HOT HOT HOT

It is a scorcher in Cornwall right now just in time for the half term.  We have a lovely busy park with many returning guests and lots of new faces too.  I have been out and about this afternoon getting a few shots whilst the skies are blue and sun is in the sky.

I have not blogged for a few weeks as the girls and I visited my family in Norfolk, leaving Daddy at home here in Cornwall to manage a busy bank holiday weekend.  We missed being by the sea and enjoyed walking around the park today as the trees are out in full bloom, the pitches are filling up and there is not a builder in sight!

Today we ventured up to The Lost Gardens of Heligan.  As regular blog readers will know, we go there a lot with our annual passes, but today was a special treat as they have their 'Wild Week' on.  Each time I think it cannot get any better, yet each time it does.  The activities for the children were brilliant for all ages with face painting, crafts, assault courses and my all time favourite - piglets.  I am now attempting to convince Richard piglets would be a good addition to our ever growing collection of animals...a battle I am certain I will loose.

The shop on the park has had a make over with new flooring making it brighter than before.  The fridge is stocked with bacon & sausages from the local butcher, milk, clotted cream and butter from Trewithen Dairy and last week we saw the addition of freshly picked strawberries from Boddingtons.  The strawberries, grown in Mevagissey are picked in the morning and delivered to us by lunch.  Delicious - and unsurprisingly they sold out very very quick.  Today we also have home made shortbread, rock buns and biscuits in reception.

Luckily with all this food on offer in reception there are lots of brilliant walks locally for all ages, abilities and levels of energy.  Pop into reception to collect a free copy of the 'St Austell Bay, Mevagissey and Fowey Map' which shows local walks and cycle trails.  Below are a few that we can recommend - but do ask us for more advice.

EASY WALK - Take a stroll down to Pentewan, the flat trail is pushchair and wheelchair friendly.  The 30 minute walk through a wooded valley is refreshing and enjoyable, leading you to the small village of Pentewan where you will find a beach (not dog friendly), pub and tea shop.

MODERATE WALK - Take the trail towards St Austell, going past River Valley Holiday Park, follow the footpath signs for a cicrular walk around 'Rose Week' which will bring you back on the trail to return to Little Winnick.  This is a longer walk of about 6 miles, but it takes you through a traditional Cornish hamlet, past some stunning cottages.  Pop into reception for full walk details.

CHALLENGING WALK - for those who really like walking and hills, why not walk down to Pentewan, pick up the coastal path towards Porthpean and follow the walk to Charlestown.  The stunning views are breathtaking and you can reward yourself with a bus ride back to Little Winnick Touring Park.

7 for 5 - why not enjoy a Cornish break with us?

Don't forget we are offering guests 7 nights for the price of 5 on selected dates throughout the year.  That means right now you could stay for a week for as little as £50 - give us a call or visit www.littlewinnick.co.uk to make a booking.

So we are now fully open.  I keep forgetting to bring the camera, but I will endeavor to get some better pictures to update you with.  It is a case of tying up the loose ends on the toilet block project now so we are finishing off cladding this week along with boxing in pipe work, the odd bit of painting and we are awaiting the new signs.  It is so lovely to be able to offer guests great facilities that are purpose built and hopefully cover the needs of everyone staying with us with a family bathroom with a bath and an accessible shower room.

The park is coming to life as more people arrive.  We have had a number of people check in this week who are walking various elements of the South West Coastal Path.  The 630 miles of stunning scenery is well worth exploring - it is on my 'to do list' to walk the whole coastal path.  From Little Winnick you can easily access the path either heading towards Mevagissey or Charlestown.  If you walk the coastal path to Mevagissey you can come back via Heligan making a lovely circular walk.

Tomorrow is our day off so we are heading out with a picnic in search of some bluebells.  Even on the road down here there are some stunning carpets of bluebells if you look to your left jsut before the Cornwall Hotel.  A short walk from Little Winnick is The Kings Wood which boasts stunning carpets of bluebells at this time of year.  A short drive from here you will find Luxulyn Valley - somewhat of a locals secret the magically woods have glimpses of Cornwall's agricultural past litter througout it.  Slightly further a field is Tehidy Woods.  The flat woodland is brilliant to visit if you have a pushchair or wheel chair.

The new toilet block is...

OPEN!

All we can say is a big, fat PHEW!  What a winter it has been;  long, frustrating, exciting and tiring building a huge new toilet block which boasts:

• A purpose built family bathroom with baby changing facilities and bath
• An accessible shower room
• A gents 
• A ladies 
• Laundry facilities
• And a lovely spacious light and airy dish washing area.

None of this would have happened without the amazing project management of Richard.  He will tell me off for saying how hard he has worked, but a lesser man would have given up in the depths of winter and the various hurdles he seemed to glide over.

girls with their work bags

testing the new toddler slide

I can confirm it was right up to the wire today.  At midday the gents looked like a building site with no lights and work still happening on the ceiling.  Then something amazing happened between one and three.  I am not sure what but one minute it was a building site the next it was ready to open.  We still have a few little bits to finish over the next couple of weeks such as the cladding outside and boxing in steels but all toilets, showers and baths are very much functional.  The poor first guest who used the facilities whilst I was still busy cleaning was asked in jest to remove his shoes so not to dirty my clean floor!  This is not a rule we will be enforcing!

