It has been quite a journey – epic
highs and monumental lows. No days off, zero social life but some phenomenal
feedback and a wee bit of awards recognition as we slowly get our business on
the map. We’ve learnt more than we could ever have imagined, yet still recognise
that this is only the beginning. So here, in no particular order are some of
our top lessons learned from our first season.
We can now change sheets,
duvets and pillow cases in record speed with our eyes shut. In fact, we
find this is job much better done with a mild hangover. Except of course during
a heatwave. In the height of summer exerting any kind of physical effort under canvas is way more effective than any sauna or steam room for flushing out the toxins! We reckon we've save a fortune in potential gym fees and also...
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| El scorchio! |
... we feel a lot fitter.
You walk thousands of steps in a day turning the tents around then to’ing and fro’ing
for all the finishing touches which you invariably forget first time around –
flowers, eggs, logs, candles… But any potential weight loss is offset by
the copious amount of tasty goodies that our guests leave behind. It doesn’t
help the old waistline that the last motorway services before you hit North
Wales just happens to have a Waitrose😊.
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| Camp kitchen |
People (and dogs)
from all walks of life seemingly enjoy glamping. We’ve had people from all
over the world come to stay – Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Kenya, Russia and the
US…. We’ve had lawyers, farmers, teachers and builders. We’ve had babies, aunties,
cousins and grandparents. Bernese Mountain Dogs the size of small ponies and Chihuahua
puppies you can fit in the palm of your hand. We’ve even had a few celebrity
guests (and tried, somewhat in vain, to perfect the art of looking non-plussed and
un-starstruck!)
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| Woof! |
We value everything
now against the cost of a night in a tent. New pair of shoes for the kids? Service for
the car? Replacement chainsaw? These are all measured in £90 increments, our nightly
rate. If we have a good run of bookings over a weekend then we can afford the
Extra Special range that week. If not, we’re back on the Basics…
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| £90 a night... |
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| I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your hut down! |
We’ll never need to
buy socks ever again. As long as we don’t mind wearing odd ones. It is by
far the number one thing that people leave behind. We’ve washed and kept them
all so if you are reading this and left one behind feel free to get in touch
and we can send it on to you!
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| Happy days! Socks off! |
So now comes the fun/hard bit of
regrouping and deciding how we build on this first brilliant but exhausting first
summer. Do we stick with Airbnb? Do we focus more on courses and retreats? Do
we, as one of my friends suggested to me recently, go the whole hog and develop
a full-on cross between The Good Life and Butlins with a whole week long programme of activities for our glampers?! So, a fair bit of head scratching and number
crunching ahead of us this winter.
A few of you have also asked if I am going
to ‘sunset’ Cockerels and Dreams? The answer for now is definitely no. I like
to think of it as the ‘warts and all’ behind the scenes account of how we made
The Forge, a bit like the last 15 minutes of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth.
They may not come as thick and fast as before, as I focus my attention on The Forge blogs. But writing this is actually a bit of an escape, a form of therapy and
perhaps just a little opportunity to pause and reflect on how far we’ve come, before
we continue the long march ahead.
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| Time for a brew and a re-think for 2019! |
With thanks to Monica Stott at @thetravelhack and The Forge Facebook competition entrants for these fab photos.
