2011 was a very good year for occupancy in the Barn and we hope 2012 will be even better – we should have some great new upgrades for the Barn during 2012 and all will be revealed here in due course.

The week starting 9th December 2011 is available for £481 or for a long weekend (Friday to Monday) for £373.

Why not get away for a last blast of fresh country air and stunningly quiet walks before Christmas?

Give us a call on 01298 687006 to book.

We had always intended that this room would be reserved for children, but over time, we’ve seen an increase in groups of 6 adults  booking the Barn for walking holidays in the Peak District.

We’d recently bought a memory foam mattress for our rapidly growing son and having tried it myself, thought a pair of these would do well in the Barn.

We are so delighted with these mattresses (as are our guests since) that I thought I’d highlight them here.

The mattresses are made in Italy by Perdormire and called the Duet 500 and we got ours from a superb bed shop in Leek called Bedz, Bedzz & Bedrooms.

They arrive rolled up very tightly and vacuum packed for ease of transport, but once unwrapped, expand to produce wonderfully comfortable memory foam mattresses.

I’ve read that some people find memory foam mattresses a bit hot in summer, but there is no doubting the orthopaedic benefits of having your weight evenly distributed over the mattress.

I’d welcome your views on the Perdormire Duet 500 memory foam mattress if you own one, or indeed your thoughts on memory foam mattresses in general.

Unique Holiday Cottages is a collection of independently owned self catering cottages, each with a certain something, making it unique and interesting.

The website is really easy to use with good pictures, detailed descriptions and lots of information about local sights, events and things to do.

Each property has an availability calendar and you can read testimonials from previous guests.

We wish Anna the best of luck with her endeavour in what is a fiercely competitive market.

So…

If you would like to book the Barn for a long weekend this autumn or winter, arriving on a Friday and leaving on Sunday, check out our availabilty calendar and give us a call.

We can offer really good discounts for couples and pensioners!

The marvellous hens and chicken coop we bought from Moorlands Poultry Supplies at Bottomhouse last spring have been keeping us in eggs all winter so far.

The hens are obviously a bit fed up with the snow as they never venture outside the coop, but we keep them topped up with warm water and layers pellets and they reward us with 4 eggs a day!

Keeping chickens is so easy, I can fully understand why it’s becoming so popular nationwide.

You need so little kit and hardly any room to keep a few chickens – everyone should have a go.

Quick plug: Moorlands Poultry are now doing eco-friendly chicken coops and arks, made entirely from 100% recycled plastics so be sure to check out their website!

Bit of a rant today – sorry.

This morning, a little later than usual, the milkman delivered our two pints of semi-skimmed.

A little later, the postman delivered my eagerly awaited copy of Classic & Sportscar together with the inevitable bills and junk mail.

I noticed last week that we were running a little low on coal for our fire, so I called the local coal company and they said they’d deliver today.

Sure enough, at 11am the coal man arrived with 10 bags of Grade B.

So – we’ve had some snow and the roads aren’t bone dry or clear from kerb to kerb, but all of these private companies managed to get their jobs done because they need to earn a living by providing  service.

In contrast, the village school was closed today because the teachers couldn’t get to school and the head teacher worried that there may be a fatality if parents tried to get their children to school.

Monday is also “bin day” for our end of Warslow.

Surprisingly, our bins remain full at the end of the day having not been collected for 5 weeks (there was a smattering of snow the last time they were due to be emptied).

We now have 5 weeks worth of rubbish and recycling from both our house and the Barn piled up at the gate, despite calls to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council.

If ever there was an example of the differing attitudes of public and private services in the UK, this is surely it.

<rant over>

I’m off to entertain the kids for the rest of the day – perhaps I could pay them to carry our rubbish down to the Council House in Leek and dump it on their doorstep.

<rant really over>

We’ve still got availability for both Christmas and New Year so contact us asap to confirm your booking.

The Christmas week runs from Saturday 19th December through to Saturday 26th December and costs £807.

New Year bookings runs from Sunday 27th December through to Monday 4th January and costs £785.

If you stay in The Barn, you’ll notice a selection of our woooden Himalayan Honey Pot Lamps around the place.

They’re all for sale along with beautiful hand painted oriental lamps and some rather nice brass lamps.

You can see and buy them all from our new website, www.originaltablelamps.co.uk.

It feels a bit like jumping on a bandwagon but I know for a fact that twitter drives traffic and the search engines love it – reason enough in itself to make it worth doing

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