Being Kept Busy...Inside And Out

marking out the circle

We are now at the end of May. It's always good to report that it's been a busy month. The weather is still trying to decide what to do! I have had shorts and sandals on but have had to resort to jeans again now. It's difficult to believe but 3 years ago I went in for my first swim at 7.30 at night as it was so hot!! I'd just photographed the start of the Deganwy Dash and simply had to go for a swim  even though I didn't have any swim gear with me.
I'm giving vegetables another go in the garden but between slugs and pooing animals ....(not sure if it is a cat or fox)  even though I have put plenty of sticks over the area,  whatever it is has still managed to up root my onion sets and leave a deposit! My pot of peas have been put on a chair and the snails have still managed to find them....... determined so and sos.

enlarging the curve in the border

The circular shape will make the border less under the apple tree canopy

Happy Black bird

Circle taking shape at last

Re using turf under the tree

Utilising the  old roof tiles around the edges

Plenty of food appearing

Moving the irises

The temporary box I made from shelves in the old garage is now dismantled and the rosemary andn lavendar have been dug out

Herbs now planted near the back door

Back in April I started trying to re shape the nearer part of the back lawn but had to put that on hold as I hurt my back. Last week I set to with it again, so that is gradually taking shape  I'm in the midst of moving plants around and the black birds are really enjoying all the earth disturbance. I always have to check that I don't flatten them with flying soil or plants.

It's Already March 2015!

It's amazing to think that a year ago I was clearing up after having the roof re newed.....and what an experience that was! You don't realise how stressful it all is until all the scaffolding and workmen disappear.. I'm hoping that no big jobs arise this year although the boiler has been making some rather loud noises of late! When I moved in in 2007 I was warned that the boiler was quite old, so since then I have been half waiting for it to die but i have to say that it (touch wood) is still going strong.I only decorated the utility room last year as I kept putting it off thinking there was no point if major boiler works were going to have to be done.
We have had a relatively mild winter again so the spring flowers are all springing into life and bringing new colour into the garden.This year I will hopefully get more done in the garden. I still have some trellis painting to do and I have some new ideas which would be nice to try out..... so watch this space to see if it gets done!

Spring flowers making their welcome appearance

Spring flowers making their welcome appearance

Spring flowers making their welcome appearance

Spring flowers making their welcome appearance

Spring flowers making their welcome appearance

1st butterfly of the year. Found when tidying out the wood shed

Sorry No Recent Bloggs. It's been My busiest Season So Far

Again a bit of a gap in the blogg.  This has definitely been my busiest year so far and at times it has been a struggle to stay on top of everything but now the bookings are dropping off quite considerably so I'm hoping to catch up on all the tasks that have been left un done!If you do want to see what has been happening in and around Lymehurst B & B then you can always check out the  Facebook Page  http://www.facebook.com/lymehurstbandbllandudno
Here's just a photographic taster of what's been happening

The Llandudno Sea Trathlon

The Tour Of Britain comes to Llandudno

The Tour Of Britain comes to Llandudno

 My stock of local honey bought at Conwy Honey Fair.

Addition of Trellis in the garden

..........one of the many jobs to catch up on!!

The West Shore Beach Cafe finally opens after suffering winter storm damage.

The West Shore Beach Cafe finally opens after suffering winter storm damage. Fabulous views

One guest's view from the cable car of Llandudno Bay

 My birthday cake lovingly created by my daughter while on a visit home. ....and yes it was as good as it looked.

 Wow, what a beautiful car. My street cred went right up. A rare 1953 Lagonda. So classy

The Garden at Lymehurst..Changes Are Happening

The trellis starting to be erected

 I have not been able to spend as much time in the garden as I would have liked but a few things have changed. I have had trellis put up to make the middle seating area more cosy and private (well it will be once the plants have grown!) My plan is to grow scented climbers up the trellis. I have never grown roses before  but I love the scent that they give off so I want to choose really perfumed varieties as well as honey suckles and jasmine. So any suggestions are welcome

Next section to be put up

The seating area now surrounded

More trellis along the walls

Archway now created

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Wonderful Summer Guests

Di and Roy...colour co ordinated as ever

Lovely thank you gift left by my lovely memorable guests

It's been busy , busy , busy here at  www.lymehurstbandb.co.uk  but that's a good thing. Again I have had some lovely guests but two spring to mind. I had a couple stay for 13 nights, he was 90 she was 88. They drove up here from Somerset. What a wonderful positive, active couple they turned out to be. Here was I offering to set up the loungers in the garden but they didn't have time for that!! they were too busy travelling around calling on friends being out all day and only coming back for afternoon tea.They totally charmed all the other guests who stayed and were able to have interesting chats at breakfast time. One other guest even wanted to adopt them as his grandparents!.

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.

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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