Each spring, it’s always an exciting moment to note the arrival of our first lamb and today’s clever offspring decided to arrive on the most glorious day of spring sunshine!

This year we’ve only 5 ewes to lamb and two have opted to give birth today.  The three lucky lambs are already basking in the evening sunshine, looking much more worldly wise than their few short hours of life would suggest.   This healthy ram lamb and mum have settled into family life very quickly and it probably won’t be long before he’s leader of the ‘ lamb gang’, encouraging all sorts of mischief and frolicks.   It’s magical to watch them!

We’d like to wish all of our guests (past, present and future) a very happy Easter and thank you for your visits to East Jordeston – we really enjoy having you with us!

It’s a lovely Easter sunday in Pembrokeshire – sunny, with a slight chilly breeze but spring is now well on it’s way after the colder than usual winter we’ve endured this year.  Great weather for blowing away the cobwebs and bringing some rosiness to the cheeks.

As our two ‘children’ have flown the nest, Phil and I have decided to encourage more feathered friends into our garden this year.  We chose a good harsh winter to start this project and after investing in the feeders, food and then the guardians to protect the feeders from squirrels and  larger birds (quite an expensive undertaking!) we immediately started to reap the rewards with a garden full of beautiful birds.  I wonder where they used to eat before!  They seem to be with us constantly and the pleasure we get from watching them close up makes the continuous spend on seeds so worthwhile. I guess we are now ‘hooked’ and developing into a pair of ‘twitchers’!

It’s been a glorious day of  spring sunshine to welcome in the month of March which always begins with the celebration of St David’s Day in all parts of Wales.  The young children eagerly go to school dressed up in all their traditional finery with girls looking pretty in lace edged black bonnets, fringed paisley shawls and flannel skirts with plaid aprons – the boys often kitted out in patriotic support of the country’s rugby team or with caps and waistcoats on a Victorian theme.  Daffodils and leeks are proudly worn and traditional foods such as Welsh cawl, barabrith and Welsh cakes are eaten at celebratory events held everywhere. It’s a day we all enjoy.

Of course singing is high on the list of any celebration here in Wales and if you’ve every wondered what those strange words mean when our lungs blast out our National Anthem,  just click on the image of this plaque to enlarge!

Just as the snowdrops are coming into bloom, winter seems to have returned to Pembrokeshire this weekend! I couldn’t resist posting this image of one of our Jacob sheep enjoying this morning’s breakfast of hay in the snow – Ahh…. how cute!

Yesterday, our weekend guests woke up to a beautiful covering of snow with gently falling flakes continuing during the morning. What a lovely seasonal welcome to Judith and friends getting away to celebrate 21 years of friendship (they all met at anti-natal class!). They enjoyed walks on deserted snow clad beaches, followed by warming soup at a Tenby restaurant before hunkering down at their cosy cottage to enjoy the sauna, log fire and foody treats along with lots of wine, laughter and chat! A perfect way to spend the weekend!

This good looking creature was captured on camera whilst on its lunchtime stroll through our paddock today. It looks a healthy specimen but we are glad we don’t have any new born lambs in that field at the moment!

I am a little late with this greeting but the sentiment still applies to guests old and new.

We are just getting back into the saddle here at East Jordeston after our family holiday where we spent a wonderful Christmas in Finnish Lapland. It was a milestone wedding anniversary for Phil and I at Christmas 2009 (30 years – Yikes!) so we left our very good friend, Phil, ‘cottage sitting’ and flew off to snowy climes.

The Finns welcome the snow which brightens the long dark days of winter and this year it has come down in bumper bucket loads! With studded tyres on our car, it was no problem to drive the 15 hours from Helsinki overnight through blizzards and snow clad roads, to our holiday cottage well inside the Arctic circle. It was a magical journey of mile after mile of beautiful snow laden trees with the fine ‘diamond dust’ billowing around as we journeyed northwards.

Little did we know that while we were enjoying temperatures of -28 degrees and beautiful powdery snow in Finland, the whole of the UK was being plunged into lingering minus temperatures too and along with the snow came the chaos of getting around! Arriving back home we found ourselves (even in usually mild Pembrokeshire) marooned for a few days, unable to get our car out of our icy lane.

The snow is now melting and things are getting back to normal but it’s nice to have the rare occasion to post some snowy shots of our cottages – thank you Phil!

For short breaks taken up to 23 April (excluding Easter weeks -w/c 2/3 and 9/10 April) we are offering special prices:-
£99.00 per person for 2 night stay
£139.00 per person for 3 night stay
The offer applies to the following cottages:-
Ty Twt, Tyddyn and Dolmenyn (booking for minimum of 2 guests), Hafod and Nythfa (booking for minimum of 4 guests).

Offer prices at Beili are:-
£129.00 per person for 2 night stay (booking for minimum of 2 guests)
£175.00 per person for 3 night weekend or 4 night midweek stay (booking for minimum of 2 guests).

We are delighted to have hosted the BBC Autumnwatch crew for a few days this week while they were filming in Pembrokeshire for programme 7 of this year’s Autumnwatch series. The team were lucky enough to have some clear, sunny weather and were up and out before daylight to begin their day of wildlife filming. It was a busy schedule!
The programme goes out on Friday 13th (Saturday in Wales) this week and we are eager to see what wildlife delights the team have recorded on our beautiful coast. It promises to be good – and will surely be great publicity for Pembrokeshire! Thank you to Producer Miranda, presenters Kate (not forgetting Badger!), Chris and all the crew – it was great to have you with us!

We are enjoying the most wonderful autumn in Pembrokeshire this year. Glorious calm sunny days, evenings with beautiful sunsets and cooler nights for our guests to enjoy the cosy comforts of their cottages.

Every year we look forward to our own special ‘autumnwatch’ and today we took one of our favourite walks around the Marloes Peninsula to do a spot of seal watching. The Pembrokeshire coast is home to hundreds of Atlantic grey seals and the females give birth to their single pups in caves and on quiet beaches, from August to December. To see them is a magical experience! With the fine autumn weather this year almost 80 new pups have been counted so far on the Skomer Marine Nature Reserve and today we saw very new yellow/white pups just one or two days old, as well as those more mature (21 days plus). An extra treat was to see the beautiful mum pictured here and also a large male who was hanging around waiting to mate with the female.

They are such magnificent healthy looking creatures and we always encourage our autumn guests to take advantage of seeing this special treat. A fabulous memory of a visit to Pembrokeshire.

For short breaks taken between 1 October and 15 December 2009 (excluding w/c 23/24 October) we are offering special prices:-
£99.00 per person for 2 night stay
£139.00 per person for 3 night stay
The offer applies to the following cottages:-
Ty Twt, Tyddyn and Dolmenyn (booking for minimum 2 guests)
Hafod and Nythfa (booking for minimum 4 guests).

Offer prices at Beili are:-
£129.00 per person for 2 night stay (booking for minimum 2 guests)
£175.00 per person for 3 night weekend or 4 night mid week stay (booking for minimum 2 guests)