An unexpected visitor

With the lodges empty for a few short weeks, the ducks have been regular visitors to the house. They're obviously missing the attention that they receive from our guests (and we suspect that they are looking forward to Christmas, when they can visit each lodge one by one, filling their tummies as they go!) and so are demanding food from the garden.
Word had obviously spread in the duck community about Forda, and we were delighted to welcome a newcomer (pictured) who came and spent a few days here (on holiday perhaps?)
We've not been able to identify him from any of our bird books, and have concluded that he must be a hybrid of some sort. If anyone has any ideas as to his breed, we'd be most interested to hear from you! But, whatever he is, he seemed to enjoy his stay here.

New Spa Treatments

Our therapists are always thinking of new treatments for our guests to enjoy !
Keighley has attended some really interesting seminars and workshops this summer at Spiezia (the Cornish organic producers) and has now added two new treatments to her repertoire at Forda. There is a new “Cornish organic anti-ageing facial” and a “Hands & Feet Treat” - everyone has loved them so far! Our full current treatment list is available on http://www.forda.co.uk/

Kilk in Bloom!

This year's flower festival has just taken place in Kilkhampton, and this year the theme was Trades & Professions.

All of the entries were very impressive, not to mention extremely clever and inventive!

Our submission here at Forda (pictured) was created by Gillian (with a little help from her friends!) and some of the flowers used are actually made from dishcloths and rubber gloves!

Gillian chose the title 'domestic engineer' but it has been suggested that 'domestic goddess' may have been more appropriate!

Forda Article Published by Visit England

We're thrilled here at Forda to have been featured in an article by 'Quality Edge' - VisitEngland's magazine.


The article was written for the trade to highlight the importance of cleanliness - with their research showing that "94% of guests consider the cleanliness and hygiene standards of accommodation to be either extremely important or important". We can only agree!

The article says that "about 10% of self-catering properties got top marks for housekeeping, compared with about 6% of guest accommodation and 2% of hotels."



Forda was the only self-catering place from the whole of the UK included in their article because we have achieved a perfect 100% score for several years in the VisitEngland inspections for cleanliness!

They even included this picture of our ladies ! - we are very fortunate to have such a great team of cleaners - without them we couldn't keep up the high standards.

Thank you girls!

Swallows

We're very happy to report that the swallows returned to Forda once more this year - providing hours of amusement for our guests as they safely raised their young families before leaving us for another year!

Top Gear

Many of you are no doubt fans of Top Gear - and will have watched 'Jezza', 'Hamster' and 'Captain Slow' on Sunday 18th July, facing the challenge of building their own interesting motorhomes for a trip down to Cornwall.

Towards the end of the programme they were filmed driving up the A39 through Kilkhampton, and the London Inn was clearly visible.

After this they went to Hartland Quay - where Jeremy sat on a rock eating ice-cream whilst Hammond and May pushed his motorhome over a cliff in the background!

Nice weather for ducks - and fishing!

Well, the weather has been a little variable these last few weeks - we've had glorious, sunny days interspersed with...well, pretty wet ones really!

Luckily, the rain hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of the fishermen and women here at Forda, and by all accounts the ponds have been fishing really well.

The biggest photographed capture so far this season is a 14lb common carp - congratulations to Dylan Taylor (pictured) for that one! We know that there are bigger fish just waiting to be caught though, and will publish new photos as and when we get them.

We're really pleased that we've been able to introduce some brand new anglers to fishing, thanks to Colin, our fishing coach. Judging from some of the successful catches following a coaching session, we're pretty sure that we've created some life-long fishing fanatics!