Tsk, tsk, another gap in blogging. Note to self ... try and make time

So yes, life has been busy, and the cottage is still getting lots of lovely guests and consistently lovely comments and reviews. And suddenly here we are at Halloween with Christmas on the horizon. Here in Cheddar for the last good few years, the festive season starts early. The first Friday in December has now become the tradition that is Cheddar Festive Night. The best bit of this is that the whole of the lower gorge road (The Cliffs) and the road on down in to the village (Cliff Street) is closed off for the evening.

And then up and down that route lots of people, of course mostly local at that time of year, come to Cheddar to enjoy a host of Christmassy stalls, events and entertainment. Much of it is raising money for good causes and it can vary from commercial craft stalls through to a small charity setting up a mulled wine stall on a table outside a house. So quite "home-made" and parochial in places, but that gives it real charm.

Just wandering the lower gorge without the normal traffic is a treat. Indeed although traffic is not formally banned, the main (upper) gorge road is not a through route and so traffic stops, and that makes for a noter possibility for the fit (although in the dark not so wonderful).

And most all the good shops are open with Xmas offering - lots of tasters, lots of samples. For those getting to the top of the route earlier on, you can get in to Cheddar's main caves for just £5 (all going to charity)

So if you happen to be in the area (or indeed maybe even choosing to stay at the cottage), this Friday 6th December is a good event to aim for.

A slight gap in blogging, sorry, but it is due partly to busy life and partly because there was nothing obvious to blog about, and we don't want to blog for the sake of it.

But this time something for us that was remarkable. As some will know we use a camera-trap to monitor the garden, and particular any nighttime action. Recently we have had very regular captures of fox and badger on most nights somewhere in the garden, and sometimes hedgehog. 

Now we have always been a bit worried that badger and hedgehog don't mix ... badgers are known to attack and eat hedgehogs ... at least that's what we've heard. Which brings us to some recent video. We set the camera to view a little bit of shrubbery by the end of the main house patio area. We put it here because deep in the shrubs is a hedgehog house put there in the hope we might attract a hedgehog. We know we have one or more, but the question was are they using this purpose built "house". So just outside the place where it sits we put the camera.

And we caught lots of action, fox, badger, hedgehog and even (need a separate post) a wee mouse (we think wood mouse). We also know the many cats who wander through often sit and stare in to this area. Well the reason many come is seed - above in the shrubs we had had a bird feeder and the much-spilled seed is deep in the grass there. Equally clearly, badger, hedgehog and mouse all love this.

But the unusual  - for us dramatic - sequence was when a lovely few videos of hedgehog munching away, then becomes a series of videos with a young badger right in there beside it. For a scary moment we thought a soon-to-be-seen video might capture some ugly scene. But no. The hedgehog just hunches down (does not fully roll up) and stays still, for something like 7 minutes while the badger snuffles away at the seed - seemingly oblivious of, or certainly disinterested in the hedgehog. When the badger has moved on, the hedgehog stays still a few minutes longer, and then, seemingly unperturbed, carries on eating itself.

​So here for you enjoyment are are a few of the 20 second videos - before, during and after.

BEFORE - happy hedgehog

UH-OH - someone is coming

NOW - happy badger time

AFTER - happy hedgehog again ... wholly unperturbed by the encounter

Since we started with Gorge View Cottage we have donated £10 to charity for every booking we take. Initially we picked Prickles Hedgehog Rescue as our chosen charity and more recently we added The Mendip Hills Fund.

Prickles is a very local Cheddar success story driven in the beginning by the passion of one woman, Jules Bishop, who started looking after orphaned or ill hedgehogs in 2007. The project grew and grew in her regular home on an estate in Cheddar, and finally they managed to secure dedicated premises. They typically care for over 600 hedgehogs and hoglets every year. And that takes a lot of money. We are just giving our next donation to them of £250 bringing the total donated over the years to almost £2,500. Given that we are delighted to have hedgehogs in our garden, and indeed once discovered an unwell confused hog which we took to Prickles for care (although sadly it didn't make it), we are proud to be helping in a small way their brilliant and dedicated workers and volunteers.

