I was organizing emptying out the sewage treatment plant when it made me think about doing a blog!!! its been a long time. Keeping it regular is the key.

Lots of news here at Lodge Farm Holiday Barns - we have been extending the lakeside path so you can walk all around the edges of the lake, we even added another decking area. I bought an outside bed of e bay at the end of last summer got it cheaper than sweet potatoes - so cant wait to make it up and put it on the new decking - it will be heaven for me and my guests, if they can get me off, which won't be hard because the ironing is pilling up again.

We also purchased a witches web or spiders web, one of those round swing you can lay on on just hangs from a tree, so you can spin it - thought it would be fun for our summer visitors. We are also planning to make good of some timbers that came out of the house - would like to build some assault cause beams.

Moles - we have a million, I got a lady mole catcher to come round and give us a price - she took one look at the job and refused!!! charming. So I bought a dozen traps and have already caught 5. The mole hills are slowly subsiding and hopefully we can get the grassed areas to look more like lawns and not world war 1 battlefields. what will the chickens and the geese sucking the living daylights out of it.

But just as we have the moles under control we see a WEASEL weaseling towards the chicken coop, the little buggers been steeling the eggs. So now the chickens are locked and the eggs are under surveillance - Whats to do!!! It's a wild world out here. But I did see the first goslings a pair of Canadian Geese brought their 3 new chicks on to the garden today, as lovely as they are and as much as my heart melts seeing them I know their chances of survival are low around here, especially with another prowler on the prowl!

Mexican Hats and Mustaches - I've put the tickets on general release. They haven't gone quite like the BBC's big weekend but they are going. This year its a Feast Full of Mexican Fiesta - PoPPing uP in the garden on Saturday 18th July. I've already been trying some chilli sauces, Tomatilo Verde and Abode - oh, HOT. Of course when your cooking for a big party like that you have to tone down the heat, so my Turkey Mole will be a medium and my slow cooked beef picadillo will be mild - but you can splash on the topping to spice it up. We are encouraging guests to grow a mustache (only the men!!!), I'll be planing a treasure hunt and at some point we'll be making a pinyata one big enough for a party of 60 to whack!!!!

Plus this year I'm doing a Burger Day in the Milk Bar, Lodge Farms American Diner on Saturday 20th June - I can't wait, I'm taking bookings now, book a table and pay on the day. Brioche buns from Pye bakers, home made patties - hand pressed, cooked with an ice-cube!!! (to find out why, you'd have to come on one of my cookery courses!!!) served with a choice of 2 sides - - hand cut french fries, BBQ beans, stuffed jackets, potato salad, chilli slaw, crispy onion rings, blue cheese, melted cheese and bacon - - i know what your thinking - how can i pick just 2 sides - - We'll that's why you can pay an extra £1 per additional side, cheaper than spuds! So burger meal with 2 sides only £6.50 with a drink. And if you can't make that come to our Sunday Sundae day in August - using fresh and local renaldos ice-cream with home bakes, sauces and fresher than fresh topping for only £6 per person - - the more people the bigger the Sundae gets! Like the one with freshly cooked mini do-nuts - OHHHHHHH

Anyway - - - go to events for more information, go for it and book your self on or in, why wouldn't you - fabulous food, great surroundings and all cooked with love and passion at cheap cheap prices!

Better get back to booking the sewage man in - - I wonder if he does a blog!

My monthly blogs have turned in to when I can be bothered - I never thought running the holiday barns would take up so much time and the cookery school has taken of like my geese do when I take out scraps!
We did really well last year, our first full year - never done so much ironing.

I probably shouldn't admit this but I have a score system for how guests leave the barns - we got 2 x 1's and a few high 9's. 1s horrendous, 10 is perfect.

I didn't want to bring this up, after all guests are on holiday and have more than the right to a good relax and take it easy for a while. But there is a difference from a hotel and a holiday home, a holiday home is a home away from home, supplied with a brush and a dishwasher along with the odd cloth. It's just that very small percentage of guests who leave it in a 1-3 = basically a bomb site!!! and after taking sometimes up to 3 hours bringing it back to a 100% 5* Gold Visit England standard - I wonder if I should leave more notes, just the odd hint like when you spill tomato sauce on the floor please wipe it up as it stains!!!
But then I decide not to - no one wants demands and rules - they want a lovely holiday and I want to give them a lovely holiday. Anyway 95% of people are great at leaving it in a good state, its just that odd one or two in the year.

