June News - 1st blog post!

What an amazing year June 2006-2007 has been! It began with winning B&B of the Year for Cheshire and becoming runner-up for the NorthWest of England. Then this June we won the Tourism Experience of the Year which takes us forward again to the NorthWest regional finals in October. Hopefully the judges will agree that Harrop Fold along with its wonderful creative, gastronomic and aesthetic delights will truly be THE tourism experience of the North!

Only yesterday we received the fantastic news that we have been upgraded to 5 Stars AND with a Silver Award! - How hard we are going to have to work to keep this up, but with all these wonderful guests it is a pleasure to look after everyone! Creating the guest's new garden became a race against time; as guests arrived for tea at 4.30pm the turf was rolled out and laid rather like hoovering in the rain! Guests in the Oak Room may now enjoy breakfast continental style on their terrace in the garden in the morning sunshine - hmm..hmm! - yes, I have seen this weekend's forecast! Speaking of rain we recently had a daily broadsheet journalist staying with us and his comment in the Visitors' Book made us smile ... 'A really lovely family atmosphere, great conversation, and as for the food ...mmm - mmm! Completely forgot about the bloody awful weather! Thank you all'. This has been the latest in incredibly favourable press coverage we have had since Christmas.

The family are all home for the summer now and so there are lots of spare hands to help! Leah has returned North to plan her new business venture from Harrop Fold and is treating guests to a truly delicious regional dinner menu. She was a finalist in the Best Supporter of Regional Food for her new venture here, and speaking of which, she had the pleasure of treating Simon Rimmer of Greens & Earl to a traditional English high tea. He loved it and declared his favourite to be Leah's iconic Marmite and Delamere cheese finger sandwiches! This high tea is a great treat for guests, especially those from overseas; in fact at this very moment she is baking in preparation for our Indian guests eager to sample this very English custom.

Celebrating no 1 son's 21st birthday has been shared with American visitors who flew over the pond to join us. They arrived last year as guests and returned this year as friends - although never before had they experienced an English party and certainly not a Harrop Fold party!

March saw our inaugural weekend residential art course. The structured format was a huge success with the weekend turning into something of an 'artistic country house party', we market Harrop Fold as 'A Quintessentially English Experience' and already we have artists flying in from Greece to join us. For anyone interested our next weekend is running on 28th September.

Other new visitors arriving to Harrop Fold are the 6 new baby calves which are currently being weaned. Guests are really enjoying the experience of helping at feeding time. The doves have produced their first offspring and fortunately Lottie has now learnt that they are for looking at and not a delicacy! The goldfinches have proved a popular ornithological interest and their numbers have evidently increased in this area and we hope very much our swallows and house martins will remain resident and not think summer is over. Geoffrey the Peacock is a permanent resident since he appears to have fallen out with his peahen and our neighbours at the next farm. No amount of coaxing will make him return - we love him, a handsome creature with a splendid tail and a beautiful crest on his cobalt blue head.

Must go back to bed making and baking now, will chat to you again soon. Meanwhile look forward to meeting many new friends as well as all our regular visitors. Thanks to all for your kind words and support.

Sue