It's me again

I am shocked to see how long it is since I wrote on this blog.  As we speak we are in our fifth year of barn ownership and second year of running a holiday let business which is becoming increasingly busier. We continue to learn about the best way to market ourselves and have ventured into Facebook etc in order to get our name about. We are very grateful for all the positive comments and feedback from guests, we rely heavily on this to know we are moving things in the right direction. 

This year we have hosted to several couples celebrating honeymoon's, birthdays and anniversaries.  We feel so privileged when people choose us for their special event especially a bride and groom!

On a slightly more sombre note the summer drought has been hard on the farmers, eating into winter feed and on anyone, like me, who doesn't cope well in the hot weather. 

We have been living for the last two years with scaffolding on the house as we are having our house re-rendered in traditional lime mortar. Unfortunately the dry weather has meant the process had to be halted as it would mean the mortar dried out too fast and therefore we are truly grateful to see the days cooler and some much needed rain.

As summer days start to shorten we can hopefully look forward to a change of season which will allow the ground to recover. Whatever you are doing I hope you have a lovely summer.

Swallow Time

It always strikes me as odd that Autumn does not officially start until the end of the month (coinciding with the time when the Sun crosses the celestial equator (September 22nd or 23rd) and known as the Autumnal Equinox.  There seems already a change in the air and the morning grass is often heavily dewed with misty horizons looking for all the world as if in a pastel portrait with all of its fuzzy edging.

Heady Summer days still hang around with swallows frantically working to build sufficient energy to migrate over many thousands of miles.  One day the sky is full of their joyful calls, swirling together into the bright blue.   The next they are lining up in rows and suddenly they are gone.  

Like old friends I feel sad when they disappear and full of joy when the first one appears in the Springtime.  Swallows have always been a feature of our lives since moving into this place.  Nesting in the old barns, I never cease to be amazed by their capacity for acrobatics and how hard they work to bring up their babies, often more than one brood over the summer days.  It is not always an easy time because we have a cat,  ‘TC’, who is also a prolific hunter.  When he changes his habits to being a nocturnal cat as the weather warms up, I feel happier knowing that the swallow babies have a better chance to find their wings.

Gardening today in the warm Summer Sun I can again enjoy their company and savour the last moments before they move on.  I can only send them off with love and luck in the hope that they will travel safely and come back to us again.  Wherever you are travelling today, I hope you go safely.

How it began

It may sound crazy, but part of the reason we ended up in Suffolk was because of the dog above.  Sonny, a complex character who I rescued and who, after many a trainer, had reached a point in his life (aged 10 years) where he was at a standstill with his behaviour and neither he, nor we were having any kind of life in protecting him from his daily issues.  I have always said he was not so much a dog as a 'lifestyle' and I saw myself as his guardian.

A rescue dog from a difficult background, he had never been socialised and was fearful of his own shadow.  With the people he trusted (a select few), he was a soft hearted boy but, show him so much as a whisker of another dog or, an unfamiliar person and he was all teeth and claws at 40 paces.  This made living in the busy South East difficult as it was impossible to avoid dogs anywhere and as his behaviour escalated, he had to be muzzled and could never run free. So I resolved it was time to move to the country (a long held dream) where maybe we could find him a life!

When I arrived at this house in 2012 and viewed a crisp, green meadow, fenced on all sides I felt that finally the freedom Sonny deserved could become a reality and so it was.  It was the best I could do for him and although this ultimately became a posh retirement home as his health quickly declined, I hope we gave him some happy times. I resolved that his legacy would not be lost and we would develop the Barn to share our special place with other dog lovers too.

Sadly for Sonny we had to make the final trip to the vets in 2013 and you are welcome to look at his blog http://sonnydogblogblogspotcom.blogspot.co.uk/ if you are curious to know more about him. It was quite a journey in more ways than one...

4 years on, we are slowly getting to grips with being here and learning the ropes of living in a listed building which requires all sorts of complex maintenance. Thank goodness I have a husband who likes reading up on these things is all I can say.

Swallow Barn is the product of a 2 year stint of building work, sanding, banging and painting.  There were times when I thought it would never be done and now it is!  In this blog I will tell you about ourselves and our lives so you can get to know us a bit before you come.  Happy reading and Happy Holidays!