Tapeley Park

Today we spent the afternoon at Tapeley Park. Tapeley is a beautiful house in a beautiful location and is also a wedding venue (www.tapeley-park.com)

The reason we went was because of our caterer's Lee and Kris. They were booked to cater for a couple who were due to be married today at Tapeley. However a week and a half ago the Groom was diagnosed with bowel cancer and early this week he died. He was 36 (my age) and had three children.

At a complete loss as to how to respond to this horrendous situation, all the suppliers for the wedding decided to still turn up and try to raise as much money as they could so proceeds could go half to the family and half to a bowel cancer charity.

We went to support this event.

Lee and Kris' team did a wonderful barbeque and a cream tea on their vintage crockery sets and sold home made fudge which i am tucking into right now!

The thing we most loved was the garden. Wow, it was amazing.

We wandered off for an explore..

and found a great woodland play area which as you can see, the kids loved.

Tucked away in a corner of the garden we came across the most amazing thing. Weirdly, this might actually be my highlight. Someone had spent a long time making the words 'Happy Birthday' out of willow and sticking them in the ground with petals and flowers all around it. Can you make out the words in the picture above?

It was so pretty and so thoughtful. In this day and age when everyone is so busy, one rarely gets time to send an 'e card'. However, this little sign said so much of love and care for a person. Here is a close-up version of the word 'birth'. I am disappointed the pictures do not do it justice.

Hector Christie who owns the estate (The Christie family own Glyndebourne Opera House too which is very close to where i grew up) is a passionate gardener, and specialises in perma-culture gardening. This is a garden design based on plant relationships found in natural ecologies. So, things are planted next to eachother to help to promote their growth and protect them from harm. Its like organised chaos.

These plum-like things were growing in abundance but we have no idea what they were!

We have chickens too but we have never seen a chicken as fat as this one and with such a long mane!

We spotted a teeny tiny strawberry growing and again compared ours which have been non-existent this year (well, they were eaten by insects before we got to them grrrrr)

The kids loved playing in this tunnel of trees.

There is a cafe there which looked really sweet.

Wandering further into the back garden, and now on my own, i came across this little round brick building.

I found out from the notice on the door that it was used in times gone by for storing ice! This is the story on the door.

I followed a sign to the kitchen garden..

and came across a complete opposite to the perma-culture garden, whereby everything was planted in neat, ordered rows. You could sense the history and the generations of families this garden has fed over the centuries.

I found this dilapidated building which was closed off to protect the public but it had all kinds of stones and shells making up its interior. It was so intricate in its design, i must find out more about it.

This made me laugh. We watched a television series called 'Country House Rescue' with interest recently. It concerns owners of big, old houses who need advice as to how to bring in enough of an income in order to keep them maintained. The expert lady who advises the owners often kicks up a storm as her advice always means big change. Anyway, one of the houses featured was Tapeley. At the end of the programme, Hector takes Ruth to see a new addition to the Tapely family and we watched in hysterics as he introduces her to a new pig who he has named...Ruth! You've got to love Hector for that.

I will leave you with this final image of a notice I found stuck in the ladies toilets....Ruth, you owe me one!

sports day and end of term

The kids took part in sports day last week.

I was really impressed because it wasn't all about sport! There were team challenges in all sorts of different forms, so it seemed to give everyone a fair chance at doing well.

Us parents were happily sitting on the bank minding our own business and enjoying all the fun when out of the blue the headmaster announces a fathers race followed by a mothers race. Now they haven't done this for the last few years so this came as a surprise. As Steve was in London I felt I had to represent for the Bakers and Tracey for the Elliotts.

There were quite a few volunteers but i was determined to try to win! Ha! Little did I realise what a mistake I made by encouraging Mrs Lambert to take part (completely forgetting she'd run the half marathon recently in v good time)and well she came first. BUT I DID COME SECOND!!! As for Tracey well, I have no idea. But the important thing to remember was I CAME SECOND. I was most put out when the headmaster announced first place but not second and third. After my little chat with him, i dont think he'll make the same mistake next year :)

I'd love to show you a picture of the finish line but I am not allowed as Mrs Lambert says she looks silly..soooo tempting though!

The kids broke up today so a small bunch of us went to the village park with cakes and squash to mark the last day.

Feeling like we couldn't be bothered to cook we then all went on to the pub! They are doing kids meals for £2.50 at Billy Budds in Croyde at the moment. I even spotted a couple of mum's tucking in for that price!

Needless to say the kids all had a great time and therefore so did us parents.

