Due to a rather frustrating last minute cancellation/lack of communication, the week commencing February 16th is now available. If you are reading this on Wednesday, ie today, give me a call to book - 01298 687006. If, however, you are reading this on Thursday/Friday, please call Hadi or me on our mobiles as we will be travelling. 07775 731866 or 07969 234209. As it is so last minute, we can be fairly flexible on days/prices, but the Barn won’t be ready until 3pm Saturday.
This week has been glorious  - who knows what next week will bring. Do come and stay.

Apologies to all of you who are reading this with the intention of making a direct booking for the Barn. Unfortunately (fortunately depending on how you look at it), we have now filled the four ‘peak’ weeks allocated to us by our agency ECC, and can no longer take any direct bookings for dates prior to October half term. We would still love to see you at the Barn, but you will need to book via ECC (property ref RZ4). If you do go via this route, please feel free to contact us directly for any queries, organising a Tesco delivery etc.

PS - I think that this is now further reason for us to quit the agency and go it alone! Hadi has done a great job nudging us up the search engine rankings - so there is no excuse!

Well, there isn’t much to report. Bookings for the year are coming in steadily, perhaps a bit later than last year, but to be expected given the poor weather of 2007. Our New Year guests kindly emailed some feedback on the barn, which I thought I would share via the blog!

“Ivy House Farm was a fantastic venue to enjoy our New Years celebrations. With a beautiful interior, with great surroundings, our stay was greatly enjoyed and Lucy was always on hand in case anything came up- which was great. Thank you!”

Thank you Rebecca!

2008 is here already - 2007 seemed to disappear in rather a blur!

We have already had our agency inspection, which we passed with flying colours and the Barn is now ready for the year to come. Bookings are coming in steadily and at last count we were doing a reasonable job at securing direct bookings versus agency bookings. So far we have FOUR returning parties, which is exciting, particularly as we have made the decision to ‘go it alone’ next year.

The summer holidays are still available - but don’t leave it too late if you want to stay - ECC will no doubt fill them in the next month or so!

Wow - it seems that everyone is planning their Easter holiday already! - Bookings for the summer holidays now being taken! - don’t leave it too long!

For 2008, the Tissington week dressings will be from May 1-7. We are ideally placed to visit them (10 minutes drive). The week of May 3-10 is still available at £550. The May weeks tend to be snapped up quickly, so if you want to see the famous well dressing, book now!

More details of the well dressings can be found at: http://www.tissington-hall.com/well%20dressing/well_dressing_intro.html

Hadi will be updating the availability soon - but in the meantime I am letting you all know by Blog (the only bit to which I am granted access!!!)…

Bookings are now being taken for 2008 - indeed 4 weeks have gone already! - Don’t leave it too long before booking if you want to visit. Our agency are very efficient at filling the weeks.

The pub hasn’t got a website yet, and a few of our guests have asked about when it is open and what the contact details are for booking tables etc.

The best thing to do is give them a call 01298-687017. At the moment they are open most days, but closed on Tuesday evening. Not sure what they have planned for Christmas and New Year.

For anyone staying at The Barn, you may be relieved to hear that it is UPHILL to the pub (1/4 mile) and DOWNHILL on the way back…

I am not sure when I will manage to get Hadi to update the availability section of the site, so you will have to bear with me on this one! - New Year week has now been taken, so no more enquiries please! - Christmas is still available, but possibly not for long!

Are you considering a festive week in the Peak District? - The Barn at Ivy House Farm may be just the place for you. What is on offer? - Luxury open-plan accommodation, linen, towels etc all included, unlimited supply of logs for evenings snuggled by the fire, a sizeable, non-drop Christmas tree (decorated or not, according to preference - ie in case the children like doing the decorating) - a couple of bottles of wine and a hamper containing local goodies*! Interest for Christmas and New Year tends to start in the Autumn (ie now) so don’t leave it too long before making your booking.
*OK - in practice we can’t put everything in a hamper, because some of the best local produce requires freezing or refrigerating - for example home-made Hill Billy ice cream, or a selection of cheeses from the creamery at Hartington!

