Days 165 to 182 - Half a year gone by and where are we now (or Foxie's Fairytales)
Days 165 to 182 - Half a year gone by and where are we now (or Foxie's Fairytales).
Well we've hit the half a year mark since our purchase completed so it's a good time to take stock where we've got to.
We've got The Lodge, The Barn and The Coach House (including upstairs) now open for bookings and as of Saturday we've got 9 of our campsites in operation, with another two well on the way. The Boathouse has been repaired and the pontoons checked for our lake-based activities, tunnelling bas been cleared along with the woodland circle and the rest of the activity areas are in progress too. The Walled Garden and Marquee have seen good use and are improving week by week and the grounds in general have had lots more attention too.
We've passed 50 bookings and visitor groups on site so far since we opened the gates, made up of over 1000 guests, with more bookings still coming in daily for this year and next (those Early Fox bookers are making the most of the early bookings discount!). We've been to Annual Meetings and local events and had amazing fundraising work still going on for us by groups near and far. We've got bookings for tea and cake, overnight stays and afternoon tea in The Walled Garden and we've launched our first catered stay.
And Foxie's plans continue thanks to our incredible volunteers and supporters!
In terms of the detail of the past few weeks, the Foxie team have had a world of unexpected experiences since the last update! We'll spare you some of them (the blocked drain poo-nami in particular is one not to be shared in further detail, although we're pleased to say now resolved) but some are tales worth telling....like the Discovery of the Apple Trees River, Foxie-locks and the Skip that was just right and Foxie's Mystery Personal Alarm.
Our volunteers have been pushing on with repairing damaged woodwork on the Link Field campsite huts, retiling broken shower tiles, laying new concrete, filling holes with cold lay tarmac (which rather felt like a misnomer on the hottest day of the year) and so much painting to protect and improve. We're in a cleaning cycle before and after visitors to keep our standards high and we're finding things to improve all the time to keep moving upwards....along with SO much lost property. Our friends at Ferny Crofts brought their mobile climbing wall over which was hired by a large Scout booking on site and the roof on Chaffinch has been repaired by our wonderful friends at Compass Projects;
The Amazon Mountain Range continues to increase and decrease as things are delivered and get put to use on site and our Range is rather more widespread and extends to everything you can think of, including the kitchen sink! (Or, rather, a new washing up sink for North Meadow campsite). We've had some new carpet in the entry and one of the small rooms in The Barn and some amazing Foxie parcels arrive for a mix of the shop and new postbox toppers for Lyndhurst coming soon - if anyone has an Action Man or Barbie kayak lying around then please do let us know as we've got plans for one!
On to story time....
Foxie-locks and the just right skip was a minor but important event on site. Waste is becoming higher in volume as the season builds and it was the subject of much debate as to what size the next skip should be...we started with Big Skip when we first moved in, but decided that was too big this time, then progressed on to Baby Skip, which we decided was too small this time, and so we decided this time to go for Middle Skip, which we decided would be just right!
We've had more minor power cuts over the last few days as SSE have been doing things to their networks (thankfully not at times which have bothered anyone) and the only reason we've really known is because at least one of the buildings has a mystery alarm (not security or fire) which goes off when the power is cut. We can't hear it on site and have no idea what it does but the alarm company let us know when they can! The mystery continues...
Our Apple Trees story we'll share separately because it's a good one.
Finishing off the bouldering wall room tomorrow, Love Foxie x
