Posts by Benjamin Dickins

I cannot believe that tomorrow is the end of the first quarter – where has this year gone?! Thankfully, the spring has been considerably drier than last year and we have managed to achieve a lot more than we had 12 months ago.  Last week proved one of the most productive weeks of the year…

I said at the end of last week’s blog that the forecast looked good and I will have to split my time between continuing Hayloft’s refurbishment and starting to get on top of the garden. Thankfully, it did seem that spring had sprung at the start of the week and my first task was outside. …

My last blog (2 week ago (again!)) said that I was in a position to start applying paint in Hayloft as we continue with its refurbishment.  And over the last couple of weeks I actually have managed to do that but, as of last Sunday, it was only the ceiling which didn’t make great pictures…

My last blog, 2 weeks ago, said that we were focusing on the refurb of Hayloft and that has been my principal task.  In the blog, I said that the intention was to do all the preparation prior to starting to repaint.  That preparation has taken longer than anticipated! You will have seen from one…

This week will be a pretty short blog although that’s not because we have been idle! I mentioned last week that we are starting the year with a new project which was giving our couples’ gîte, Hayloft, a bit of TLC, and this has been the focus of our major efforts. When we arrived in…

My last blog was some weeks ago and, generally when there is a gap at this time of year, it means that we have taken some time for ourselves and have been on a bit of a holiday. This year we did almost exactly what we had two year’s ago and drove south to the…

Last week’s blog was relatively short as my sole focus had been to de-rig the Christmas decorations.  This week’s will be shorter still as that has remained my principal effort. This time last week, I had cleared our own house and had almost finished those in Granary.  I said that it was my hope that…

I mentioned in my last blog that the weather forecast for last week was due to be pretty poor, and so it turned out.  This week’s blog will be quite short. Thankfully, my focus was all internal starting to take down all the Christmas decorations.  The only disadvantage of putting up so many decorations, is…

Bonne année à tous ! Apologies for not posting a blog last week.  In my previous blog, I said that we hoped to relax and enjoy Christmas to the full, evidently I was too busy relaxing to write a blog! We hope you all had good Christmases and have started the 2025 happy and healthy. …

As last week, the past 7 days have been taken up with preparations for Christmas. Thankfully Priory was complete in time to welcome our first guests last Tuesday who had a short break staying with us for a couple of nights. With Priory decorated, I was able to progress Hayloft (guests arrived on Wednesday night)…