Into the 21st century.

I have finally joined the 21st century and succumbed to the pressure to have a mobile phone! It has come to feel almost irresponsible to drive around without one, especcially with my car in the poor state it has been in recently.

So, my mobile number is 07779 231 964. It will take me some time to learn this, and i will stumble on how many 7s there are!

The 3 for 2 offer is still available, until the end of November, and we still have some availability for the special Christmas breaks. See the website for more details.

Identity crisis, what identity crisis?

At the end of this week, my registration as an Occupational Therapist expires. When we were first here, I referred to my previous role quite frequently, now I hardly ever do. I felt a bit of a fraud being a guest house proprietor, I hadn't had three years training! Now I don't think of myself as an OT, but I am happy that that is what I did for all those years. And I am happier still that I made the move to guest house proprietor, and I rarely feel fraudulent nowadays, I have now had three and a half years self training.

Perfect Moment

I just had one of those rare perfect moments, and decided I would share it with anyone who happens to read this. I took the dogs down to Trebarwith Strand and we walked back up the cliff route. I stopped on the lower slopes, and had a sit for a while. What made it even more magical than it always is, was a combination of perfect, calm and warm weather and the sound coming from the balcony of a holiday apartment across the valley. Two people were playing a recorder and guitar. I think they were practicing and kept going over the same section again and again, I was willing them to move on after a bit, but it was just so lovely to hear the sound wafting across. Even the dogs behaved well.

Thanks to Jonathan!

The website has now been updated, super fast after my email to him. he does a brilliant job, see the link on the links page of the website if you need a website to be designed!

Update.

My website is now rather out of date, for which, many apologies. Hopefully it will soon be correct, as I have just emailed the new details to the person who manages it.

Following the success of the spring offers, we are again offering three nights for the price of two, as long as evening meals are taken each night at the normal price of £17.50. This will run between the beginning of October and the end of November. Between December and the end of March 2008, our winter prices will apply, ie. £27 pppn for bed and breakfast for the en-suite rooms and £22 for the standard room, except for during the Christmas period, see below.

We will once more be offering a Christmas special. This will be for four nights, arrivng on Sunday 23rd December and it will be part full board and include a bottle of wine per room. The cost will remain the same, at just £275 per person. A single supplement applies and there will be a reduction for the standard room.

Lovely stained glass window on the stairs at Michael House

Tintagel Parish church at Glebe Cliff

Sunset at Trebarwith Strand

On the way to Trebarwith Strand, the magnificent beach some 10 - 15 minutes walk from Michael House.

A filled yellow pepper, braised fennel, sweet potato, mange tout, brocolli and mushroom sauce, a vegan evening meal at Michael House

Onion tart and vegetables, a vegetarian evening meal at Michael House.

Pictures of room 3 at Michael House

This is a double room, with private bathroom. there is a cloakroom next to the room, and the private bathroom is up another flight of stairs.


View from the bathroom

Pictures of room 2 at Michael House

Room two is a double, en-suite room, with a standard sized double bed and a huge bathroom. The room and bathroom have views views in three directions between them.






View from the bathroom to the back.





View across the bed and out of the window to the front




View from the back of the bathroom.

View to the side, over Treknow.

View from the front, towards the valley leading down to Trebarwith Strand.

view from the bed, room 1.

Photos of the bedrooms at Michael House

People often ask for more details of the rooms at Michael House. This is something I must address on the website proper. Meanwhile, here are some photos of room 1 and views from it. It is a double en-suite room, with a super kingsize bed, or it can have two single beds. The bathroom is fairly small, but has a full size bath, from which you can have a glimpse of the sea in the distance!

I will do a separate blog entry for each room, plus an extra of other bits and bobs.



The bathroom, with views from the bath!

View to the front from room 1

August in Cornwall

If you are wondering about coming to Cornwall this month and staying at Michael House, do give me a ring or email me. There are a few gaps here and there and the weather doesn't look too bad for the next few weeks - no promises of 80 degrees though!

