Rabbit Pies and Rounders

We are now into the full swing of our summer season, a time of 18 hour days and rapidly dwindling supplies of toilet rolls. Hard work it may be, but there's a real buzz from meeting new guests each day, plus the even warmer feeling of welcoming back guests who've stayed with us previously. Some have young families, others are now into 3 generations of Greenacres camping, dating back to 1976 when the site opened. And I'm delighted to say that Christine Hill, the original site owner, returned for a brief visit, for the first time since she left in 1994.

Our regulars have been doing their bit rallying the troops – huge communal games of rounders have kicked-off most evenings (do rounders games "kick off"?). Fading light is the best excuse ever for dropping a simple catch! I reckon the age range of our players has been from 3 to 69 – 66 years must be some kind of record, and so fantastic to see everyone joining in together.

The weather has been simply amazing. After torrents of non-stop rain in 2009 this summer has been just the opposite – almost no rain at all for the past 8 weeks. OK we've had our share of cloud and some showers, but much of the grass on the campsite has a distinct straw colour rather than the usual lush green.

We've welcomed visitors of a different kind twice in the past couple of weeks – a film crew from TV production company Wall to Wall. They are currently in Shepton Mallet, shooting a new BBC 1 TV series The
High Street, focusing on the changes in High Street shopping over the decades. In a program about the WW2 era they baked pies using the rations available – rabbit, mutton and other "delicacies". They then wanted a rural setting to film the pies being sampled by "yokels" – and they found us! Needless to say one (young) member of the family grabbed the limelight – we'll see if she makes it past the final edit and onto air in the autumn.

The cameras returned for a longer spell last Friday, when shooting the episode on the "swinging 60's", which will feature people camping in a period VW camper van. Actually I'm told it was a 71 model, but immaculate nonetheless. "The Grocers" – Carl, Debbie, Harry and Saffron - stayed the night and cooked breakfast in the pouring rain the next day. Surely it never rained in the 60's?

Sadly the time came for our 4 lambs – Betty, Sophie, Larry and Bambi – to leave us. They grew so quickly that they are now just too big to let our young guests play with them anymore. So they have returned to the farm, but they come back to the fence by the campsite to visit us each day – I think they're homesick! The lambs have provided so much pleasure - from scraggy little waifs to finished sheep - they completely won us over and our plan is that there will be lambs at Greenacres for many years to come.

Best wishes,

Duncan

Sunshine, shouts and stillness

Mary and I both gave huge sighs last night as we enjoyed a glass of wine after an amazing roast of local belly pork. The first really busy week of the season is complete and we have just a handful of tents decorating the site, looking lost in the huge space.

A week of (mostly) glorious sunshine and endless phone calls, with "Sorry no - we've been full for weeks..." imprinted on our brains. The Bradbury family returned (see last time's blog) and our girls gorged themselves on Claire's famous toasted marshmallows. Now it seems like somebody turned off a light – suddenly the constant shrieks and shouts of excited little voices have all disappeared back to school. We are left with calmness, broken only by the sound of the birds, the cows and the lambs.

Our four lambs have proven a huge hit with the children. Countless little faces have lit-up as they got "up close and personal" with the soft fleeces, often for the first time. The lambs seem to love it too, all the attention and definitely the extra food! They have grown so quickly it's hard to imagine they were such scraggy balls of skin and bone only a couple of months ago. But now they are bigger and braver they are harder to contain. They seem less concerned by the electric fence and "The sheep are out again" is a phrase being heard too often. Time to think of a new plan!

Our chickens are also becoming mini-celebrities. They wander from their Egloo hut to the campsite and spend their days pecking for worms and out manoeuvring the children's attempts to stoke them. The eggs taste superb too! Superb taste was also on offer here last week in the form of the Brown Cow Organics produce. Judith brought a selection of their goodies down to the campsite, fresh from winning the "Best Yoghurt" award at the Bath & West Show. She seemed surprised to have won – we weren't surprised at all. Brown Cow will be back in the main summer season.

So now we have a short window of 2 quiet weeks before the start of the Glastonbury Festival rush, which gives us a brief chance to complete the tiling of the showers. As soon as the last campers pulled out of the site yesterday (on the back of an AA truck, but that's another story) I got to work with a crowbar, hammer and saw. The creative part I'll leave to the experts, but wrecking-out is such fun! One of the boards was signed by the original builder – "D.Carter, Pilton, 1977" - that's hardly historic, but ready for an overhaul sure enough.

Then there's the important technical challenge of making sure our camping dads (and mums too!) don't miss out on the World Cup from next weekend onwards. "Chicken Shed TV" will feature every kick of the England games on a big projection screen – just bring your own chairs, cans and some hankies for the penalty shoot out!