Yesterday I had two merry helpers on the park, we started work at 8.30 and somehow our two girls pottered around until gone 5pm.  We went to Little Winnick to re plant the planters outside reception and organise the new toys for reception for guests to borrow.  It is fair to say a lot of toys got moved around before I was allowed to put them in place for our guests.  We now have three boxes- one has a large selection of sports equipment, another has family outdoor games and the other has baby/toddler toys as we know how little space you have in the car when you go away anywhere with children.

the gents

Obviously we made our young apprentices work hard, but at lunchtime they both managed to enjoy a good play on our new toddler tower.  Bethany, who has just turned one and recently started walking took great delight in staggering up the little ramp to find the slide.  We hope other younger guests will enjoy it to.

So, all that is left is to declare the 2015 season well and truly officially OPEN.  We look forward to welcome you to Little Winnick and hope you will enjoy the latest improvements as much as we do.

Heidi, Richard Jessica & Bethany x x

Toddlertastic

Today it is finally raining after weeks of unbroken sunshine, which we are pleased about as we have laid grass seed around the building project and would like it to have a good water now.  In other places grass is being dug today; as I type at 5.15pm on a Friday afternoon the new 'toddler tower' has just arrived from Derbyshire and is being installed into the play area.  It is a slide and climbing wall for our toddling guests which is very exciting.  Our youngest member of the family started walking this week so I am certain I know two little people who will test the new play equipment out.

Talking of testing things out we have been trying out the cycle trails that lead from the park.  I have acquired a bike trailer, so I have had great fun towing our girls along the trail - I even have the sore muscles to prove it as it some weight I am pulling along.  We had a lovely cycle up through the Kings Wood to River Valley Holiday Park towards St Austell, our other touring park, to visit Auntie Alison.  It was such a lovely ride that Bethany managed to doze off.  Then another day we had an adventure down to Pentewan.  The trail is flat so it is an ideal ride for novices like myself or for younger riders learning how to ride.  So don't forget to pack your bike when you come and stay, or if you can't fit it in then you can always hire from Pentewan Cycles.  If booked in advance they will deliver to the park for you and collect them.

We feel like we are on the home straight of the toilet block project now.  All the tarmacing around the new building is complete, we have ceilings going up in the laundry room ready for the washing machines to be installed next week.  The carpenters are installing the cubicles in the gents and work on finishing the skylights in there is complete too.  The cladding of the building has begun which is a long slow process, but it looks very nice and we have started painting the outside too.  We are now heading towards the finishing touches, which I cannot tell you what a relief that is after a very, very long winter.  I am off all over St Austell collecting mirrors, toilet brushes, ordering toilet roll and cleaning products - it really is a glamorous job!

That say I did have a more glamorous experience this week and one I cannot recommend enough.  My friend and I managed to re-home the children for the day and headed to Fowey Hall Hotel - ironically a very child friendly hotel.  We were treated to an hour long massage and facial and then proceeded to sit in the outside hot tub over looking Fowey and the sea for 2 hours (we were a bit wrinkly when we got out).  Followed by the biggest afternoon tea I have ever seen.  It was a belated birthday treat and what a treat it was.  If you are looking for a special afternoon whilst staying at Little Winnick Touring Park then why not check out one of the spas near by.  As well as Fowey Hall, there is The Cornwall just up the road or Watergate Bay Hotel on the north coast has a stunning spa on the top of the cliffs.

Finally my most exciting news of the week is the two new recruits that will be joining us here at Little Winnick.  Lady and Bird.  They are too bantam hens, who are very tame and friendly.  They are at our cottages at the moment, Tregongeeves, but once we get opened they will be part of the welcoming committee here and tonight I am off home to set up the incubator my mother in law gave me today.  I am not sure how happy Richard is about this, it is all part of my cunning plan to acquire a few more feathered friends!

Finally sorry for the lack of photographs in the blog, I had taken some and my camera ended up at home and I am at the office...next time!

Competition time, oh and the sun is out

So last blog I launched our competition for you to win a free ice cream!  We have Postman Pat obsessed children who love getting things in the post, but these days there is not much post - so we are asking you, are lovely blog readers to send us a postcard from where ever you happen to be and in return we will give you a free ice cream when you come and stay.  It really is a win win situation - you make two little girls day and we give you an ice cream!

I cannot tell you the delight at the postcards we have already received - trying to spot Fuzzy the bear was fun and the safari postcards caused great excitement!  Please send all postcards to:
Miss J&B Clemo, Little Winnick Touring Park, Pentewan, Cornwall, PL26 6DL.  Thank you!

