Welcome to our very own Bwlford Blog! Now, we've never written a blog before, so we're really not sure how it'll go. We decided to start one because when we talk to friends, guests or visitors and tell them about our experiences here, the one thing they all say is "You should write a blog!". So here we are!
A bit about us...
So, for those of you who don't know us, we are Clare and Richard Griffiths. In 2015, we left our jobs and life in Cardiff behind and moved to Bwlford with our 2 little boys and Richard's parents. Searching for something vaguely resembling the 'good life', we chose Bwlford because of the potential we saw in the house and surrounding land (neither of which had been updated or used for many years).
There was (and still is) so much to do. Our first task was to get an income coming in, so we partitioned off a section of the house and converted it into a holiday let. Our house is very quirky, and boasts a rich and interesting history (we'll keep that for another blog!), but the holiday cottage, much to our relief, is very popular, and filled with wonderful people from all over the country, year round.
More recently we've opened one of our fields up to the Caravan and Motorhome Club, to use as a Certified Location.
We also keep animals. Coming from an office environment, and only having experience of owning a Labrador, breeding and keeping farm animals was by far our steepest learning curve. We learnt everything we know from hands-on experience, Google and YouTube! There were a fair few mistakes made and absolute disasters in the first few years (which we'll tell you about), but we're getting better at it all.
To date, our menagerie includes chickens, turkeys (including a really really bad tempered one, who will be for the pot if we can find a replacement), geese, ducks, pigs (loads of stories about them!), sheep and bees. We also stocked our pond with Carp and silvers and have recently opened as a fishery.
So, that's us. And we are getting there, slowly but surely. And we'd like to share our journey with you...