Janet's Blog – Autumn 2024

Well autumn is well and truly here it's fair to say. I saw a quote once by Jim Bishop – that "Autumn carries more gold in its pockets than all the other seasons" and, walking round the marina and at home I have to agree. There's been an abundance of apples in the orchard at the farm and some amazing acorns on the oak trees at the marina. The blackberries have been superb and the sloe berries are looking pretty impressive. For me this means LOTS of apple crumble and pie making – I just can't keep up with my family's consumption! I'm pretty sure they must all be inhaling it or something, as I go to work leaving a crumble on top of the cooker and it's gone by the time I walk home. Given that one of them is away at university that's even more impressive.

At the marina the really exciting news has to be that Overwater has been voted Inland Marina of the Year 2024!!! Being an award that's voted for by our customers makes it even more special to us and I'm really proud of the whole team for creating somewhere you all wanted to vote for – my heartfelt thank you has to go to each and every person who took the times to vote for us and to our team for being so amazing!

As the days get shorter, and I spend less time outside in the evenings I'm into planning mode and have started working on some of my winter projects – this year I want to create some interpretation boards around the marina and along the old railway line and I'm also looking into the possibility of electric cycle hire (now I've told you all about it I'll have to do something about it!).

At home we're preparing for the winter and eventually the horses will be moving off the orchard and into the winter paddocks. Belle the foal is growing up – she's such a delight and I seem to waste an awful lot of time 'just checking she's OK'. It's not been a bad summer for them – neither too hot nor too cold and the orchard has been a beautiful place to wander round in. My only disappointment has been I missed the damsons – I have a few trees – they're a real Cheshire fruit, but unfortunately the colder spring left fewer fruit, and I was a bit too late to pick them. They're great for jam making and more importantly damson gin. I had a great recipe for it – you pick your damsons, buy some sugar, buy a bottle of gin, drink half...actually it all gets a bit vague after that....