We had a long goodbye last night with Rich and Tracey, Molly and Millie-Grace who drove off in the camper (we need a name..any suggestions?) to stop overnight in Plymouth ready to catch the ferry at 8am this morning. It was great to feel it was all packed up and that it held a lot more than we thought possible. Steve had a stroke of genius to take our coffee machine and amazingly it fitted perfectly under one of the seats! It will be our little moment of indulgence each day. We had to plan carefully as us Baker's will be flying out in two-and-a-half weeks and we can only take one bag each on the plane. So we had to work out towels, bedding, toys, DVD's, bikes etc, etc. We got there in the end and all i can say is it is lucky our kids are roughly the same age (DVD's and games) and height (bikes) or else this whole thing would have been MUCH harder. As it is, we are all thrilled with everything and we waved goodbye feeling so excited by our next few weeks with our camper.

Cream Tea Heaven

The weather has been glorious this week. We were really hoping to have our cream tea for the guests on the Terrace, but just at the moment we were setting up, it felt a bit too chilly to be sitting outside.

So instead we went to town decorating the ballroom.

We use our lovely vintage crockery collected from various relatives and the odd charity shop.

My dresser is brimming with vintage china which we use for our sunday teas. We started doing it when Liza was born and its now a bit of a ritual. crumpets, boiled eggs, malt loaf, scotch pancakes, friut and cake. It feels great to be able to use it for the guests cream teas too and we always get really positive feedback about it.

The Devon way is to put the cream on the scone first followed by the jam. It is the opposite in Cornwall apparently. Not that i am biased but i am definately in agreement with Devon on that one!

We all had a lovely time chatting about the holiday, the beach, walks and the extremely competitive table tennis games we have heard going on in the games room. One guest from Canada said we should put in our marketing that Pickwell gives you a great 'butt'! When probed as to why, it turns out she has walked for miles every morning and then again every afternoon since Friday. No wonder! (wish that worked for me, although that would mean walking..hmmmm..)

Straight after the cream tea, Tracey and Rich drove to the Eden Project in Cornwall to see Branden Flowers in concert and I went to Exeter to watch a Nick Broomfield film about human trafficking (www.unchosen.org.uk). There was a question and answer session with Nick (on skype) and also a representative from anti-slavery international and a Police Inspector. A pretty incredible event and has given me a lot to think about.

Turnaround Time

So, the last wedding pre summer was Thursday. Our Holly hosted that one so Tracey and Rich got the chance to work at home and Steve and i got to take the kids after school to ice skating and a v naughty food establishment.

They had a great time.

Then came Friday. Oh what a day. Well, really what a week. Just before the wedding season we work really hard at presenting the house for wedding parties, then just before the holiday season we turn everything around and throw all our efforts into how we want it to be for holiday guests. So much of the week was spent getting the games room ready...

(well done to Tracey), sorting out all the toys, buying lots of new games, hanging bunting..

... wondering what to give this year as a welcome gift (we settled on home-made brownies, a bottle of local wine, a milk bottle in the fridge and some flowers from the garden)..

....re-writing our welcome pack...stocking up apartments with good holiday books...checking all the inventorys, washing sofa covers, cushion covers, buying new hoovers, buying new Z beds, buying in all the cream-tea bits (we do a cream tea for all our summer guests mid-week)and generally finishing all painting and maintenance throughout the apartments!

Oh, and we also turned the Snug into its true purpose..a snuggly one bedroom studio apartment with a gorgeous little ensuite wet-room. Tracey or I will post a photo of how it looks now in a coming blog.
One of our previous guests gave us the great idea of having a bin of water to wash the wetsuits in before putting on the line, rather than walking further away to the tap. We thought that was a fab idea.

From 4pm the guests started to roll in. If we are really, really honest we would all say that the holiday guests are our favourite thing about our business side of being at Pickwell. The house seems to come alive and everywhere you go you see people really appreciating the space, the view, being with their kids, their partners and properly relaxing. We all really love meeting the various people who find us in this little corner of Devon.

So, this week we have a guy who brought his girlfriend here to propose (she said yes!), we have a family from Dubai staying for 5 weeks, a family from South Carolina staying for 2 weeks, (gorgeous people seen in photo's. The guy on the skate board is a dad of four kids who were all highly embarrassed about his antics, whereas we were just VERY impressed and made him do it four times so i could get a pic!),

an old friend of all of us Pickwellers (with his family), a couple who got married here one year ago and are back to celebrate their anniversary, and lots of other really lovely people. I think there are 38 guests in total.

Our kids love it because they have other children their age around all the time through the summer so they tend to just all club together and spend hours running around the woods and playing in the games room.

