Autumn is most definately upon us

Autumn is most definately upon us, I am a huge child at heart where autumnal leaves are concerned and swathes of sycamore leaves at the edges of fields and lanes just implore my welly boots to scuff through them and send them flying up in the air.

I have even been known to gather handfuls of these rustling autumn colours, to return to the air, liberating them from their gravitational graveyard, back towards their benefacting branches, to fall once more to the ground.  Purely so I can do it all again!

Our campsite is now closed for the winter, the last of our campers have been and gone.

The ponies will be allowed in to mow...so long as they do not eat my plants! There are hedges to plant and weeds to pull up, new plants to go in and any number of projects to explore as possibilities.

Most importantly we need to draw our campsite competition, results will be on a seperate blog post, surfice to say the competion will be drawn on 2nd October, so if you forgot to write in our Visitor's Book but would like to write a review and enter the competition (see July 2014 post), please do so as soon as possible on the uk campsite page http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/details.asp?revid=12503

Busy summer

We have had such a lovely and busy summer so far that I have not found time to write on the blog, although I have tried to use the twitter account. Not that I am complaining you understand!

There has been a steady trickle of visitors, some returning for their second year which is a real treat for us and speaks volumes for what we are trying to achieve on our small campsite. So thankyou everyone.

August has been particularly busy, yet I am always surprised by the number of holidaymakers in August.  To me, August is our 'rainy season' and May (tucked into the cliff on Pednvounder beach) June (down on the beach in front of Hayle SLSC) and July (sipping a cold glass on the terrace of the Godolphin at Marazion, keeping an eye on the kids, down on the beach at the start of summer hols) are the months with perfect weather, when the gardens (like our gorgeous local Tremenhere Sculpture Garden) are looking their best. Again though I am not complaining and congratulations to all who camped over our wet bank holiday weekend.

I often think of August as bridging the gap between summer and autumn. In this part of cornwall we are frequently blessed with a sunny September and October, the sea is still quite warm and the leaves on the trees blend from green, to amber, to red and gold and the falling leaves allow children to kick a riot of crispy colours up into the air with their wellingtonboots. Whatever the month however, there are always garden chores to do and this week I spent some time pulling up monbretia invading the orchard, to move to the reservoir garden.

My campsite reservoir garden is developing into a pretty little space this year. There have been a couple of small disasters, which come with the territory of happily sharing the garden....the eucalyptus lost its leafy top, broken half way up the stem ...possibly a football hazard and lots of the fronds on the tree-palm disappeared, leaving bare stems....possibly a little fingers hazard! But some plants have really done well, I even have a few tomatoes! Apologies to the german couple that loved the campsitesite and the shower, but were bemused by my not-so-pretty old roadtyres....they surround my compost heap....so campers, please 'embrace' them as garden-art, balloons in the Tate St Ives and Tyres in the Reservoir Garden!

On the subject of art, I recently spent a pleasant afternoon wandering round St Ives with a cousin. St Ives is just "lovely", it has such an appreciative balance of life. There is an ambiance of culture, nature and art on every corner, with a picturesque harbour, blue seas, boats bobbing about, seals taking advantage of the leftovers from fishing trips, wonderful clothes and book shops, colourful cafes and a population who live and work and play in the town with a fabulous swimming pool at the leisure centre (and views to die for) and a top rate secondary school. What more could you ask for? ....glimpses of art and surprises from pretty courtyards? And here is one...........

Returning to our campsite, the shower has finally got a little mirror - for all those who need to shave -

and a couple of hooks for a towel and a wash-bag to the right of the tap and sink. All good improvements suggested by our campers! (Keith with the Harley-D, if you read this blog, I know you suggested a mirror at the beginning of last season, but it is only recently that David going to Troytown camping with Gabi also made mention to a mirror, thus confirming its necessity.)

And so August is over and we are winding down our holiday season, with only a few weeks to go. Time to plot and plan with ideas to work on over the winter months, all to be revealed in the blogs to come.

Campsite COMPETITION

We thought it would be nice to have our own campsite COMPETITION this year.

And this is how it works.
Any age can enter, as long as you have written the review, although you will need permission from and to come with a parent, to collect the prize.

There are no questions to answer.
You simply have to have visited us during the 2014 season and spent at least one night on the campsite.
AND you must have written a review about ashfarm campsite.  The review can either be written in our Visitors Book, on site, or online at ukcampsite.co.uk.

Visitors who have already camped with us and "forgotten" to write a review whilst staying with us, can write one retrospectfully by logging onto ukcampsite.co.uk as soon as possible.

 All review 'authors' names will be put into a hat at the end of the season and our lovely next door neighbour Liz will be asked to draw one name out, to be the lucky winner.

And the prize will be:
One week (maximum 6 nights) camping holiday for maximum of 2 adults and 2 children on our little campsite in 2015 season.
We provide only the camping paddock and usual facilities, you bring your own tents etc

 Management reserves the right not to include reviewers who clearly did not enjoy their stay with us, since they would not want to win the prize anyway. And, should the winner request a week that is already fully booked, we also reserve the right to offer an alternative week.

