Royal Weddings and Antiques....

I have a bit of a weakness for Commemorative china, I must confess. The vast majority of it is first half of the 20th century, and it's all knocked about a bit, cracks, chips etc. I never pay very much for it, and the last piece came out of the rubble skip at the local tip! But it's very evocative, I think of an age gone past. I particularly like the ending of WW1 and WW2 beakers. It's mainly on the mantlepiece in the B&B dining room.

I've been given (by people who don't understand the 'look' LOL) over the years a few more recent pieces, a particularly hideous 80's mug with the mug of Prince Andrew on springs to mind, which are well tucked away in a cupboard, awaiting a future point in time when it becomes 'retro' enough to appreciate (Hmmm not sure that will happen).

So of course the question arose, will I buy my own Wills and Kate Wedding Piece? Well of course I looked, but nothing really caught my eye...until Denby sent me an e-mail (The china we use is Denby White and I've bought some stuff direct online) Within moments of it arriving, I'd had an 'add to basket moment' And the 'loving bunnies' were mine. This piece fullfilled all the Antiques Road show antique of the future criteria for me, so it's my gift to a future grandchild! It's reasonably small limited edition and it's breakable which should escalate the rarity, affordable (£20) and by a 'good maker' (Denby) and a nod to their aquisition of the company Carlton, who were known for their rabbit figurines in the 1930's, but most of all I LOVE IT!!! It's really really cute!

SO I'll add my congratulations to Wills and Katie, I hope they have a wonderful happy day, and a long and happy marriage(unlike his poor mother!) and I shall be watching while doing something constructive - tidying up my craft cupboard!


Kate

Playing interior designers....

So here are some photographs of the inside of the B&B taken on opening day! Above is a picture of the bed...what you can't see, under the bedspread is my crisp, white freshly ironed, 1000 count Egyptian cotton bedlinens! The bedside rugs are curly viking sheep's fleeces from a local farm. The light fittings are from Jim Lawrence. OH made the T&G headboard. The flooring is oak...and we chose to do the ceiling in T&G to match the interior of the rest of the house, as all the upstairs ceilings are made from it too.




This picture shows the Antique French armoire that the OH has lovingly restored, the table with the tray for making tea in the room, and out of the window, if you are a bit taller than me...there IS a sea view! On the window ledge are a vintage Poole Pottery otter and a dolphin - some of our local wildlife.



The bathroom has a corner shower, there is non slip ceramic tiled floor, and heated towel rail. The white shower tiles have been inset with a band of marble tiles to add interest. OH made the mirror over the sink, which we brought with us from our old house. It's a copy of the oldest Georgian doorway in Sydenham (where we used to live) made in wood and painted.

Happy Easter....

Well we have officially 'opened' The B&B Room is finally finished,the dining room is finished and so are the additions to the kitchen, really am now 'cooking with gas' and oh boy does it make an improvement to one's fried eggs! Fridge is stocked with local sausages and bacon from the Llwynheleg Farm Shop and we have plenty of our own fresh eggs. I've invested in a breadmaking machine, so we can hopefully have freshly baked bread for breakfast instead of toast if wanted. All we need now is some guests!






We had a bit of a 'launch party' at Saturday tea-time, and I asked my friend Mary-Jane to cut a ribbon on the B&B door, wearing her Welsh Ladies Fly Fishing Team Jacket (Yes she really IS a member of the WLFFT) which she did admirably, speech and all. I was going to ask some more people along, but then had a 'duh' moment, when I realised if we HAD picked up a booking on Saturday, we couldn't very well have a trail of people inspecting our handywork around our first guests, so cut the guest list very short!


I hoped that buy getting all my signs out for the bank hoiday weekend at least, we may have attracted some passing trade for the future, as the road down to Mwnt has been really busy with traffic, and maybe some of them will remember us for a future trip to West Wales. I've got some more rack cards from Vista Print coming this week, and will hit town in earnest, handing them out to those who've already said they will put some in their shops, and take some into the tourist info centre. I'm hoping that advertising very locally will be sufficient for us, this year at least, but there are one or two online options I am exploring. I found out I can get a 'pin' on Google maps for nothing! Which seemed like a great idea (especially for free!) so hopefully in the next day or two a search for B&B near Cardigan will come up with us!

Websites, Environmental Statements and missing pictures!

At least I hope so!

Have been incredibly busy this last month, trying to get lots of things finished at the same time. There are still two thing to be done...one the wardrobe that is going in the guest room is in the process of being renovated and secondly I am waiting for the phonecall that the new stainless steel worktop for the kitchen is done, so that I can get my new gas hob *Heart* installed.

We keep making lists of things that need to be done, my lists consist of the things I want other people to do, and more and more shopping lists! I've actually lost count of the shopping lists!

At the same time, I've been trying to get my website sorted out finally, which seems to have taken me an eternity! I've trawled through all the competition's websites looking for local pricing structures, and totally fried my brains in the turgid worlds of 'Access Statements' and 'Environmental Statements'

Actually the environmental statement was easier, as it fits very comfortably with my general ethics, as I can't abide waste, and I'm always looking at food miles on stuff in the supermarket, and not buying as a result! It was also partly responsible for me taking the decision NOT to provide chi-chi little packs of complimentary toiletries for the guests, and not to buy in individually packed sachets of tea and coffee. I spoke to one of my friends who has a B&B about 30 miles away about this, and she'd already told me that the 'shelf life' on the little cartons of milk was quite short, and that as I am only letting one room, I might find they went out of date before I used them all. She said some of the people she knows who also do B&B put a jug of milk in the room for guests. This got me thinking 'out of the box' about the whole provision, and having mulled it over, I've bought (to be honest equally chi-chi) little containers for teabags, coffee and sugar lumps and the smallest size of stainless steel flasks for milk. And they have a small biscuit tin...could you ask for anymore?

I mention on the website, that I am only providing towels and handwash for guests, and ask them to bring their own toiletries. In the information pack I am putting in the room, I've expanded on why I've chosen to do this, with a full environment statement, and "How you can help" section, and I've also said that if anyone needs anything when they arrive, I'll be happy to provide from the domestic suppies.

I took all the various bits and pieces that I was struggling with to my friend and neighbour Lisa yesterday, she has a smallholding selling naturally produced vegetables just up the road, She made a few very helpful suggestions (and rather embarassingly noticed far too many ", and" that had slipped through the spell check!) She pointed out that as I'd said the Guest room has it's own entrance, she'd kind of want to see where that was in relation to the rest of the house, I thought it was a valid suggestion, so I took another photograph (the one above) and sent it to they guy doing the website with all the corrections, poor Derek, he's probably dreading my e-mails by now.

Anyway the website should be finished pretty soon, but you can check it out anyway at www.mwntbandb.co.uk

Kate