We ended the day on a 'Friday Night Tea'. We try to eat together ( us and the Elliotts) every friday where we dont have a wedding. This was the first friday in a long time. Rich cooked a gorgeous carbonara followed by eton mess. I love Richard's cooking and he doesn't even know how good he is. We drank wine (well deserved after our day we felt)

and did the 'discussion box'. From the beginning of this adventure, three years ago, we started friday night teas. We brought in this idea whereby each person at the tea (including many guests who have come and joined us) has to bring something for the box which after tea gets pulled out. Everyone has to ask questions about why the person put the thing in the box. We have had everything from newspaper clippings about the Israel/Palestine conflict through to questions about what penguins eat (every week for six weeks, thanks Millie-Grace!). At one point a year in, we tried to phase out the discussion box and bring in something different to change the format a bit...but no...the kids were having none of it. Although more recently Zac and Molly brought to a house meeting that they wanted to introduce 'film night' (thank you Hewitts) and 'games night' into Friday's so woohoo, watch this space!

The 'box' is on the left hand side of the pic. Molly was just explaining to us the reason for her pasta inclusion..(she ate out at an Italian with nanny and papa the night before when they were passing through). I think we were just all relieved it didn't involve penguins.

Our weekend away

Last weekend while the Elliotts were finding toads, running a wedding and looking at sand sculptures, us Bakers went away in the new van!! We decided to take it on a test run pre France, so we went all the way to...Ruda campsite in sunny Croyde (about 2 miles away)!

What a brilliant weekend. Apart from the emergency cycle ride to get some bottled water from a mate's house (we didn't realise there was drinking water in a tap 2m from our van) and the slight lack of remembering to open the toilet valve (it was amusing to see Steve foraging around at midnight with a headtorch and kitchen roll) we were fine. It looks here like Steve was just recalling the experience...

We chilled out after a busy couple of weeks, the kids went scooting and climbing, we met up with good friends for lunch (just moved down, our third set of Pickwell fiends to come and share our crazy wonderful life)

Zac had his hair cut, alfresco stylie

we cycled to our friend's for a wonderful BBQ

celebrated Charlie's 11th birthday

and Liza and Zac learnt to ride the 'Indo board' which is meant to help you be a good surfer/skater apparently.

On Sunday we were very grateful to some lovely friends who took the kids off for a walk so we could pack everything up to come all the way home. Can you spot them in the picture?!

Then, parking the van on Baggy Point we went to a lovely newish tea room run by some friends we know through school. With love and care and much hard work they have turned what was really an overgrown and mess of a walled garden into this...

As part of the funding they had to involve 100 local families/residents to be involved in the project by owning an allotment and keeping it going. I know it has been a real blessing to some friends

Although we had the best time and the most amazing weather, we did feel ok about going home. It does mean that at least now we know we can survive France even if we do forget the toilet flap.

Baby rabbits, clearing out, another super wedding and sandcastles

Our action packed weekend started with me and the girls trauling the internet to work out when we can cuddle the new baby rabbits without causing the mummy rabbit to reject them. A clear plan came to light: washing hands, cuddling the mummy rabbit, handling the bedding and then then after all of that you can cuddle the babies (to stop us from transfering our scent). So the girls embarked upon their first baby bunny cuddle and this scent reducing regime has now become 'the law', Molly in particular loves there to be some rules and then makes everyone adhere to them with great diligence.

How cute!

Their eyes haven't quite opened yet.

Early saturday morning we then set about clearing our back roof area to make way for a secluded seating area outside our lounge french doors. As we moved the huge wood and rubble pile left over from house renovations 3 toads and a clutch of very ransid eggs were revealed.

This is our new found toad family. Just out of the picture is a clutch of 8 eggs. The chickens often sneak about and lay their eggs in all sorts of weird places, I haven't been able to bring myself to move them yet incase they explode on contact, grim!

This weekend has also been Laura and Carl's wedding. It has been a really magical wedding weekend full of beautiful flowers, fun, relaxation, walks, surfing, lots of croquet,friendship, family and super food. Highlights have been a cream tea on the terrace after the ceremony (in Lee and Kris's beautiful mismatched vintage tea set, I so wish I had taken a photo), Carl's beautiful and emotional speech and the fun of the Kalea in the evening. I forgot to take very many photographs but this is the rose arbour all set up for the otside ceremony as it was glorious sunshine all weekend. Happy days!

Today after I had waved good bye to Laura and Carl and their cling film wrapped and shaving foamed car, Rich me and the girls headed down in beautiful sunshine to Woolacombe to meet with Paul, Emma, Gracie and Theo to....

check out the National sand castle competition in aid of North Devon Hospice (where I work 2 days a week as a specialist nurse). Here are some of our favourites.