Days 149 to 164 - When Foxie was activity ready (or when we were fully-booked and everything was blooming!).

Spring has sprung at Foxlease Park and there are blooms and green everywhere which has looked especially nice in the bright sun whic we've has over the last few weeks.  Camping season has descended on site too and The Coach House is officially open for bookings!  We're absolutely delighted that this weekend we're fully booked with everything we have to offer and all of our public camping pitches are booked out as well!

With that on the horizon, the past couple of weeks have been a hive of activity with less people to do the work as our volunteer numbers had been reduced to allow for compliance works.  We had lots of snagging bits on The Coach House and we were delighted to welcome the first group in there today, as well as bookings in some of the rooms upstairs, which are now also open to book.  We had last minute PAT testing of bedside lamps today to get them in in time in the occupied rooms and some temporary signage to affix whilst we wait for more permanent signs to be fitted to make the place our own.

We had lots of things to move around the site ready for camping, including laying more hard standing areas and distributing altar fires for those sites that need them.  We did our pre-occupation fire alarm testing, cleaned many, many, many toilets and sinks and emptied bins from previous occupants' use this week.

We had new boilers fitted on North Meadow and also Birches this week, with Woodpeckers to follow with a new one soon as well and New Forest Trefoil Guild spent a day peparing the Woodpeckers and Birches sites for us to get them ready for forthcoming bookings.  Lots more painting still to go, but we're getting there.  Noth Meadows got a fit out with new shower flooring following the boiler, it had its starting paint, was stocked with consumables and the doors were what is now being referred to on site as "peeper proofed", which came about when we were working on different parts of the hut and realised we could see each other between the cracks in the door which was far from ideal.  A solution was brainstormed and found to stop people's privacy being invaded and brown sealant was applied to fill the cracks.

The grass on site is nearing perfection in places, thanks to Paul's hours spent on the tractor - so good that one of our D of E group's leaders asked if we really wanted them to camp on it as it was too nice!  We did and they did and had a good night!

We've got our activity offering out there and there's been lots of self-led prep.  We've also opened bookings for 2026 and had a few in already with, we hope, more still to come soon!  We've cleaned things ready for future use, like strimming around the archery range and the tunnels and the laminator in the office has been working overtime preparing self-led instructions and activities, some of which are booked this weekend.

We've been to speak at lots of wonderful events and fundraisers being held for us and we've hosted groups here for a small fee to here us talk about where we're at so far.  We received more wonderful donations for resale, lots of amazing soap and consumables that we can use on site which saves us cost and also some further very generous financial donations for which we are very gratedul.

With all of that, we just about finshed things in time to welcome this weekend's bookings with everything we wanted in place and everyone's in for the night with a full house, which will only get more full as more campsites open soon!  On to Robins next, which had its water connected today, Love Foxie x