Cortaderia for lunch

So, having opened the campsite and had our first trickle of campers, we have been able to spend a bit more time in the reservoir garden, taming the terraces. This, naturally also means spending some time in garden centres, looking for plants to fill the gaps and make it more difficult for the weeds to regrow. A favourite venue for plant shopping, is Gulval Plant and Herb Nursery, who have this fine agave specimen growing at their gateway. Couldn't resist taking a snap of it ...not sure which agave it is, but I want one!

Not quite so impressive, but nevertheless a flower, is my magnolia bloom. Have managed to fail at growing a magnolia tree twice already, so hopefully third time lucky! Big thankyou to my "Auntie Jimmie" for this one...lovely gift from her.

Less successful has been the cortaderia or pampas grass, that was looking really nice and growing well, up to 1 metre high, but then I let the horses into the campsite paddock to mow and one of them "ate it"! I think it will regrow, but it looks horribly sad for campers at the moment.

And here is the innocent looking equine who ate it - if he wasn't my favourite equine I would be very, very cross with him.

2014 season @ashfarmcampsite

We are open.  Campsite flag is flying.

If I could figure out how to "fly" a twitter widget on blogger, the blog would have twitter button too, but I am not very html literate, so instead all I can do is signpost the reader to @ashfarmcampsite to follow us on twitter.

 Signs are repainted with the new tariff for 2014.

Log bags are ready and waiting to burn for £3 per bag.

Kindling as always is free until it runs out.

Posh compost toilet has had a repainted box, still skyblue but no ditsy flowers this year. Clean and mean!

New shower unit in the outdoor shower. I love having a shower late at night under the stars...who's going to be first to try it out?

The corner box in the changing-room has been varnished this year.

Mats and cushions still add colour to the changing-room.

And we have added a small lending-library bookshelf, for use whilst staying with us, particularly favouring cornish settings or authors on the 'girly' shelf. And we can thoroughly recommend St Ives Bookseller, Fore St, St Ives for buying your own copies should you get entangled in a story (also on twitter @stivesbooks).

The @gjwalljoinery man has been out strimming madly to make everything look ready
and the picnic benches are eagerly awaiting campers.

The campsite paddock has been mown by the horses, allowed to recover and is now ready for tents and campervans. As always it is a little uneven, so airbeds or campbeds are recommended (it is a paddock, not a purpose laid lawn for tents, but we still think you can sleep well). And we have a managers' tent this year.

The garden I tried to terrace and plant with succulents and lay paths up to the picnic area, has grown a little wild over the spring, but very pretty with the pink campions alongside the echiums. So for the moment it can remain wild and pretty. I have all summer to weed, to reveal what lays hidden within!

Easy to forget

At this time of year, as our opening date approaches I tend to find myself very critical of our campsite and feel slightly disheartened by how much still needs to be done to fulfil my visualisation of what we could achieve. It is easy to forget how much we have already done to reclaim the site from ivy and blackthorn (which I do like in symbiotic quanitities) and which the pigs have loved to eat.

The voice of reason is usually my other half, Graham, who reminds me just how overgrown the area was and how many trips to the dump and how many bonfires we have had!

It helps to look at some of the before and after pictures - although, why is it one never remembers to take the before pictures, until half-way through or until one has already reached the "after" stage! 

So, as I sit having a coffee in the cottage, on a particularly precipitous morning, I thought I would share some 'before', 'in-between' and 'after' pictures on the blog.

Tiny piglets installed for clearing the blackthorn and hawthorn and brambles in the campsite paddock.

Job done, although we did have to use a digger to get the roots out - there is a limit to what pigs can eat and shift - but we hand raked and seeded the reclaimed land and look what the cornish rain and sun produced......

a lovely new camping area with a view!

When we first started clearing in the reservoir garden, you couldn't even see from one end to the other. We now have a clear view, a lot of green and a tree fern, a date palm and a copper beach planted with light filtering through to help them grow.

The pigs helped clear the entrance side of the old reservoir garden, down towards the campsite facilites, but then the area all looked a little barren and brown, as this is halfway through picture shows.

Again, light, sunshine, rain and some garden furniture, brings out a whole new colour scheme.

There were piles and piles of 'tipped' garden and building debris from local cottage renovations and goodness knows what, just dumped on the land,

 but slowly we have dug and pinchbarred, raked and shifted the rubble, recycled the slate

and cut back hedging to stop walls falling down and tried to bring out what we think nature intended.

New hedges still need planting and weeds controlling and apologies that these photos are not all the exact same angles, but I think they portray what I am trying to get across.

I must not forget.

And finally another winter is over and we have had our first family tentover....albeit a little colder overnight than I usually like (mental note to self we are only May and I need duvets and warmer nightclothes next time) and had our first campfire and toasted marshmallows, celebrated with a glass of prosecco for me, which goes rather well with the marshmallows I have discovered!

Perhaps the message is this, that although it is easy to forget, it is also easy to remember.  And for the moment we are just waiting for opening day on the 23rd May and for the campers to arrive, to share the adventure with us.