Best wishes,

Duncan

 

 

All Systems Go!

It has been a very long and very hard winter, the coldest for 31 years I'm told, but we are now just days away from opening for the 2010 camping season. March is one of our most frantic months, as we try to fix all the bust pipes, wave a paintbrush at everything that doesn't move and a grease gun at things that do. It's also one of the busiest times for bookings, with people eager to secure their Bank Holiday or summer pitch space.

Running the campsite this year should be easier because we have our lovely new house to live in. The new reception area allows a welcome return to selling Ice cream and cold drinks. We just need some sunshine to make that worthwhile. In London today the Metro newspaper announced this will be "Britain's hottest summer ever" – where have we heard that before? Still, we live in hope and if they forecast the same every year, eventually they will be right. The upbeat prediction comes not from the Met office, but from a small group of forecasters in Abergavenny, so I'm knotting my handkerchief ready!

The list of jobs to be done before Easter is still worryingly long. Spring is definitely later – by this time last year we had cut the grass twice – this year it has not yet started growing properly. We've also suffered quite a lot of frost damage to some of the young grass, with the result that we need to keep some of the re-seeded pitches vacant for a few weeks more. The swings and big slide have both seen major repair surgery and a lick of paint, ready for all the "Easter bunnies" in another week or so.

So what's new at Greenacres in 2010? Our main investment project was completed last week when the plumbers installed a huge new Worcester boiler in the shower block. We also added thermostat-balanced showers, so hopefully there will be balmy and welcoming showers for all from now on. The ageing Vaillant water heaters have done well to last since 1976, but they're probably out of warranty by now. The replacement promises eco-friendly A-rated efficiency and push-button control showers, so we will improve our "green score" too. Reading back through the customer reviews on UKCampsite, our showers were the one thing some people were "lukewarm" about last year (sorry, couldn't resist), so this is positive proof that we do listen!

We're also planning to build on a successful partnership with our friends at Brown Cow Organics that started almost by chance last summer. Judith and Jason from Brown Cow will be visiting with their mobile stall through the peak summer months as last year, but we are eager to allow off-peak visitors chance to experience the flavour of organic Somerset too. So we will be launching "arrival packs" for pre-order, delivered to the camp site ready for your arrival. Last year so many people arrived at Greenacres with cars stuffed to bursting, kids squashed into tiny spaces between the sleeping bags and tins of beans. Instead why not enjoy the luxury of a bit more space in the car and some wonderful locally-produced organic (or Fairtrade) produce can be waiting for you at the end of the journey. More details soon.

Finally there may be a couple of additions to the Greenacres family this summer. No, Mary isn't expecting again (heart stopping thought) but we are planning to adopt a couple of orphan lambs from our neighbours at the farm. Inspired by the brilliant Lambing Live program on BBC2, our girls have been helping out bottle-feeding a dozen bleating little balls of wool and, yes, daddy fell soft. In the months ahead "Mint" and "Rosemary" will educate our young 'uns about the circle of life, but at the moment they're certainly cute.

Best wishes
Duncan

Christmas wishes

I'm writing this a week or so before Christmas on a stunningly crisp and beautiful winter morning. At this time of year everything is frantic, as we eagerly try to cram-in parties, concerts, nativity plays and panic shopping in readiness for the big day. So a brief stroll around the camp site this morning was a refreshing reminder of what's really important.

You might think that a camp site out of season would be a rather forlorn place. Sure enough there are the faint echoes of excited children when I walk past the Wendy houses and swings, but overall there is a stillness and calm around the place, as though this is how it's meant to be. The rabbits, squirrels and birds simply take over at this time of year. Flocks of starlings sit most days on the field, watched by the nosy robin that "owns" Pitch 4. It's only a couple of weeks since the last of the leaves were torn down by autumn gales, but already there are sticky buds on the Horse Chestnut trees, so children will have a plentiful supply of conkers next year too.

In the true spirit of Christmas we had two sets of unexpected visitors last week. The first was a buzzard, who sat right beside our back window for a good 10 minutes, unnoticed by the smaller birds in the bushes nearby. We knelt motionless and spellbound, privileged to get within inches of such a majestic wild creature. Less welcome was a pack of 30 hunting hounds that charged through our garden the next day, accompanied by the shrill sound of horns, loud shouts and horse hooves. I'm pretty certain nobody had laid a scent trail right through our garden, so make up your own mind about what they were really doing. This is, after all, the countryside and I'm definitely not a killjoy, but it's about as far away as it gets from being "natural" in my book.