I tried to find some info on line about whats expected and there are no rules - I found one article that said when shes away she likes to do nothing and would prefer to pay extra not to clean up afterwards, she hated holiday homes that planted demands, rules and comments all over the place.
I agree - but if she knew that a small percentage of people pinched the odd thing, damaged the odd thing and tried to hide it and that odd person left a skid mark longer than a run way - they'd understand why the odd hint would make the difference.

For instance I could make a cheesecake base with the crumbs I find in the cracks of the sofa.
One legged people could be supplied with socks for a year with the ones I find under the bed and One very naughty person spilled a glass of red wine on the rug, cleaned the rug but didn't thing the rug would stain the floor under neither - I guess that rug will have to stay there now.

What do you think? Let me know.

With two teenager-ish children (well they might as well be) its hard to get them off the sofa playing with some gadget or other and get them in to the Victorian clean fresh air with us Medieval parents to do obscene, abnormal, possibly offensive things like walking. But when we do manage to trick them in to coming for a walk with us its good-ish. This week we parked in front of that lovely church opposite the UEA fields and river - the walk takes you beside the river and the university student flats, through horse fields and over wooden walk ways all the way to the Three Score bridge - that's as far as we got, we'd already had one tantrum, several whinges and an ultimatum - but if we had of been FREE like the wind we would of gone on under the bridge and along past the Wear, the river and round the back of Chapel break all the way to the other car park not 5 mins from Lodge Farm.

A few months back we discovered another riverside walk, parking opposite Waitrose in Cringlford - in-fact that walk joins on to the walk above - you can actually walk from the fisheries next to us if opened to the public all the way to Yarmouth. Although I found walking all the way to Norwich city center quite challenging for me a few months ago with a dodgy hip!!! it takes just over an hour from Lodge Farm to Chapel-gardens.

So - - - it made us want to do more with or with out the children who seem to have an aversion for fresh air and walking - but make some useful walking maps for Lodge Farm Holiday Barns.
That's our New Year resolution - more walking (I wonder what the children's New Year resolution would be?)

I was casually watching TV last week when an item announced there were 200,000 births in England per year. that got me thinking, if there are 200,000 births and the average family is 1.7 - 2.4 surly there should be a similar amount of deaths. Do you know there are 550,000 deaths a year in Brighty - - that's a short fall of 350,000. so I worked out on the back of a fag packet, (I don't smoke but it sounds good - well it used to in the 70's) that if we loose that many people per year in around 200 years they'll be hardly anyone left. But then i researched immigration and found out Government proposals - or promises as they are called, says that they want to keep emigration down to 100,000 per year but in fact the net migration is 250,000 that's an amazing 550,000 people in and 200,000 people who escape to pastures greener (Spain!!!!)
So we can all relax after all that's only a short fall of 100.000 people a year - meaning we will survive for 450 years or maybe more!!!

What's this got to do with Holiday Homes - Well a few moments ago I read that around 10m Brits and nearly a million foreign visitors enjoy self-catering holidays in this country each year.
With only 60m Brits that's quite a lot - that's 10 x the birth rate or double all the foreign non-visitors going on a short break to Bournemouth, St Ives or Norfolk. But of course if this statistic rises they'll be more people on holiday than alive!!!

Then I thought what about Japan (its obvious my busy time has ended and I haven't got so much to do, like clean one of the holiday barns or prune my daffodil's) - I thought Japans a small island too - their population must be around the same as ours - No it is over double 130,000.00, in fact with their low birth rate they are due to die off before us because from 2010 the populations sneaking down. If those Japanese men don't put down their Amami computer lover and grab a wife then sushi conveyor belts could be lost forever.

I was talking to some old fellor at the post office and he un-politically and racially said - The Muslims are taking over, NO in fact their population is stabilizing like ours with young Muslims opting for only 1.7 children each couple.

Then I thought how many people are gay in Briton - 1/6th = 3.6 million or 1 in 10, so how many gay couples have children well that's decreased from its peak at 19% down to 16% and falling. This is not good enough - - - because the gay population is increasing and less couples are choosing to raise a family -  yet we need more children, I'm panicking now!