​​The Mendip Hills Fund on the other hand is a community fund set up to conserve and enhance the environment, communities and economy of the Mendip Hills. It is a partnership between the Mendip Hills AONB Partnership and the Somerset Community Foundation. It is supported by local businesses and last year was able to give £11,000 in grants to thoughtful projects throughout the Mendips. Given that almost all guests at Gorge View Cottage gain from the beautiful and varied Mendip Hills we feel it is the least we can do to given back a little to the area, to help the maintenance and improvements that keep it special. The recent £250 donation brings our running total to MHF to £870.

So hopefully for all guests coming to the cottage they will know that every stay helps the local good causes.

Three years ago the AONB and Sedgemoor District Council invited interested parties to a meeting: they wanted to challenge Cheddar to become a fully fledged Walkers are Welcome destination. We were up for it and so Gorge View Cottage became a founding member of what became Cheddar Walking. And in record time we got our accreditation and launched. 
Three years on and the steering group has achieved a lot to be proud of: 10 fully tested walks with self-guide walking sheets published (downloadable for free from the website or for a small donation pre-printed from the National Trust Shop); 45,000 downloads to date and over 6,000 printed copies bought; then we've supported 3 local festivals with guided walking activities (and we're set to help again with the 2019 National Trust's Top of the Gorge Festival in its third year); and this month we finally completed a long project to fund, design and install three promotional information boards (or as we prefer to call then - "inspiration boards") laying out the 10 walks.
The walks vary from a 30 minute loop on mostly lanes, to the challenging 20-mile section of the West Mendip Way from the coast (Weston-Super-Mare) to Cheddar (you can bus out and walk back).
Anyone coming to stay at Gorge View Cottage gets all these walks in a folder along with many others from the AONB, National Trust, RSPB and Somerset Wildlife Trust. Pop a walk sheet out for the day and then pop it back for the next guests. And all these walks can be done without any car being involved. In fact probably 70% or more of our guests do at least one walk and almost all of them thoroughly enjoy and recommend them. The Mendip Hills, the Gorge and the Levels all have something for everyone.

And a big thank you to the wonderful Cafe Gorge and excellent Cheddar Medical Centre for allowing us to place these information boards on their railings for all the visitors and community to see and get inspired to walk a little.

Maybe it was that prolonged and unseasonal cold spell through April and in to May, but the pent up energy of nature seems to have finally burst forth this year. The Gorge View garden seems bursting with blooms. And the bees are loving it!

At first we were very worried to not see that many bees around and were concerned that the extended cold spell had hit their populations. But, at least here, the bee business has got back to normal albeit belatedly.

So as we wander the garden there are places where the noise of the bees if remarkable. Looking closely at flowering shrubs like the deep purple-blue Ceanothus (I had to ask Mary for the name!) you see it is covered in bees of all sort: honey bees of course, but a range of bumblebees (I love their Latin genus name of 'Bombus' - so appropriate), and solitary bees such as the Red Mason Bee.

Another amazing flower is the Passion Flower (see top photo). Mary planted ours on the front corner of the house years ago and it did nothing. We thought it was dying. But then, a few years back, it finally started to grow. And grow and grow. And now it is ballooning out and overtaking the thrusting Wisteria and the long-established Virgina Creeper. The flowers are extraordinarily complex, delicate and beautiful, and the knot of twisting green stems have amazingly tangly tendrils to help catch on to any support available. The bees love the flowers. Often you find a clustered mix of bees all feeding of one flower (and with no fighting). And whilst the 25 foot high tangle of the plant is covered in buds, at any one time only a few flowers pop out for a short but wondrous few days. After the late hard freeze in April the plant suffered badly, was brown leaved and looked very poorly. But within a month the health is back and the bees are tucking in to the nectar again.

They work so hard those bees - busily working before we are up and still going late in to the evening. Phew. We get so much value from these little workers and so it was a relief to hear that the EU has (after long deliberations and lots of lobbying from the agri-chemical industries) outlawed the use of neonicotinoid pesticides that have a hugely detrimental affect on the pollinator populations. They all still face other huge challenges, but at least one step has been taken to help them. Care for nature aside their contribution (for free) has massive economic value, but of course big business cannot grab that effort for profit.

