NEW BIT OF GARDEN FOR BUTTERCUP COTTAGE

We have added a little more garden to Buttercup Cottage garden area, Laura and I decided to do it one morning and bobs your uncle it was done by the afternoon!!!, although guests are free to sit on any of the grass this fenced off bit is safe from Shadow our dog who loves to give you a kiss when you least expect it.....not for the faint hearted!!!

CAR WASH??? STICK TO GOLF I THINK!!!

Steve decided in his wisdom to wash the truck, good of him I thought.....I didn't think we had any car shampoo and told him he would probably have to use fairy liquid.....So i was surprised when he said he had found some....He came up to the house after an hour or so, complaining that when he tried to wash off the soap it left a white residue and he couldn't shift it. So thinking not much of it....walked down to see what he was on about and then it dawned on me he had put Car shine in the bucket of water and rubbed it all over the car......but car shine is wax!!!!!! it looked a right state, i had nipped down there to look at the car from the bath so had my dressing gown on.....SO you can imagine the wonderful picture on me with a sponge in one hand and fairy liquid in the other trying to get the wax off the wet car, I was rubbing it frantically trying to remove the wax and Steve was rinsing off, I really hope none of our guests were watching this fiasco!!!! Stick to golf or get a pair of glasses and read the label!!!! Thought I would just add a picture of this sensible young man!!! Looking great in that Cornwall County Golf suit, I think that's more of the job for you eh!

A POSH DAY!

We dont often have the chance to dress up as we are usually up to our necks in the proverbial and dont have time to sleep or eat sometimes let alone go out.....what is that phrase 'going out'...does that mean the feed run ha ha.... Well my brother got married so we donned our glad rags, Laura and Steve looked great  especially in Nannys hat Steve!!!....Auntie Lou looked great too but havent a picture of her. So thought I would show you what we may have looked like before we took on Woodmill and now The Mill!!!

WELCOME BACK!

Well it has been a while since I signed in and there is so much to tell you. I cant remember all of it but the general gist is.... As you know due to me being poorly and doctors advice we had to hand over the cottages to a letting agent, what a nightmare, I could have booked more weeks from my bed without lifting a finger!! SO needless to say we knew pretty quickly we were on a one way trip to financial disaster! It was hard to take really as we had worked so hard and it was just due to my health that we had to make this decision, it took us a long time to come to terms that a company that said how wonderful they were nearly had us in ruins. So thinking on our feet, survival instinct kicks in....We produced a planning application that would allow us to gut the Mill building from 4 x 1 bed holiday cottages to full residential of one house. It was a huge gamble, Pete spent weeks formulating documents and supporting evidence of why they should consider this for us even though it was contrary to policy. It was really our last hope of staying here, if the approval didn't come through for us we would have to put the whole lot on the market and move before it was called in really. We had put our souls and hard blood sweat and tears into this and wasn't going to leave without a fight. Then after a tense few months we finally got permission at the end of May, just in time to let our long time regular guests Keith and Myrna and Jim and Caroline amongst others the news hot of the press. We had to go from thinking this was a disastrous situation to getting exciting about the new adventure to come. It was going to have to happen so the best thing we could do was to be excited about it. No good crying over spilt milk!... But now we are really looking forward to it. We will have half the land to manage and only two holiday cottages and another brand new office for Purl, so a lot more manageable for us, especially on my not so good days. The future looks great...hard work again but great!

TADPOLES

We found some frog spawn in the little pond, but it was below the water more than 6 inches so wouldnt have survived, so we moved the spawn to the top very small wet area, we werent sure if it would survive or not, but today I took this photo which will look odd to you...but I can assure you there are some moving little black tails, I think they or a few of them might be of and El Frog land will be at Woodmill soon ...hopefully

AND THATS JUST HALF A DAY!

WOke up to find that Smartie had injured her foot, and on closer inspection it was real bad, it looked like her lower front leg had been skinned and the fur was seperate to her insides, so emergency vet visit early in the morning, this was after an A & E visit with Steve to stop a real bad nose bleed that just wouldnt stop and it took the hospital a while, by which time he had lost a fair amount of blood. After dropping cat to hospital and steve to doctors to recheck blood pressure it was found he had a nose infection which is why he felt so rotten, so tucked Steve up and told him not to move, meanwhile meeting with solicitors to try to protect our land from the Council who seem to think the answer to ST. Blazey flooding is to flood us instead...NOT GOING TO HAPPEN...OVER MY DEAD BODY!!! which at the moment isnt out the question!!!! PIcked up smartie from vets and only hours later had to take her back as she had ripped off the dressing, meanwhile had to get steve to orthodontist and they advised me the normal orthodontist had left all of a sudden and the new orthodontist was not prepared to take on the 3 years of work the other one had done and we have to have teeth out and basically start again a different way which will take another 12 months minimum, so after frantic angry phonecalls ...Nic a friend helped out and made a private (COSTLY!) appointment with a orthodontist for a second opinion to see where we stand on the 23rd, Laura has a computer virus so trying at the same time to sort this on the phone, and trying to make sure all her contracts and funding are under control for the next year at uni, Pete out all this time, trying to secure a new job which meant a 2 hour difficult interview so he came home in a worse state than me.....um what else oh I forgotten now, its too much to mention, so now dont you think you have had an alright sort of day, mine so far has been stressful, off to do the feed run and start work and earn some money for the lovely mortgage, had a meting with my wonderful bank manager today too!!! yipppeee do!!!...Its ok I will be hunky dorey tomorrow!!! Just glad its Friday eh!...Onwards and upwards!

MEET BARNABY!

We were having our jacuzzi tonight and looked up to see that we had company, a bat!!!, I think it might be a horse shoe bat, or that might be wishful thinking, but they do nest in the woods behind us. Well we have named him Barnaby the Bat! I hope he is here to stay, fancy having a pet bat! better than an old bat!!! No comments you lot.

RIP TILLEY

Tilley has been poorly for quite a while and we have had the vet and farrier to her for the last 8 months or more. It came to a point where keeping her going was cruel and not in the best interest of Tilley, rather for us not wanting to loose her, so Tilley fell asleep on Thursday now pain free and remembered with love. Sleep well our little Tilley XXXX she looks like she has been rolling in the hay here, she was always full of fun and love.

GOATS DRIVING ME NUTS

As soon as I open the lid of the feed Rocky and Ringo decide to see who can drive me in sane but biting bits of paper off of the feed bags and running off with it so I cant catch them, dear little cherubs!!!!They think that everything is a game and are really excited when someone comes in to play, wheres that Kait!!!

FINAL BIRTHDAY FOR FEB!

And then there was Steves birthday, I have never made so many cakes so quickly!!! Me and Laura made a penguin this time for Steven who was 15 on the 22nd, now 5ft 9 and size 10 feet hes a little way off the little boy he used to be, still sweet and loving though!!!. He wanted a pool table for his birthday so we got one that could double up as a dinning table as there isnt really room for both, it has a top that you can use as a table and then take it off and there you have a pool table! The penguin was possible the hardest cake we have made 3 hours of cooking 24 eggs later and 4 hours of decorating it was ready! We had our usual thing, all the family over, I feed them, play pool and bobs your uncle another birthday treat!