Blogging

I am getting obsessed with reading blogs. There are some fascinating blogs to read, and each one I look at leads me to others. I particularly like those which are art and craft related, and blogs lend themselves brilliantly to displaying work people have done. So, instead of creating the things I should be making for the fete we have in Treknow in a few weeks, or weeding the garden, I am reading what other people have been doing! There are great ideas out there, such as the Etsy shop online, and people set card making challenges, using a particular theme. I would love to get into that, but am too busy reading the blogs. Oh, and running the guest house.

Round yellow things.

On the BBC weather forecast chart for next week for the Tintagel area there are unfamiliar round orangey yellow shapes depicted. Not sure what they are, haven't seen such symbols for a while.

Trying not to get too excited, but do hope it is right!

Improvements!

We have had a bit of a move round of stuff at Michael House.

Simon and I now sleep in the little cottage behind the house. This means that the top bathroom is now a private bathroom for guests sleeping in room three, the standard room. It has also allowed me to remove all my craft materials from the back of the sitting room to the room at the top, where we used to sleep. They are currently mainly in a big heap on the floor, but it will be very exciting once I get things sorted out. The sitting room is much nicer and guests will have the top bathroom entirely to themselves.

The real price of milk.

I hope you will spare a few moments to read the excellent blog by Richard, who runs a vegetarian guest house in the New Forest, about the way in which most milk and dairy products are produced by cows kept in vast sheds throughout their lives. 'Zero Grazing'.
http://www.veggieplaces.co.uk. Click on the link to Richard's blog. This site also gives a useful list of vegetarian resources, and invites feedback on places you have visited.

Whilst I hope organic produce is healthier and I know a lot is tastier, the fact that the welfare of the animals is better is a far more compelling argument for it's use. Where I have long bought only free range eggs, and mainly organic ones, I have only more recently made an effort to source organic milk, yogurt and cream whenever possible. Most of ours comes from Riverford, see earlier blog for praise heaped on them! Cheese will be a whole further challenge, and I doubt I will achieve this in the short term.

hallow, Ted The kat here.

wi, o wi, just wen i am settled in the big kervd plastik hows i hav with funi plants in, maybe sleping a bit, dus Vanesser hav to start spraying worta everiwere. It menes i hav to muve or get wet. i thinc she dus it just to annoi me. she is jelus of me, resting. she corls it a politunnle or sumthing. Hu is Poly? it is my tunnle, not Poly's.

Rules of running a guest house

Number One

Never throw snails at your guests.

Prize winning courgettes etc.

We officially have prize winning courgettes at Michael House.

OK, so they only came second.

OK, there were only three entries.

Oh, and it was only a tiny village show.

But, still they are prize winning. We ate them this evening, there is nothing like the first courgettes. They tasted like winners.

There is something lovely about the village garden show. Everyone gathering things together they have grown, making beautiful pies and flower arrangements, and the children producing amazing creations on plates, making masks and cup cake creations. Fierce competition, yet also willing each other to do well, bringing us all together.

Oh, I also won third prize for the strangest shaped vegetable. There were only three entries to this. So, not many strange shaped vegetables in Treknow then, or no-one wished to admit they had created something other than perfect specimens. Mind you, there was only one entry in the radish class. Fortunatley, it won first prize. I heard of a cucumber, the only entry in its class, which only won second prize somewhere.

Surprising, really, that there was anything at the show, after the last entry I made, moaning about the effect of the weather on our gardens.

The picture at the top of the page, which I cannot get to move down here, won second prize, out of quite a lot. I'm not competetive a bit (??), but it would be nice to win a first prize sometime. Oh well, next year. Perhaps they will introduce a class for largest snail. Then I'd be in with a chance.

Vegetables - or not.

The vegetable garden is very depressing this year. The main things doing well are those in the polytunnel, where there are lots of courgettes coming along, cucumbers galore, chillies, peppers, and tomatoes shortly. We have had lettuce in the polytunnel too, and have some strawberries as well. It is great to be able to make salads with most things being home grown. We also have cornflowers and calendula for cutting and start off the herbs etc.

