We are now open for bookings, 2017 season here we come

I cannot believe that we are at the end of January already, where did all the months go?  I had intended at least writing an autumn and a festive season blog, but they have not happened and now here we are open for bookings for our 2017 summer season. Have included a festive photo of The Sloop in St Ives by way of an apology!

Each year our season varies, and this year, summer season will be for the summer school holidays, a bit before and probably not much after, but maybe the October half term if the weather is good, so just phone and see whether we can fit you in!

Having finished our 2016 summer season a little early, so that the egg entrepeneur and a school friend could go for a week of work experience on Adam Henson's Cotswold Farm Park, we travelled up and pitched a bell tent for a week, two mums and two boys.

It was just what the mums needed, R&R in bucket loads.

We were treated to a gorgeous week of weather, it was hot and sunny virtually all week. Perfect!

And the boys had a wonderful time. The workforce at Cotswold Park are a fabulous bunch, they made the boys feel welcome and put them to work with 'meet and greet' tasks, assisting with displays and animal husbandry chores

and filled them with new knowledge of how to work in a team and interact with the public and lots of wisdom about how a farm park functions.

Ofcourse, all week the boys were on the look out for Adam and after a few glimpses they were thrilled to say hello to the man himself and get a special 'thankyou' note in their copies of his new book, 'Like Farmer Like Son'.

And what did the mums do you ask yourself? Reading, playing bananagrams, walking,  visiting markets and arboretums, sitting in the sun and relaxing, it was horribly difficult to do!

Living in Cornwall, I had forgotten how arable the rest of the UK and in particular the Cotswolds is, fields and fields of barley and sheep everywhere!

The campsite at the park is lovely, not too big and not too small, circa 32 pitches with adequate clean, hot showers and toilets and beautiful countryside all around, perfect for long walks and finding friendly pubs and watching race horses on the gallops.

Since then, the weeks and months have just flown by. We bought three Zwartble ewe lambs in the summer to test our ability to care for them and so far, so good. Worming or drenching them has been not too difficult and we set up a little pen to help. Trimming their feet was a little more challenging, but each time we do it we learn a bit more.

And having been introduced to some rare breed sheep at Cotswold Farm Park, we added to our flock and bought two ewes and a Portland ram in October (and a wether to keep the ram company, when not out with the girls)

The ram, romatically named Moonlight has been strutting his stuff and doing his job in the autumn. Both the ewes had raddle marks on their bums, so keep watching the blog to see if they produce lambs in March 2017.  High on that success, we also borrowed a zwartble ram and hope the three Zwartble ewes might also lamb in April 2017. The ewes are now all in together on some winter grazing ,with a view and the rams and wether have their own paddock.

Over the autumn and winter, fences have been erected with rabbit wire (stock fencing is not user friendly for the horses, who will rotationally share the grazing) to keep the sheep safely paddocked and safe from dogs on the footpath at the bottom of the field.

We may not have a proper working farm, just a hobby farm, but Dom has been honing his tractor driving skills every saturday on a working farm over at Morvah. He has immersed himself in anything farming and milking orientated.

There was a ploughing match to attend, watching tractors plough fields is a real 'boy' thing...

..but the horsedrawn ploughs were amazing....(girl thing I think)

The produce displays from the Young Farmers Groups were fantastic and so colourful, isn't nature wonderful.

And I was very proud of the egg entrepeneur and his first prize eggs....please note these prize winning eggs are nearly always on sale at the campsite in the summer.

In November we planted 500 trees, shrubs and hedging plants in the bottom of the long field, to form Horsefield Wood for future generations.

Many thanks to the Woodland Trust for providing us with a grant to help fund the 2 and 3 year old treelets and thanks to all the villagers and locals who turned out to help us plant. We would have taken forever to plant them all, without their help and it would not have been half so much fun.

We have planted Oak, Silver Birch, Wild Cherry, Rowan, Hazel, Alder, Elder, Crab Apple and Dog Rose and Hawthorn. The wood just looks like plastic tubes at the moment,

but with some imagination.............we have put a wooden bench down there at the edge of the footpath that crosses the field so anyone can sit and comtemplate and enjoy the view.

But ofcourse, inbetween all of the work, some of us have squeezed in the odd scrumptious lunch at Tremenhere Kitchen

and pleasant walks at Tremenhere gardens, where the views are sculpturally stunning.

There have been some strange natural occurrences, like shoals of washed up pilchards on the beach at Marazion, whether brought in from freak tides or lost from a boat, either way they made for an interesting ride as the sea birds swooped and cried above us

And it is amazing who you come across on the moorland and clifftops around our Peninsula, especially when certain TV series are being filmed, mentioning no P******k names

But for the moment we are concentrating on trying to finish our new surprise at the campsite, will give you a sneaky peak, but it is still a work in progress.....

However, the 2017 diary is by the phone and we are now taking bookings for 2017, so I will leave you all, with a couple of winter photos of St Ives, looking lovely as ever in the sunshine.

Looking forward to meeting old and new campers in the 2017 season.