Something was nagging and it really should have been obvious, but it was only midway through a fairly unproductive lesson that it came to me: money of course. The excited conversation of the previous evening which had envisaged us in the halcyon pastures of organic smallholding suddenly felt undermined by reality; how on earth could we afford to do it? Yes we had discussed income, but conveniently we brushed it away in the belief that a couple of bed and breakfast rooms would suffice. By the end of the night, our new course had been set and bucolic idylls sauntered through our dreams. The reality of course was that we had to approach our escape from the treadmill of education with a more prosaic attitude and focus on the hospitality side of our life changing (and hopefully enhancing) plans.

Four, possibly five, years have passed since these nascent plans were rolled around our conversations and imaginings and here we are now coming to the end of our third year at Millslade. In the original vision our fields were stocked with healthy, contented livestock and poly tunnels burgeoned with plump, ripe fruit and vegetables. While we can’t claim to have arrived at this destination quite yet, we can take satisfaction in the increasing numbers of livestock scratching or rooting around on our less than envisaged acreage and the small but successful veg patch. With our more realistic heads on, we have focused on the hospitality aspect of our venture and have been rewarded by welcoming so many lovely guests to our beautiful home.

Our blog aims to mix the present with episodes that have cropped up along the way and we hope you enjoy reading about our experiences as much as we have enjoyed the reality of them.