Tintern Abbey Cottage welcomed its first red ( Irish ) setter for which we have a soft spot and idiotic special prices. Gorgeous Murphy was almost held captive by us! Bring him again!

Our guests were in Skenfrith and enjoyed seeing the new Dr Who filming near the Castle.

Two superb days of warm ( yes!) sunshine and starry frosty nights. Gorgeous.

Vanilla had its annual and rigorous Visit Wales inspection and phew we are 5 star again. We appreciated the constructive advice and the opportunity to discuss future plans. Thank you inspector.

Today completed the test and course for the new Warm Welsh Welcome qualification -Croeso Cynnes Cymreig , one of the first Welsh businesses to complete all three modules.Feeling very pleased about this and waiting now to be able to upload the logo we have earned to this site.

21 feb.When cleaning at Vanilla we arrived in snow, sat on the terrace in T shirts in full sun and enjoyed the first garden flowers -and set off for home with more big flakes falling. Weird or what.

Vanilla Cottage is a busy place this week as we close for a total refreshment. Painting top to bottom, checks on roof, chimney sweeping, boiler engineer, electrical and safety checks, carpet shampoo, septic tank emptying, gardening, replacement of microwave,visits from Visit Wales and our sales agent and we are ready for the many bookings in place for the year. (Very little space remains between now and October) dont delay if you want to visit us.

It was blue and sunny today and we had our coffee break during cleaning outside at Foxes Reach in the sunshine. OK we had coats on but still....

An ice cold but brightly blue sunny Saturday morning and the ground is rock hard so we hang out a large new bird treat- one of those bix square mixes of fat and seeds and berries. It is soon mobbed by hungry tits of several sorts , dunnocks, thrushes , a blackbird and a couple of frankly already overweight sparrows. In one hour it is all gone. Sunday lunch reservations now being taken.

Visit Wales has changed its hospitality certificate and we are studying for the newest one ( we had the top level of the old one). We have gained two thirds of it today. Yo! Croeso y Gymru- Welcome to Wales!