AMBER HOUSE: Newsletter

Having refurbished the dining room just in time for Christmas we had a great time over the festive period providing guests with copious amounts of delicious food over five days – one guest commented that it was the best Christmas Dinner they had ever had – which gave me a warming feeling  and  distracted me from the previous warming feeling I felt in my feet - from standing and rushing round on them too long! 

 
The treasure hunt  went well – most people managed to find seagull feathers without actually capturing and plucking one and they also worked out what was Johnnie Depp’s favourite restaurant  before dashing back to warm mulled wine.

 
We were fully booked and will be repeating the Christmas package next year!

We have had a mixed bag of weather this Spring - but the garden is looking nice.  We have planted some new conifer hedging (the yellow-green variety), are working on excavating the old path at the far corner of the garden and creating a new bed.  The daffodils and wallflowers planted last autumn are coming through  as are the winter aconite and  the winter baskets  in the car park are still supporting a fine head of yellow violas. They are the ice-cream cone-shaped ones - if you see them in the shops do try them - the plants seen to do very well in this shape.

EXMOUTH

We have been a little further afield recently – to Exmouth – about an hour’s drive.

At the mouth of the Exe estuary it has a wide open fresh feel about it, with open sandy beach and a fantastic ice-cream shop selling ices with names such as Split Personality for those who can’t decide in which delights to indulge! There is a lot of money going into redevelopment of waterfront/marina properties.  For the house-hunters out there we didn’t enquire about the prices but no doubt they are fairly pricey as you could moor your boat within sight of the apartment.

But  for those without their own marine transport, STUART-LINE cruises www.stuartlinecruises.co.uk do lots of trips from Exmouth not just in the summer months but through the winter, with some special bird-watching trips November to  March , Firework cruises and Christmas lunch cruises in addition to the usual river trips. The boats are covered and heated in the winter.

Not far from Exmouth is Bicton Park Botanical Gardens. www.bictongardens.co.uk

Well worth a trip.  Delightful gardens including Italian gardens and lovely food in the orangerie. A Thomas the Tank Engine lookalike train to take you round the grounds if you wish. They cater for the restless children with indoor and outdoor play areas – a must these days for any attraction (the play areas I mean – not the restless children!) Bicton is open all year round too.

We also called in briefly at Sidmouth which had a lot of up-market coffee shops and jewellery shops, deck-chair hire on the Prom and a traditional old-fashioned grocery shop selling local produce.

W