Welcome to Carr House Farm Bed and Breakfast,Ampleforth,North Yorkshire ...

Welcome ....to the sun

How nice it is to see the sun again.How long before we have a water shortage?. The flowers and plants that are in pots are certainly needing watering.The tulips are well on their way to flowering and the trees are all coming in bud.I have some clematis that need planting round the front porch but wonder if a frost comes it will nip them off. I am planning to go to the Spring Flowers Show in Harrogate with my friend Caroline before she heads off to Spain. I would have liked to have gone to see the Yorkshire.com display at Chelsea this year but guess I will wait until the show piece returns to Harlow Carr Gardens in Harrogate.
I got a package in the post this week from the Hare at Scawton -Jan is very organised sending menus out for the bedroom folders which I have recently been compiling. I have asked other eating places too but these were the first to arrive. They are having different events throughout the Summer so hopefully we will get to one or two of them. I am sure guests will enjoy them too. As far as I am aware the Fauconberg Arms in Coxwold are doing some events too. I read article in the paper today what Aelred ,Abbot of Rievaulx had written in the C12th about this area."Everywhere peace,everywhere serenity and a marvellous freedom from the tumult of the world". and I am sure guests will agree with him even though it is hundreds of years later. Some things never change.

Its fluffy and feathery for Easter guests.

We conjure up thoughts of fluffy chickens and fluffy bunnies for Easter. So I thought fluffy for my guests too. Off I went to Barkers in Northallerton and came out laden with shopping .I had a job to fit all the boxes in the car.Now each double bed has a king sized feather and down duvet and pillows so warm and cozy . They are lovely,soft and fluffy. I have kept a synthetic one just in case someone is allergic to feather/down. Quozzi is getting spoilt getting one of the duvets I have taken off. Lets hope she doesn't take it into her head to make her own bed and pull it to pieces. Quozzi's mum Molly is lovely so I think she will get one for an Easter treat too and the pillows will get shared round the other dogs.I think the "in" word is recycle so that is what I am doing.

A thought for Easter...

When I was at school many moons ago my favourite hymn at Easter was " There was a Green Hill far away" -probably because it sounded like farming and I wanted to be a proper farmer so I sang it with great gusto and probably very much out of tune.I still sing out of tune today so that hasn't changed. We rolled hard boiled eggs that had been boiled in cochineal and had funny faces one them and if we were lucky got some chocolate eggs which were ate very sparingly in the coming weeks but that was 50 years ago and how things have changed. Now we not only have Chocolate eggs in every shape and form but there are Easter cards,Easter trees and decorations and Easter ornaments. Where have the Easter bonnets gone?.But some things don't change - On the farm things carry on as normal with little lambs being born -we hope there is not too much snow on the way. The birds are pairing up and the catkins are out. This morning I saw a pair of curlews digging in the soft earth to find food,a duck and drake swimming up the beck and a pair of partridges scurrying down our drive. They come every year to make a nest and hatch their young.It is nice to know somethings never change - nature carries on from year to year whatever the trends and fashions and they cost only time to seek them out. Happy Easter.