​Anyway this was not meant to be a rant, more a celebration of the beauty of the blooms in our garden. Enjoy the photos.

Last weekend, as we have done for many of the last years, we were able to pop down to South Somerset for one of the loveliest day festivals we know: The Green Scythe Fair. Even the 50 minute cross-country run to it is beautiful, across the levels and up over High Ham to Langport, the wonderfully named Huish Episcopi and through the village Muchelney to Thorney Lakes. The last miles of lanes via Mulchelney were made famous during the heavy flooding of the Somerset Levels back in 2014 - the tiny village was cut off with boats needed to ferry people in and out of the village for over a week.

The fair itself is set in one large grass meadowy field where the grass has been allowed to grow nice and long. The centre of the field is set aside for scything competitions and the wide edge is lined with all sorts of stalls selling green crafts, local foods, almost all of it with an environmental or ethical foundation. A couple of tiny stages host small fun bands, and they usually have a afternoon debate tackling subjects with strong emotions on both sides. Power is all solar generated, loos are composting toilets (and very nicely kept).

This year, for the first time, the success of the fair led to it being closed to entry for a couple of hours after midday as the visitors hit maximum (5,000!) and the car queuing in the approaching lanes got dangerous. Next year they'll think this through better. Of course the preferred option is to get there by environmental means and in the past we've part-cycled. This year we went electric vehicle of course and they even had solar car charging available!

Luckily every time we've been it has been warm, usually sunny and (critically for the scything) dry! And the scything lies at the heart of it all. Lots of competitions to scythe a fixed area in races, heats and finals. Semi-professionals and complete amateurs; men, women and even children having a go (but safely). Education and workshops on the different types of scythe, and of course you can buy them and the bits to maintain them at some stalls). In competition points are given not just for speed, but style and quality of cut.

This of course generates a lot of freshly cut grass and hay. So there are pitchforking competitions, hay stacking, hay sculptures, and the many kids have a  great deal of fun building hay dens or just throwing the stuff around. Probably the one type of person who might hate all of this is anyone with bad hay fever!

We'll be going next year, and if you wanted to go then you can camp at the site (there is a very tidy permanent camping site right beside the fair), or of course you could stay at Gorge View Cottage and pootle down yourself.

A few weeks ago we were surprised but delighted to get a visit from our neighbours in Cheddar Gorge. No-one (person that is) actually lives in the gorge, but it is well populated with goats and sheep. The goats were released in to the gorge area to keep down the scrub and whilst they have done a good job of that they've basically gone feral and the population is pretty large. The sheep are Soay an ancient British breed that are also fairly feral.
​
Most days you can bump in to the goats and sheep (almost literally) as you drive the gorge road, early morning or late evening when they are down nibbling the verges. Seemingly completely oblivious to cars bearing down on them (and at this time of year) their babies. Luckily I have never seen any sad roadkill so it all works.

Anyway it seems that their populations are growing so much that they are looking further afield for good food. And last year for the first time in most people's memory a few ventured in to the upper village and raided the gardens. It seems they have a strong liking for tulips and a couple of neighbours were very annoyed to have their spring beauties systematically eaten. And now it is happening a second year, and we had a few visits.

This particular mother and her lamb (kid?) seem a regular in Birch Hill and a number of neighbours have tried to shepherd them back to the gorge. Luckily for us we don't have any tulips and nothing at the moment in the garden that would be a huge frustration if it got nibbled.

If you come and stay at the cottage we cannot guarantee any close-up encounters on the cottage patio, but if you do the gorge walk then you'll almost certainly spot some sheep and goats. Some of the billy goats are very impressive with long goatee beards. You will probably also smell them from a distance - the goats have a very soured goat milk odour!

Pretty much anyone in the UK, or indeed Europe, has been experiencing some of the most wintery weather we've experienced in many years. To start with, here in Somerset, we were just suffering the cold temperatures, and in particular the biting wind.

