Days 128 - 148 - Foxie returns pen to paper (or the next bumper update).

The blog is back!  We apologise for the longer than normal delay in updates...Foxie's ghost writer (along with some of the site team) has been managing holiday, illness and a very busy time on site.  We're back in a phase now where we're doing some more new things, as explained below and so we'll try to update more frequently again where we can.

So, since our last update, things have leapt forwards again.  We're just a couple of days away from our Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatter's Tea Party event (likely to be in The Barn due to the weather) so we've had painted playing cards all over the office for a few days whilst they dry.

We've started moving out some of the picnic benches around the site for our volunteers and visitors to enjoy the sunshine outside when it's here.  Paul is on his 5th (we think) cut of the grass everywhere around the site and uncovering new drain cover all the time as he cuts things back.  It's really lovely to hear how much better people arriving think the site looks now that the wider fields have had some consistent attention. 

In terms of bigger things, The Coach House has its first bookings from the end of April and is looking lovely (we'll take some photos soon when it's finished - the last paint is going on at the moment).  All three residential buildings are ready for action and have had all their sign-offs, along with all of the campsites on the West of the site - just Chaffinch being finished off this week and then North Meadows and a few bits of snagging on the others which are already in use.  Chaffinch passed with its existing boiler (woo hoo!), which was great news for us as it didn't need a new one - but we're so grateful to everyone who responded with offers of funding which helped us fund replacement boilers for the first five or so where we've needed them.  The next phase after this one is to start on the huts at the top of the Link Field Campsites and that will mean more new boilers, more painting outside and inside and lots more bits on Foxie's Wishlist - we're ever grateful to Foxie's Fairy Godparents for their continuing support.

The Coach House and the Campsite Huts have probably had the most significant progress since our last update.  They've had repairs to panelling, boxing in of exposed pipework, painting, bunk repairs, new shower curtains, toilet brushes and consumables from the Amazon Mountain Range. The kitchen has been stocked with its inventory, it's had it's venting ducts cleaned.  Beautiful new nets in the front windows and serious curtain attention upstairs and down.  The big fridge is back in the kitchen and nice and clean (no small feat to move, but we'll leave that comedy for another day) and our electrical works have been completed to ensure the cooker in there is all propery connected.  The side hallway has had some further plaster repairs and we've just got some little paper things and finishing details to go now really and we've a little time for those.

The other area that had huge attention was The Walled Garden and Marquee which Foxlease Singing Circle took on as a clean up project during their recent "Sing and Scrub" event on sight.  If we hadn't heard the singing we'd have thought they skipped that bit in favour of a double scrub for us as the collectively achieved wonderful things and combined with a bit more grass-cutting from Paul it's looking rather smart in there now and ready for event bookings, cake afternoons and all sorts of other things.  We were using it as storage for the outside furniture but we've started to clean that up (more scrubbing) and move that out around the site now that the weather has been (intermittently) better and so it's soon going to be clear inside too.

With the campsite huts, it's difficult to truly catalogue the vast quantity of tasks which our volunteers have completed in the last few weeks but they've moved mountains to meet deadlines and with the sunny weather, things are looking lovely on the complete huts. They've repaired lighting, cladding, flooring, plumbing and fencing; they've painted the outside and the inside, they've laid shower matting, installed consumables, mirror tiles (more to come now we know how good they look) and cleared paving; they've fixed guttering and so, so, so much more.  We've had some more youth volunteers stop by and we're now in a place where we have some tasks for younger people provided they are accompanied by a parent or guardian so please do get in touch via the website.  We are working through our volunteer folder at the moment contacting offers to try and schedule more people in for a whole range of things to help us with this next phase.

We're nearly ready to upload our activites pricing and offering on to the website but if you've got a booking with us get in touch as we've got self-led and instructor activities available to book on site, with more coming online all the time.  We've announced that 2026 bookings are going live from 1st May 2025 and we've been doing alot of background work on that to get ourselves ready and to forward plan. 

We've planned and announced our next coffee morning (afternoon) on 15th May and Foxie's Flamboree, being run for us by Foxie's Singing Circle, and open to everyone as an evening community campfire event which we're really excited to share as the first of many to come!

We're sure there's been lots and lots more and we'll try to share more photographs soon as things keep progressing - more planning tomorow for the Alice Events at the weekend, Love Foxie x