News from Tregathenan – January 2025
Welcome to our annual ‘roundup’ of news, and goings-on at Tregathenan……
It’s been a quiet year here in Cornwall – despite some lovely weather in May/June, summer never really happened. Visitor numbers were down as people opted for overseas sun, or no holiday at all.
The good news is that Cornwall and Tregathenan are as beautiful as ever; ready for the new year, and if you’ve never visited Tregathenan before, you can now get a birds-eye view of our beautiful place by heading over to our website and looking at the drone photography that our lovely friends at Sharkfin Media https://sharkfinmedia.com/ put together in the spring. https://www.tregathenan.co.uk/
If you look really carefully at the video, you’ll see Ian and Liz walking Eric and Merry the alpacas up the lane. It looks really calm, but in reality, the alpacas were quite spooked by the drone, which sounded like a swarm of bees to them! Several takes later we nailed it!
So what’s new?
We’ve just had a log burning stove installed in the Long Barn! We’re delighted with it and hope our guests will be too. The cottage is a lovely and cosy place to be especially on a cold autumn or winter’s evening.
Pets – pets are now welcome in all 3 cottages at Tregathenan – the Long Barn, Granary and the Hayloft. That usually means dogs, but we have also had the occasional cat stay with their owners! And don’t forget that pets go free in February, March and April!
There are some new faces in the chicken run – Silver, the Sussex Ranger, and two Bluebells – Ashley and Smokey – These hens were all ‘invited’ to live at Tregathenan. Unlike Hercules the cockerel who just rocked up one day. We have no idea where he came from. He wandered around Tregathenan hopefully for 3 days and seemed quite friendly. Eventually Liz took pity on him, worried he would come to harm overnight, and so he was introduced to the girls. He behaved himself, and so he was given a name, board and lodgings. Since moving in, he has clearly his favorites amongst the girls, and as his confidence has grown so has his cock-a-doodle-doing…..!
Other animal news – we found new shearers for the alpacas – 2 ladies with a lovely kind and gentle technique for what can be a stressful experience for the boys, no matter how many times most of them have been sheared. Happy boys, makes happy owners! They continue to provide the entertainment for the ever-popular alpaca walks on Wednesdays.
In September, we were treated to a visit from Ian’s daughter Laura who lives in Canada. We hadn’t seen her since Covid, and we had a lovely 2 weeks catching up, and as usually happens when we have house guests, we re-visited many of Cornwall’s beautiful places.
Laura loved the Cornish Seal Sanctuary nearby at Gweek https://sealsanctuary.sealifetrust.org/ Seal pups are born from September onwards and pups that have been injured or stranded find their way to this wonderful sanctuary. When you visit, your ticket allows you to revisit for up to 12 months and so Ian and Liz have since returned to check on the progress of the pups and other resident seals, and the new adorable puffins.
In October, Ian and Liz had a wonderful 10 day break in the Lake District, which we hadn’t visited for many years. Our holiday was made possible by our long-suffering animal sitters, Rosie and Paul, who deserve something of a medal for managing Napoleon for such a long time!
We have re-discovered the Hall for Cornwall this year https://www.hallforcornwall.co.uk/ – Cornwall’s principal theatre venue in Truro – it was refurbished during the pandemic and is a now a wonderful Playhouse attracting all sorts of excellent and varied productions, from West End musicals to ballet, plays and live music. This year we’ve seen Lord of the Dance, Titanic the Musical and we’re booked up to see JoJo in Kinky Boots shortly. Check out the programme and add a trip to your next visit.
New discoveries for 2024 included the Heligan Night Garden – over the Christmas period part of the stunning Lost Gardens of Heligan are beautifully illuminated making a really enchanting evening, and now a ‘must’ for us for next Christmas. We had wanted to visit Bodmin Jail for ages, and eventually managed a visit (not as inmates!) https://www.bodminjail.org/ It’s effectively an interactive prison museum but with lots of insights into 18th century Cornish life – an interesting and fun experience! And on a return trip from up-country, we discovered Roadford Lake https://www.swlakestrust.org.uk/roadfordlake It’s just 2 miles off the A30, about 90 minutes from Tregathenan, so a really good stop off point on your journey here – there’s lakeside walks, dog exercise area, a children’s play area and a great café. Be careful though – it is just across the Devon border!
Liz’s EcoBrick planter – Its all rubbish really! An EcoBrick is a plastic juice bottle, crammed full of single use plastic film, which makes a 250g solid ‘brick’. This summer, Liz used 54 of these to make a planter to replace a rotten wooden one. So here is the first Tregathenan EcoBrick planter – made from 17kg of, well, rubbish! A brilliant way to re-use all that single use plastic.
And finally, Ben just wanted to share his party trick with you. This is his very cute way of extracting treats from our guests……!
Just a snippet of what’s been happening over the past year. We hope you all had a fun and exciting 2024, and look forward to seeing many of you when you visit Tregathenan in 2025.
Wishing you all a happy and peaceful new year.
Liz and Ian