In other news we have been blessed with wall to wall sunshine this week.  In fact on Wednesday we decided to head to Pentewan Beach - Little Winnick's nearest beach.  I stupidly told Jess we were going to beach, so we ended up there at 8.45am she was so excited.  Funnily enough we were the first people on the beach - it was glorious having the beach to ourselves with the tide right out.  With such a low tide brought with it some interesting discoveries on the beach - we spotted two huge jelly fish.  Apparently there are a lot of them off our coastline at the moment.  So that was the morning, we popped up to see Granny for a few hours, she has two new lambs so we went to see them at Tregongeeves Farm Cottages - Olaf and Elsa are bottle fed so quite tame.  We then headed back to the beach for tea - a fantastic barbecue and a beer with friends.  The temperature stayed high until gone 7.30pm so we felt very spoilt.

Work on the park is continuing.  The cladding is going up as I type.   We have now had all the new tarmac laid and we have sown grass seed where we have been digging.  Currently we have a trench dug so we can relay the tv aerial to the hard standing pitches on the river bank side of the park.  We are also excitedly waiting the installation of some extra play equipment - a toddler slide and climbing wall.   I know two little people who will test that out for everyone!

Spring Sun & Competition Time

View from Coastguard Hut

Breakfast. Yum

What. A. Scorcher.  Yippeeee.  We are all nursing slightly burnt noses in the Clemo household today having spent the afternoon celebrating Bethany's first birthday with a BBQ in the garden.  We were truly bless with amazing weather.  We have just about managed to put the toys back in the rightful places, collected all the balls from the ball pool and gathered up all the missing eggs from the Easter Egg Hunt!  Back to work tomorrow for a rest.

We have had a brilliant few days sharing it with visiting and local friends.  We enjoyed breakfast in the Coastguard Lookout at Caerhays - I have mentioned this before but it was the first time we have cooked there.  We took our own stove and had bacon and egg sandwiches with cups of tea. The view is staggering - it was really a fantastic treat.  We then walked the coastal path to Portholland to look at the film set - they start filming Miss Peregine's Home for Peculiar Children in the next couple of weeks.  It was amazing looking around, we were tapping walls to see if they were real (they were not) and spent ages trying to work out which buildings had been added and which were always there.

We enjoyed a lovely cup of tea and cake in the Pebbles Cafe.  The lovely cafe is well worth a visit - take cash as they do not accept cards and take a bit extra for the wonderful crafts they create and sell too.

Pebbles Cafe Portholland

Film set

COMPETITION TIME

Now, down to the business of the the aforementioned competition! Each week I write the blog, I love doing it and love visiting places to tell you about.  In return for the blogs we would like your help.  We have a Postman Pat OBSESSED two and half year old who each day runs to letter box to collect the post when it is delivered as in her world every post person is Pat and has a cat called Jess with them!  So, I am asking all blog readers to make a little girls day simply by...

Please can you send Jessica (aged 2 1/2)and Bethany (aged 1) a postcard from where ever you are, near or far.  In return we will give anyone who visits us in the 2015 season who has sent a postcard a free ice cream of your choice. Please help make their days!

Please send postcards to Miss J & B Clemo, Little Winnick Touring Park, Pentewan, Cornwall, PL26 6DL.  Thanks x

A spring in our step

There is a real feeling of spring around the place right now ans the daffodils are out in full glory.  The rally are having a lovely time with a trip out last night to Jamaica Inn and many more activities planned over the weekend.  There are even more happier now the gale force winds have dropped down - it was pretty windy here mid week.

Work on the park has quietened down whilst we have the rally in - however next week sees a long list of people onsite.  The middle of the week we have the tarmacers in, along with flooring people, electrians and carpenters.  This week has been a bit odd with not much visible building work happening, given we have been a building site for almost 6 months it felt very quiet.  The new facilities are being given a good testing by our rally and we have had great feed back.

The family bathroom

This week we took yet another visit to The Lost Gardens of Heligan - their Easter activities were brilliant, so much to do for the children; we made a rabbit mask, mud nest (not loved that much by us at home!), did an Easter egg trail, painted eggs and much more.  I had a bit of a scare as my fearless child decided to hurtled out of control down a very steep hill.  Time for me was in slow motion as I realised she couldn't stop.  A very dramatic crash followed by lots of people running to our aid.  Luckily the crash helmet took the majority of the fall and the damp weather meant she had plenty of layers on cushion her fall.  There were huge amounts of tears but that was because I told her she had to push her bike and couldn't ride it!  Mummy was more traumatised by the incident than Jessica.

The ladies

The disable bathroom

This weekend we have friends visiting, they are pasty lovers so tomorrow we have promised them pasties by the sea.  We have in the past held the pasty championships with these friends where we brought pasties from all over the place to test them out to see who is the best.  We will be doing the same tomorrow in round two of pasty championships and of course the results we feature in next weeks blog.

Monday sees our youngest daughter turn one - I have no idea where that year has gone.  So we are having an Easter Egg Hunt and a BBQ, just hoping for good weather.  We wish you a Happy Easter where ever you are in country and hope you enjoy some sun too.