As we are approaching winter, we are receiving more enquiries about weekend bookings - so I thought it might be an idea to clarify what we can and can’t do with regard to such bookings! - From our point of view, there is as much work involved cleaning the barn after a weekend as a full week, but we do offer discounts for weekends out of season! - By that, I mean October half term through to February half term (excluding Christmas and New Year week). Demand outside that period tends to be quite high, so in general we accept only week long (or two!) bookings. Having said that, if there is a free weekend in less than two weeks from the time of booking, we will certainly consider it, even if it is peak season!

I hope that helps!

Judging by our guestbook and also direct feedback from our guests - The Greyhound (or now named the ‘Hare and Greyhound’) is a great pub, serving excellent home-cooked food in good portions! - Indeed the only negative comment was that the starters were so big that some guests didn’t manage much of their main course! - All I need now is a babysitter and I will be able to check it out myself!

There isn’t much news to speak of - so I thought I would add a story about how our website facilitated renewed contact between some long lost relatives.

I had an unexpected call last weekend from a chap in Australia who wondered if I knew of his uncle - he apparently used to live in the village. The nephew (in Australia) had found my details through the website! I couldn’t help him - having only been here 7 years - but I thought I might know someone who did! - I rang around a few contacts in the village only to discover that said uncle still lives in the village and I walk past his house almost every day! - I stopped by, relayed that his nephew wanted to get in touch, and picked up a telephone number to email to his nephew. I understand that they have now made contact and will be meeting up later in the year!

Last weekend the Barn at Ivy House Farm welcomed a band of hardy cyclists who braved the weather and clocked up a hundred or so kilometres of Peak District hills. We now have four days to get the barn ready for about 15 weeks of back to back bookings! - sorry to any of you wishing to visit this summer - the earliest available week is now October. Apparently county-wide bookings are rather down this year (I have it on good authority from our agency). We assume this is because of the rather grim weather of late. We are pleased to have bucked the trend - so thank you to all our guests for choosing us over the competition.

We now have two weeks available in July following a cancellation - Ok well not exactly a cancellation - more of a rejection! - The property sleeps six plus a cot - we don’t allow people to sleep on the sofa - it isn’t that kind of place! - so when we received a booking for 7 plus a baby, we really felt obliged to let it go!

So if you fancy getting away - give us a call!

After a seemingly endless period where the residents of Warslow and guests at The Barn have had to walk to Hulme End for a pint or go without, we are relieved to announce that The Greyhound will soon be open again. Judging by the piles of debris outside the building, the renovations are quite extensive. Word in the village is that when it is open it will also be serving food - we can’t wait! - Watch this space for further details..

2006 is drawing to a close and we are preparing The Barn for our Christmas and New Year guests. A ‘back of the envelope’ calculation shows it to have been a fairly busy year. In total The Barn was occupied for 30 full weeks and we had 13 weekend bookings. I have lost count of how many of them were taken by us rather than the agency, but I know that we reluctantly had to run two full weeks through the agency as we had reached the maximum number of weeks allowed!

As for 2007, things are already beginning to hot up! - We have 10 full weeks booked, of which three are ‘ours’ and three have been through the agency. Last year February seemed to be the month when most bookings were made…at this rate that may be too late to secure a prime week! - I will keep you posted.

Hurrah - after a year and a half of trading, The Barn at Ivy House Farm is about to receive its first set of returning guests… Hopefully this will be the first of many, and our dream of being ‘agency free’ will become a reality.

At last #1 - After a year of having ivyhousefarm.com online, I’ve finally got round to adding a blog.

At last #2 - After 14 consecutive, back to back weeks of bookings, we finally have a week with no guests and can get int the Barn to do some maintenance. It’s amazing that there hasn’t been more damage after so many weeks - a testament to all you lovely guests, but there are a few scuffs on the walls and areas which need touching in and “sprucing up”.

Make sure you check back to see what’s going on and to find out about new local events, etc.