Warm Weather Encourages Growth In The Garden

The plants in the garden are starting to fill out and new shoots and leaves are appearing daily. This is always such a lovely time of year. I really enjoy wandering around the garden seeing all the new flowers appearing

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Card Terminal

Since opening the B & B most payments I have taken have been in cash or by cheque. For guests wanting to pay a deposit from abroad I set up a Paypal account. This has worked very well and as I have two banks at the end of the road there has been no problem for guests  paying the balance in cash . However several people mentioned that I could be missing out on potential guests by not offering the possibility of payment by card. I hadn't realised that some people will not even consider staying if they can't pay by card. I looked into getting a card terminal and got quotes from 3 companies. The monthly outlay for rent and then in some cases minimum usage added alot to my out goings and as I don't take many bookings a month and in some months no bookings at all it just didn't seem to be worthwhile.
As business has dropped  in the last couple of years due to the financial situation and bad weather I decided that I needed to make Lymehurst as appealing as possible so when one company came back with a much better deal in December (The company obviously needed to boost their sales figures!) I decided to give it a go.So Lymehurst can now accept card payments.

The Temptations Of Conwy Seed Fair

The annual Conwy Seed fair was held on the 26th of March This is when the main street is closed off and local seed and  plant producers can set up stalls to sell their wares. Local craft work, home made produce and toiletries are also there so there's plenty to look at. In the last few years the weather has ranged from being hot and sunny to cold and snowy so it was a relief when the sun decided to shine this year.....admittedly it wasn't quite shorts weather but even so very pleasant. Luckily, because I'd already served breakfast at 7.15!  (I have workmen staying) I was able to get parked up  before the  9 am start....nothing like being eager!! I usually have a walk round first to see what everybody is selling then start to do my purchasing. There was a super variety of plants  to choose from.

 Seeds & potato stall

Flower stall

Lovely hand made hand & face creams

As always I couldn't resist their amazing  milionaires shortbread

Beautifully presented sweets

 Veg and eggs

My purchases

The Garden Tidy Up Continues (Much nicer than doing accounts, especially when it's a lovely sunny day!!)

The decision  today was should I finish painting ,do the accounts or tidy up the garden.......well as it was a lovely sunny day the decision was made easily....tidy up garden. There was still lots of roof batons to chop up and stack in my newly made wood store that I'd made out of palletts ( I do believe in re cycling and get satisfaction when I can find a new use for something) It felt so good to finally see my path again and feel that a good start has been made to getting order back into the garden.
Once that was completed it was a case of raking out all the dead bits of plants digging up some plants that had become overgrow & doing some pruning..
 A couple of days ago I cut the lawns for the first time this year and discovered that they are rather dented where the workmen have walked so I'll have to remedy that somehow.

Not much left to do now

Path almost cleared

My new wood store

Hooray....I can now use my path

Getting Plastered Before The Guests' Arrival!!

I managed to find somebody who could do plastering and whatsmore could actually come immediately!!!! (A very rare breed!) As promised, he turned up promptly on Tuesday morning to take a look at what needed doing, went off got the materials and got started. As it turned out the areas under the Breakfast Room windows weren't as bad as in the sitting room!!

some of the horrendous red and yellow rag rolled decor revealed

Under the front room windowthe plaster was removed to the brick work

Plastering started Tuesday....guests coming Friday!!

Batons going up in the kitchen

 While he was here I decided to ask if he could do some tongue and groove panneling in the kitchen, something I've been wanting for a while The joiner who I'd been waiting for since before Christmas to come and finish off some jobs and give me a quote for doing the panneling, announced when he finally came on Monday that he didn't want the job anymore!!! If only he could have told me that back in December. I was to say the least annoyed. Anyway Ian has also made a start on that job too but was thwarted on Thursday when the wood wasn't delivered. I was at a workshop on Thursday so on Friday it was all go to get the wallpapering done before the guests' arrival.

Get One Job Done And It Leads To More ...

The last skip and stored scaffolding was picked up last week and suddenly  the garden was mine again but it looked so untidy with all the heaps of batons and pallets. It was a question of what to do first.
 I also had to consider what to do in the Breakfast Room!. The radiator in there had been painted red and yellow and although I had re painted it white the red kept showing through. A neighbour who is a plumber was able to measure up order and replace it in two days!!! Unheard of but as the new radiator is half the length it has meant that I have had to decorate which then lead me to discover that I had a damp area in the corner of the room so I need some re plastering and some new new skirting board! Help!! all these follow on jobs. As I have guests coming this weekend I really do need to get things sorted.

This was the colour of the radiator as well as the walls!

Some re decorating was needed around the radiator

As I started to remove wll paper under the windows I found that even more re plastering was needed...will it ever end

I Have My House And Garden Back

scaffolding starting to come down

 Oh the joys of having my house back. The scaffolding was taken down last Thursday. I was really caught out as I thought it was being taken down the next day!! I was just in the middle of serving breakfast to my two lots of guests when the scaffolder turned up at the front door much to my horror, wanting the car  (a guest's ) to be removed from the driveway. I persuaded them to park their lorry at the back as I was busy at that moment (They couldn't have picked a worse time!). Fortunately the guests all took the disturbance well and even found it entertaining." Fawlty Towers" was mentioned!! . I did suggest I could charge extra for having on site male entertainmers which got a chuckle.

Coming down off the front of the house

The last parts going on to the lorry

Aaaahhhhhh a view without scaffolding

Lymehurst is back

The other problem with them turning up a day early was that I had been up on the top scaffolding to touch up some paint work but it had become quite windy and I didn't like the feeling of the scaffolding moving so I gave up but still had more to do.

 

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The scaffloders couldn't transport all the scaffolding so it was neatly stacked in the parking area  next to the skip in the back garden. The house suddenly became so much lighter inside but outside needed such a good tidy up.
 Each day I'm trying to do a bit more and it is almost back to normal especially as the skip and scaffolding went on Monday. However I have two piles of batons to chop up as well as pallets but I might use some to build  an extra wood store

Chopping up drift wood from the storms

One of the mountains of batons to chop

The pallets..... firewood and a new wood store perhaps

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