All but Fascinating - - So my conclusion, the worlds population is due to go down, the self catering  holiday trade is due to go up - my suggestion or the perfect solution is to come to Lodge Farm Holiday Barns and make a baby because that's the only way we can whip those statistics in to shape and save the world.

I keep seeing some funny looking birds down by the lake, really dark black plumage with some white streaks about the wings - they look like small herons. I think its a pair with possibly its young one. Beaks like divers and elegant like flamingos with vulture like wings - sometimes if I get too close to the window they raise up and fan out their wings. - UPDATE - they are Double Crested Cormorants (not a black heron or even a red one!)

This morning I saw an otter - just worked out what it was when it turned sideways and dived under the water never to be seen again for a year or so.

Some one came a visiting last week and we got to talking about ghosts - she was scared the house might be haunted but I assured her they don't exist. After all why are ghosts mainly Victorian residing in only old houses. If I had been a ghost for over 100 years I would want to do better things than turning lights on and off & moving furniture around - If a ghost cant open a door but instead going through the door how can they physically move stuff. Why do you never see ghosts in Salisbury's or B&Q, why when so many people die in Hospitals do you never see them wandering in and out of A& E, yet in an old spooky looking Victorian hospital its full of old ghost nurses and old ghost solders moving furniture around and turning lights on and off. I mean what do they do for the rest of the time these ghosts - I know they are busy at night because they like to hang around bedrooms and watch you sleep - bored of moving furniture they are and like vampires not liking the day light when visibility's better. Call me cynical but the mear idea of ghosts is ridiculous.

After all if Ghosts did exist they'd be all over Lodge Farm - being Victorian and all!!! Poor old Mary back in the 1700's got hanged for burning down a barn, the magistrate was the owner of this house, I recon it was an affair and that was her revenge - she'd want a bigger revenge for being hanged in Norwich castle. In more recent times some poor old feller shot his dog and then him self as he was heart broken at loosing his lover - now if I believed in ghosts I'd sometimes hear a gun shot BANG and the hairs at the back of my neck would stand up and I'd shudder - - BUT I don't because ghosts don't exist only people with vivid imaginations and the trick of the eye and a distorted noise in the night. Why do you never see ghost spiders and why are ghosts never friendly, why aren't there masses of videos on u tube of ghosts or picture gallery's full of images of them - - WHY because ghosts are - - - - oh, shit what was that . . . . . .

Last weeks Sunday Sundae went lickingly - The Hot Fudge Brownie one went like hot cakes and the Hot cake sticky one went like cold cakes. The whipping cream siphon went goo goo, the hot chocolate froffer machine went no where and the freezer started to plummet with all the opening and shutting but at least that's OK now. Things come in 3's especially bad things when your busy. Anyway 29 lovely customers were served and got lots of great feed back and recommendations on facebook. When everyone had left the building we amp-ed up the jukebox, scooped out some vanilla and brownie and piled on the left overs - - ah, yum yum.
We are full up with 41 booked in to round two - just need to remember to put people off the hot chocolate, whip the cream by hand and open the freezer door like  Husein Bolt after a vindaloos from Magdalen Street (not mentioning any names - apart from that Bolt feller).

Not going to talk about Geese as we are getting around 25 - 35 Grey lag and Canadian on the lawn all day everyday, pooing everywhere and eating all the grass, I'm sick of poo busting!! My husband is seriously thinking of building a 50ft wired fence around the lake to keep them all out!!! It would look like Alcatraz. Alternatively they'll emigrate soon - just leaving Doris and her three boys which I am sure will wander of to pastures green with hot chicks, very soon. I didn't mention Geese!

Anyway if your thinking of getting away we have a generous amount of availability in The Dairy over August - sleeps up to 2 in a double room with a sofa bed for a little one if needed or we hire cots for free. See availability chart or / and specials. Its got a lovely patio area out back over looking the Lake. Plus we are only 10 minutes drive in to the city center so lots to do and see with the coast, broads and North Norfolk only a small drive away.