And then suddenly Somerset was in first an amber and then a red weather warning area as storm Emma drove moist air up in to the cold air mass over Britain, and the two weather systems colliding whipped up the winds even more.


In fact because of the winds the snow was not "deep and crisp and even", but much more variable. Birch Hill outside the cottage was pretty much clear of snow whilst in the garden and anywhere, the winds eddied around, the snow piled up in deep drifts. All in all we probably got 6 to 8 inches on average. And certainly it all looked lovely.

For possibly a day on the Thursday/Friday we were snowed in as far as vehicles went (no 4-wheel drive available). Birch Hill at the one end has a short steep bit that was too much for normal cars. But there are two flatter routes in that work fine if taken gently. But why drive if you can walk? So we did enjoy walking down to the village a few times with the roads largely to ourselves as most people heeded the advice to not go out if they did not need to.

And now on Saturday it is all thawing quite fast. The worst is over and life around us is returning to normal.

The snow itself has been rather wonderful as it drapes across the gorge slopes and the trees and the cottages. The nastier thing has been the easterly winds, and whilst the cottage has been solid throughout, and snug with underfloor heating and the log stove if wanted, our house has had two tiles ripped off and we're getting them fixed ASAP (but not for a few days  - so no rain, please). That is the first time in 15 years here that we have experienced any storm damage and it says a lot about the strength of the gusts. Not that we are complaining. Despite the dire predictions we have not suffered in any serious way and we know further afield many have.

Must stop now and finish the snowman!

"Cheddar Man" is pretty famous because the nearly-full skeleton discovered in Cheddar Caves over 100 years ago is the oldest example of Homo Sapiens ever found in Britain. How old is he? Well just around 10,000 years. As part of the Cheddar Caves attraction there is a bloke who dress up in old skins and a wild wig (in my mind a cross between Fred Flintstone and a Monty Python character). Entertaining and importantly a fun reminder of the deep pre-history of this place.

But now we have more information due to very recent DNA testing, and to be revealed in a new documentary on Channel 4 on 18th February ("First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man"). Before I look at the big news story today as part of the fanfare for the documentary, it needs to be pointed out that DNA testing of the skeleton has already thrown up a fascinating fact. DNA from Cheddar Man was compared with local testing of residents. And amazingly there were two exact matches with two children in the village, and an almost exact match (just a single mutation away) with the history teacher in the local school. Indeed our children's history teacher. It cannot get much better than that for your teacher to be a direct descendent!

But the earlier idea of what Cheddar Man might have looked like is harder. Of course wearing animal skins, but what of skins, hair and eyes? Research for the new documentary was funded by the Natural History Museum in London, and from that they realise that far from the fair-skinned, brown-eyed, fair-haired examples of reconstruction to date, in fact the new  and more precise reconstruction shows Cheddar man to have blue eyes, set in a very dark-skinned face and with dark curly hair. All very surprising but somehow wonderful.

I'd love to include a picture here but at the moment the images are very much copyrighted and as and when I can get a photo from the exhibit in the NHM I'll add it to this post. meanwhile you can see it, and learn a bit more on this good Guardian Online article. 

If you are staying at the cottage, whilst there is plenty to do within walking distance, the one "must do" day trip for guests is a visit to Wells - England's smallest city. Just 9 miles away it is either a short drive or there is an excellent bus service - the First Bus service 126 - taking less than 30 minutes and running hourly. Very fit souls might choose to cycle, and there is even a "bus out, walk back" option using a self-guide route using the West Mendip Way.

Not only do you have the cathedral which marks Wells as a city in the first place and the home of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, it also very compact. it is easy to wander from the cathedral green, along the oldest residential street in the UK (Vicar's Close) with stunning medieval architecture, across to the grounds of the Bishop's Palace, or through the often bustling market place to sample the many independent shops along the High Street and beyond.

Lovely eateries (The Good Earth being our favourite), a good range of pubs and cafes, and now a small micro pub (Just Ales). Good for charity shops too!

We go there often - usually to coincide with the Saturday or Wednesday markets. And almost everyone who does go enjoys it. For a good article on what to see and do check out this web article on the London-based Weekendr website: "24 Hours In: Wells".