The Covid19 pandemic and associated lockdowns over the last year threw a massive curve ball on our little glamping business. We were able to re-open our shepherd's hut to guests last Summer for a couple of months then the Autumn lockdowns happened, first in Wales then in England, and we had to cancel all our bookings and re-arrange them. And cancel and re-arrange them again!

The uncertainty around re-opening, when and how, went on for all the Winter months into early Spring. Having opened in 2017, we had built quite a momentum, both in terms of bookings but also in …

It's the Spring Equinox today and from now light makes significant gains over dark as days get longer and longer till the Summer Solstice. Winter is receding to be replaced by Spring, a season which brings renewed hope and energy for new beginnings.

This year, Winter appears reluctant to loosen its grip: we are only just emerging out of a very cold few days with a significant amount of snow and wind that left us snowed in for a couple of days for the second time this month. Spring serves as a transition season, a buffer between opposites Winter and …

This week sees us reach an important milestone in our smallholding life, an event that we have seen coming and been preparing for for the last five months. On Monday, we took the concept of "homegrown" to a new level by taking two of our lambs to the abattoir.

It was very hard and, if I am honest with myself, I am not completely at peace with doing it. I feel conflicted as I wrestle with the ethics of it... is it right for an animal to be born and then slaughtered for meat a few months later? It feels …

As the new year begins, it is time to reveal our exciting project for 2017: we have a shepherd's hut and will soon be offering holidays and retreats.

Last Summer, we came across a local craftsman who was selling a shepherd's hut he had built himself, a new wooden structure on an old hay trailer chassis, with big lorry wheels. We immediately liked it and started the process to obtain the necessary planning permission from the local authority to site the hut in one of our fields. At the end of October, after an anxious two months submitting paperwork and …