Poor old Charlie, he must of known he was going - he'd been getting further and further removed from his family, maybe natures way of getting them used to his departure. Then of he popped. The Cygnets have gone down to two and one chicken bottom of the pecking order is getting well and truly pecked. We bought 3 Easter Eggers or Rainbow layers, the little chickens with pheasant colouring that lay green eggs - its dictator week in their crib, establishing the higherackie (I cant spell that and my spellings so bad even the spell checkers wont recognize it but I'm sure you know what I mean)

Now as all my cookery classes are finished for a while - I can concentrate on this years American Themed PoP uP Restaurant - The diners been cleaned up and set up ready for the onslaught of American Desserts, Brownies, key Lime and Baked Lemon Cheesecake with an Oreo Base not to mention Ice-Cream Sundaes with Hot Fudge Sauce - - the thought brings shivers down my spine, yum yum yum piggies bum. I'm laminating all the menus and signage - (Ah, laminating the best invention after sliced bread) plus turning the dining room in to a store cupboard - macaroni's taking over the chairs, canalini beans taking up the mantelpiece and numbered cutlery tins taking up the table. Peach B.B.Q sauce and Chilli Ketchup made & jarred up in the fridge. - - I love it! Can't Wait!

Still tickets available for anyone staying at the barns - plus one table left for Friday 4th July - - other than that its full and raring to go. Charlie would of loved the left overs.

Bawburgh had its bi-annual open gardens yesterday with over 250 visitors, we were rushed of our feet at the village hall with teas, coffees and tons of cakes. But it was a beautiful day and I think everyone had a good day - All the helpers were invited back to the Mill for drinks - it was great to see another side of Bawburgh - we had a good walk along the river and didn't realise how much beautiful meadow land surrounds this little village.

Anyway - Charlie the goose is having a trial split from his wife Doris - he's off gallivanting around the farm and lake all alone while Doris is meandering about with her 3 teenage children - don't know whats going on there!!! Mohamed and Cleopatra the Egyptian geese are bringing their two little chick's up close to the chicken coop where they get a daily dose of corn - they are getting closer and closer to the house and more and more used to us. Elvis and Priscilla the swans have had 4 cygnets - although I fear that might go down over the next few weeks.

We're getting ready for the PoP uP - more landscapping, more black paint and more plants for the monk jack deer to devour in the night - little buggers.

We have had a busy and full May and June but still have some available weeks and short breaks in July - Warm weather nearly always guaranteed - so pick up the phone and vote for me (just realised Britains Got Talent has finished) oh well - pick up the phone anyway or contact me with your inquiries, don't forget we offer fishing passes, do cookery classes and have special rates on Diner hire for our lovely guests - or just chill out by the lake on one of our picnic benches soon to be touched up with black paint, admire the garden (or the bits the wildlife don't eat), talk to the chicks and enjoy life.

I've just released the tickets for this years toe tapping feast of an extravaganza - Lodge Farm Kitchen brings you "Smokin American" for some indapendence of  our own - including country and western music, a grand ole American themed buffet with smoked brisket, mac and cheese, potato salad, pulled pork and more along with a diner full of desserts inc cherry pie, key lime and whoopies - - yes whoopies because when the farmers of the deep south opened their lunch boxes and their wives had put one of these cakes in they would shout "whoopie" - you will too!!! Plus they'll be a chilli chicken wing challenge for some brave soul or three - it will all be in the great outdoors, just how John Wayne would like it (who's he!).

They'll be 50 tickets - if we get over subscribbed we will be repeating the event on Friday 4th July --  same fun - just let me know your preferances.

Contact me to grab a booking form, fill it out, pay up and send it back - I'll get you your tickets and you can look forward to a great night - guaranteed or your going home disapointed (but you wont be!!!, you'll be going home happy and full of beans - B.B.Q beans!!!)
Yeeee harrrrrrrrrrrr - -

Its been a crazy cookery fest of a March - with more cookery lessons than I have ever done before (in a month that is) - This weekend I taught Japanese to a lovely bunch of couples and then a group of very amusing South Africans - I must admit I am a bit bored of Sushi, my daughter eat 8 Unari pockets and way over a dozen sushi to her self yesterday - - My children just love left overs here!!! My family are like vultures - swooping in after I have just taught grabbing all the good stuff.

In-between teaching and the holiday Barns me and Nick have been creating another decking area and improving the woodland pathway and all the sloping banks down to the lake. But its great working in the sunshine - - We've been using left over floor boards to create edgings and pathways, painting them black and planting them up - - -  I don't want to stop, it will be a sad day when those floor boards run out.
Indian and Asian later in the week - a break from Sushi at least.