I did start writing this yesterday with every intention of posting on Sunday and reverting to my previous routine however, better late than never …
I said in my last blog, 2 week’s ago, that we were in a position with phase 1 renovations complete and guests in all our gîtes, that we couldn’t do any more work so we had to ‘endure’ an enforced break – and it has been very restful.
Pleasingly, since completing ‘Stable’, we have had guests staying in our Chambre d’Hote every night except 2 and have received some very kind comments on the accommodation. It has been very encouraging having so many guests over the last 2 weeks, with some nights when we could have sold the Stable 3 times over! The challenge, as with the gîtes, will be to see if we can secure occupancy outside of the main holiday season.
As a result we are looking at out-of-season packages and working with local people to provide activities for our guests to do while they are staying with us. Some of these are taking great shape and we have updated our offers page with some autumn and winter ideas. I will write more about each of them in the coming weeks’ blogs.
Another thing I mentioned in my blog was that, as ever, the work we completed in both Granary and Stable was done so close to guests arriving that we weren’t able to take the normal marketing photographs. I promised them in my next blog (which should have been last week) but having enjoyed the no-painting last couple of weeks, they have been a little delayed!
We did update the appropriate pages on the website for Granary and Stable so apologies if you’ve seen these before, but I have attached a few below.
First, Granary:
And Stable:
Looking back at the last couple of (blog-less) weeks to summarise what we have done, including running a gîte and Chambre d’hote business, much of it has been spent relaxing as we hadn’t realised how exhausted we had become doing all of the renovations.
We took Garratt to the vet and he is now fully inoculated and vaccinated and has his own passport. We are thinking about whether to add a photograph to his travel document – possibly this one!
Now Garratt has had all his jabs we can take him on lovely walks, not too long so as not to cause damage to his developing joints and bones. We are spoiled with the number and variety of walks here either straight from the house and gîtes more within a short drive so we have explored a number of areas including his first visit to the beach and lots of lead training including the market at Daoulas.
We were very lucky to have had an amazing weekend when we were able to go and enjoy the weekly jazz at Bistro Au Lac (as did everyone on the lovely beach next to the restaurant)
but the weather has been decidedly un-summery for much of the rest of the week. Our only slight comfort is that, having seen the UK weather, it is worse there!
Our gîtes have been full with some lovely families and dogs. Priory and Hayloft had a couple and dog in each for 2 weeks Bertie and Leo respectively – the dogs – who were both very tolerant of Garratt, especially Leo who was a senior Labrador. Granary first had a Spanish family and then a British family who had joined us after a week’s cycling and camping – so who had to use Granary’s washing machine a lot for the first few days!
This week we will try and establish some sort of routine for running the business and continuing with the many projects which remain outstanding – after all, we have only just completed phase 1 interior decoration which, while pretty important, is only a fraction of what we want to achieve – there is so much left to do …
À bientôt.