Much more pleasant was our Greenacres Christmas "Do". Mary and I decided that two was plenty for a festive celebration, and where better to enjoy it than at River Cottage? We were entertained, educated and given a winter warming feast by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his team. Thankfully roast badger wasn't on the menu, but lavish and local wild venison was. A great night, good company, washed down by Sheppys cider and Hugh's Stinger beer, then back to a gorgeous 4-poster at the brilliant All Hallows B&B just down the road. Camping? For one night only you can keep it!

A traditional family Christmas is planned, with Carol Services, mulled wine and an organic bronze turkey from our friends at Brown Cow Organics. I can't wait.

To everyone who stayed with us at Greenacres Mary and I wish you the happiest Christmas and New Year and we look forward to welcoming you back in 2010.

Best wishes,

Duncan

Mud is Good

I knew that a blog post was long overdue, but the camping season is at an end and our house building complete so I was struggling to get started. A train journey to London always creates some time for writing and my complimentary copy of The Times today provided a spark of inspiration. In her article Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud, Chloe Lambert reports that American research scientists have discovered dirt can actually benefit children, that germs are good for us after all.

Finally there is some clinical evidence to underline what many of us have believed for a long time – trying to wrap-up our little ones in an antiseptic blanket is doing them more harm than good.

Our immune system – how our body fights disease – is a complex thing that benefits from exposure to a broad range of bugs and germs. By learning how to fight them it becomes stronger and better equipped to tackle the real nasty ones when they come along. In some ways this is no different to any other form of exercise, except this "body-building" is microscopic. And by denying children exposure to a natural mix of bacteria and viruses we increase the risk of their bodies developing allergic reactions on contact with pets, pollens and similar triggers.

So could the world-famous Glastonbury mud be a magic elixir for long life? I think that may take a few more years of American research to prove, but I've met lots of people who believe it's true. Maybe that has something to do with the mushrooms that grow on it though!

At the peak of this year's monsoon season (aka summer) the children on our campsite certainly revelled in their puddle splashing and making mud angels, so maybe we should leave them to it. Everything in moderation of course – there are dangers lurking even in the countryside. Parents need to be very careful about close contact with animals and make sure hand washing is strictly enforced. e.coli bacteria are particularly nasty and can devastate young kidneys.

When the festival is very muddy Trench Foot disease sometimes puts in an appearance, just as it did in Flanders in WW1, but thankfully we never need to worry about that at Greenacres.

So let's celebrate that our outdoor camping lifestyle really is the healthier choice! And next time it pours down for the whole holiday, send your young 'uns outside and tell yourself it's to give them a better future J

Best wishes,

Duncan

In the house at last

We finally made it!


A year after we first started planning our house rebuild with the architect we actually moved-in for the first time last weekend. Don’t get me wrong, we love camping, but 5 months in the caravan was more than enough for anyone. Now we have space in abundance, power showers and amazing views all around. We still have some builders around the place finishing-off, but hopefully we will persuade them to leave eventually J

The last couple of weeks have been hard-going, getting carpets, curtains and kitchen units all fitted while still running the camp site. Our guests have been very understanding – we were hoping for a quiet weekend for the move itself, but the sun shone better than it has for many weeks. Ah well, we can’t complain. I’m a total convert to the benefits of solar panels for hot water. Every night we have a big tank full of piping hot water – enough for several showers or a couple of baths at least – all for free. The Velux system we chose looks great too as it sits within the roof tiles and matches the loft windows in the bedrooms. It came as a complete kit with a huge cylinder, all the controls and all the pipes included.

The days are getting shorter and the first leaves are starting to fall. The “Site Full” sign, in daily use throughout July and August, has gone back in the shed until next year. The grass is starting to grow back on the well-used pitches and we have the first booking enquiries for the 2010 season. Harvest time is always a time to reflect with thanks on our good fortune, to re-group and make plans to do even better next year. We have a long list of things we’d like to do, but after major investment this year we will need to put them in order of priority.

At the end of the school holidays we said farewell to Jason and Judith and the Brown Cow Organics mobile shop for this season. Unlike our resident swallows they won’t be flying south for the winter, but we do expect them to return next spring! Those who enjoyed their steaks this summer can still buy online for home delivery at www.browncoworganics.co.uk.

Now is the time to install the “Swallow Cam” so that people can watch next year’s chicks. Wireless internet should hopefully be installed on the site too, right after I finish fitting the curtain poles and Velux blinds!

Best of all we’ve met some lovely people and made many new friends. We’ve really appreciated all the kind messages and feedback from those who’ve enjoyed their stay with us. It will seem strangely quiet without the constant buzz of people arriving and phone calls, but we’re ready for a rest and some quality time with the family.

Best wishes,

Duncan