Spring in Springing

Spring in springing, the guests are racing and the goats are escaping giving Notgrove a definite busy buzz this week!  The sun is finally shining and the snow drops are in full bloom with the daffodils bravely poking their shoots out of the ground, we can see spring around the corner!!

The holiday cottages are full with guests getting suited and booted to enjoy the four day Cheltenham Festival which begins today and runs until Friday. Being just 20 minutes from the prestigious Cheltenham Race Course there is always a buzz in the air (and the pubs) during busy weeks in the racing calendar. We also have some top trainers a stone’s throw away including Nigel Twiston-Davies, Jonjo O’Neill, Martin Keighley and Kym Bailey, and our lovely holiday assistant Lucy started out as a racing lass for Nigel and so is great for some tips! In fact I can hear a helicopter buzzing its way towards the races as I type – best of luck to all involved and especially to the horses!

We are hoping that love is in the air for Pingu our Peacock, we lost Mrs Pingu last year to the fox and since then he has been living the bachelor life….until now because we hope we have found him a lovely new wife. Rio the Peahen arrived a few weeks ago and has been slowly settling into life at Notgrove. She and Pingu are getting to know each other and so far they seem pleased with their proposed ‘arranged’ marriage. We all have our fingers crossed for some wedding bells and the pitter patter of tiny Peacock feet next year…

The Goats, Donks and Alpacas are now all happily grazing together and seem to enjoy each other’s company (the alpacas took a while to get used to the over friendly goats!) – if only humans were as accommodating to each other, whatever their ear size, hair do or foot type –   we might live in a happier world!! The cheeky goats seem to believe the grass outside their paddock is better and are doing all they can to escape from their field and eat the verges and sometimes the crops!!

On the technical side I have been having great fun!?!  with our magic new Government software system that makes us map each inch of the farm, and accurately plot each different crop, track, ditch, piece of scrub – and so it goes on and on – needless to say my field sizes and the computer calculations do not match up – as usual it will take a fair bit of imagination to  balance the two – I have yet to measure the same piece of land twice and get the same size – but we all know the computer is right – after all the world is flat isn’t it.

Happy Days All

H