

Andy & Tanya