The image on the right was probably taken last year or the year before, but it looks similar this year, although my experiment of sweetcorn in the polytunnel did not really work!

But, outside, the story is rather bleak and windswept. The soft fruit is doing fine, there are lots of raspberries, although I do not think they are the yummiest variety, so may need to be replaced. Black-, white- and red currants are all doing well, adding a sharpness and colour to the breakfast fruit salads, and I may have enough to make a few pies etc. The rhubarb is lovely. The strawberries have looked good, but, where do they vanish to? They are in a fruit cage, but seem to have mostly disappeared!

Otherwise, a sorry state. Simon spent hours preparing the soil, adding compost etc. and then planting seeds. Of the carrots we have one. That will be a precious carrot indeed, if nothing has eaten it underground already! The fennel never showed at all. The beetroot should be OK eventually, and the broad beans have done a bit. The sweetcorn may be OK. The peas were hopeless, and my favourite, runner beans, have been eaten or blown away, i have tried about three times, using seeds and bought in plants. The winds, rain, salty air, seem to have had a dramatic effect this year. And as for the slugs and snails, they have feasted and reproduced and feasted again...

I only feel comfortable confessing all this because I know others have had a similar time locally in their gardens and because we have had far more success in previous years! We are still novices and have little time to devote to the garden, but it is very exciting to bring the produce in and use it in the kitchen for our guests, and there is enough to still get some satisfaction and not give up, and the pain will be all forgotten by next spring!

Echium pininana

These are plants which people love or hate. I love them, I would probably not be blogging about them if I didn't! They are a talking point, the stems reaching up to 4 metres, with a mass of blue flowers in early summer. We have two this year, there were more last year, I think the picture was taken the year before last. Next year, we should have many more, as we have lots of plants at the stage where they are a rosette of bristly leaves, and we have many tiny plants, which we sell for the Home of Hope in Zambia or give away, as well as building up our collection of the plants for the future. Sadly, one of them this year has taken a bashing in the recent winds. Simon fixed it carefully to the posts in the hedge with a couple of pairs of tights. His request for tights was scrutinised of course! The stems of flowers are much thicker than in the picture this year. One interesting but obvious fact once you know it, is that they are related to the borage plant. Similar colour flowers, and rough, feathery feel to leaves. Makes sense when you know!

Some facts about the echium, adapted from the internet:

'Half-hardy biennial/triennial, native to the Canary Islands. In its first year, Echium pininana does little more than put out a large rosette of bristly leaves. In its second, or third, year, however, it sends up a thick, fast growing, tapering stem, up to 4m (just over 13 feet) high, thickly clothed with green leaves and thousands of small blue flowers. If it has support and shelter, it can be very impressive, the talk of the neighbourhood even.

Echium pininana is said to grow best in the UK in a southern maritime situation, but plants have been known to thrive as far north as Yorkshire. If you have free draining soil, and somewhere sunny and sheltered to grow it, it's worth a go. '

Very attractive to bees and hoverflies. Sun and shelter are essential. Well drained, light soil. Dislikes wet clay. Half hardy in the UK - needs all the sun and shelter it can get.
Maintenance - little needed, as this plant traditionally grows in poor soil, though you may need to dig in grit if you are on a clay soil. Will probably need support. Protect the crown from excess wet in winter or it may rot off.

The stems and leaves are quite bristly, so you may want to wear gloves if you handle it, especially when removing the plant once it has died and dried out a bit.
Propagation - Collect seed in autumn after flowering and sow indoors from late winter to spring. Will self-seed. '

thank you www.wildchicken.com

Hedgerows

The hedges are looking lovely, full of sweet smelling honeysuckle and foxgloves everywhere. The thrift has nearly gone now, which is my favourite, so I always feel a little sad when it finishes, but there is always something of interest.

Our spring offers, three nights for two with suppers at the normal price, have been a huge success. The offer (check the specials page for full details), is available until the end of June, and there is some availability, so do give me a ring or email if you are considering a break in Cornwall.