For us though it was a great moment to spend some days in the garden getting on with all those jobs before everything starts growing too fast to keep in check. Working out there with all the birds around is wonderful. The noisy and very tame blackbirds, some of whom are good mimics. And we have a few robins, one of which is very happy to come right up when we are working, mostly out to find the odd tasty morsel, but at times seemingly happy to just watch us work. It feels like we are his entertainment. Yet he sings to us in return so it is a very balanced relationship!
Well this weekend (10th February) it has felt as if Spring has arrived. Lovely sunny days, a touch of chilly wind at times, but when that drops it felt warm. Our guests today used the lovely weather to cycle the Strawberry Line cycle track to Yatton and back.
For us though it was a great moment to spend some days in the garden getting on with all those jobs before everything starts growing too fast to keep in check. Working out there with all the birds around is wonderful. The noisy and very tame blackbirds, some of whom are good mimics. And we have a few robins, one of which is very happy to come right up when we are working, mostly out to find the odd tasty morsel, but at times seemingly happy to just watch us work. It feels like we are his entertainment. Yet he sings to us in return so it is a very balanced relationship! Photo: Julian Dowse We recently had a charming guest at the cottage who had come all the way from Australia - our most distant guest by far. AS you may expect, despite the very comfortable bed, jet lag meant he had difficulty sleeping during the night at first. Not so good but there was an up side for him, and indeed for all of us. As he killed time by gazing out at the gorge view in the wee hours he spotted a fox, and later a different one, using the wall across the lane as a path, and then jumping down to walk through our drive and garden. We knew we had foxes passing through but had not seen them. But now we are inspired to try harder. And indeed for Christmas Huw got a great present of a Trail Camera - one of those nifty camera trap gadgets they use on some wildlife programs to get images of shy creatures. Weatherproof it can be placed where you want and when triggered by warm bodies moving it takes photos or video, and with infra-red lights it can also work in the pitch black. So we're hunting our illusive friends, and of course the birds and cats that are busy in our garden (and maybe badgers, and hedgehogs when they emerge from hibernation) . If we get any great images you can be sure we'll post them here. One of the more tedious chores on the outside of the main Gorge View house is trimming the Virginia Creeper. I call it "giving the house a haircut", and like hair it just keeps growing (although happily unlike hair it all falls off and stops growing for the winter). During spring, summer and even early autumn it needs trimming every month or so or it would take over and wreck the roof and guttering, cover the windows and the floodlight, and the house sign would be pointless. So up and down the ladder I go, shifting a few feet and repeating, time and again to prune it off. Luckily I don't suffer vertigo, but sometimes I wonder what the accident rate is for 50-somethings falling off ladders! However as we enter October I remember why I love this plant so much as the large fleshy leaves start to turn from a lush green in to a remarkable deep claret red, and seeing the house swathed in this beautiful autumn blanket is a sight indeed. And so the work is worth it. And indeed (to Mary's surprise given my manly grumblings) I am actually wondering whether we should not plant some to grow up the cottage - I have spied a lovely more delicate variety on a house around the corner which would be much easier to manage. By coincidence that house is owned by the builder who converted the cottage. Small world. Britain is renowned for its gardens big and small, but not all of them are that good for wildlife and the Somerset Wildlife Trust, of which we are members, is trying to get those with gardens to do more to specifically encourage and support a rich wildlife habitat: from birds to butterflies, bugs to bees, and frogs to foxes. Their scheme is the Wildlife Garden Award Scheme, and we applied for their badge of honour, providing evidence that we met at least six of the nineteen key elements, with a minimum of one in each of the four main categories. Well we did it and now are proud award holders, with a plaque to prove it (see picture) . For a while we've been in the process of signing up to the Green Tourism Business Scheme, the official UK stamp of approval for sustainable businesses in tourism. Not only do we want to assure guests of our claims, but also we want to support a scheme that is encouraging tourist businesses large and small to get more sustainable, and encourage those looking for tourists places and activities to be more discerning. It is a chicken-and-egg situation when the choice is still relatively small.
After several months of "Awaiting Grading" status we finally had our assessment visit. And we're thrilled it seemed to go very well. A very detailed and thorough set of around 100 separate items to be considered, covering the cottage, the garden and how we conduct our business. Whilst not all sub-sections apply to us, and some are still in our plans to tackle, we seemed to get recognition for much of what we've done. No grade yet agreed ... but we are hoping in these Olympic weeks that just maybe we are "Going for Gold"! I love this time of year with late spring flowers bursting out from the frondy green.
We get a lot of birds in the garden, but it is around this time of year that the swifts (or are they House Martins?) return from wintering in the tropics (all right for some, eh?). And that has now happened with mornings and evening punctuated by gaggles of very fast birds flitting around the skies gobbling up airborne insects. Difficult to see as they move so fast and change direction quickly, the main clue to their proximity is the high pitched "chittering" sound they make. They don't seem to nest around our buildings, preferring our those of our neighbour's, but we don't take that as an insult.
Anyway for Mary the return of the swifts makes her feel summer is almost here. Bring it on. We are lucky to occasionally have a few musicians over in the house annexe to rehearse: a rock/folk acoustic crowd. Yesterday was one of those days and a lovely mix of mandolin, flute, keyboards, hurdy-gurdy and drums floated across the garden.
Check out: www.celtechmusic.com and www.dragonsfly.org Several days now of balmy sunny days. Feels like summer has arrived in the gorge and we plan for a first pub garden pint later. The flip side is that we probably need rain for the region, but luckily all our rainwater harvesting systems are full: the big underground tank (4,000 litres), several 1000 litre IBC containers and a host of smaller butts. Last year at around this time we hit a long dry spell and so we have learnt not to assume more rain will come and top everything up and so are more prudent using it all.
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Gorge View Cottage DiaryGorge View Cottage is a characterful and environmentally renovated self-catering cottage, with stunning views Archives
August 2021
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