Gumboot Concierge

Autumn Walking in the Brecon Beacons

2010-10-20T09:44:00.000+01:00

My walking friends and I have a tradition of Birthday Walks and this year mine was an absolute corker! A crisp, clear day with a blue sky heralded what was to be one of my most glorious October walks ever. We started out from the Talybont side of Torpantau car park (about half an hours drive from Gliffaes), making our way steadily up the steep side of Craig-y-Fan Ddu alongside sparkling

Autumn Days Out

2010-09-20T12:12:00.000+01:00

I thought I would list a few events and some ideas of my own of what to see and do over Autumn in the Brecon Beacons and surrounding country side of Mid Wales. I was racking my brains of places to see really good Autumn tree colours and after pouring over maps and books Susie came along and said "We have the best Autumn colours right here at Gliffaes and up and down the Usk Valley walk." And

Lamb Cooked in Hay

2010-09-02T13:06:00.007+01:00

One of our favorite guests and very loyal friend of Gliffaes, Ken Phillips asked us to a arrange a private dinner in the Drawing Room for his wife's birthday. "My pleasure", I said. "What would you like to have on the menu?" "I'll leave it up to you James, but I would like four courses please. There will 19 of us." And with that he was off. Now, this is not as easy to do as you might imagine

2010-08-12T10:10:00.000+01:00

In the interests of researching all good days out around Gliffaes, I decided to take Alexandra, Olivia and some of our French family canoeing on the Wye yesterday.I wonder why we have not done this before? What a fabulous way to spend the afternoon. I think I may do it more often. Having not paddled an open canoe before, I was not sure what to expect, especially with four children in tow.

Picking Wimberries

2010-08-09T11:32:00.001+01:00

It is around the first couple of weeks in August that wimberries or bilberries (Empetraceae) are ready for picking. These are wild berries found on moorland and mountains across a lot of Wales and uplands in England and Scotland. Wimberries look like small blueberries but are less juicy and more acidic, though just about sweet enough to eat raw. They grow on a low scrubby plant making them

A Trip to Aberglasney Gardens

2010-07-18T09:44:00.010+01:00

A trip to Aberglasney makes for a great day out from Gliffaes, the journey along the A40 westwards is very straight forward and takes an hour. We often call in here on the way back from Pembrokshire to have a look around and to have lunch in the very good cafe over looking the big pond, over which the swallows and house martens skim over through out the day. The house and gardens were abandoned

Discover more of Wales.

2010-07-18T09:31:00.003+01:00

We have been going to the north Pembrokshire coast for about ten years now. Every time I make our annual trip I am blown away by the rugged beauty and by how few tourists there are on this wonderful stretch of coast underneath the Presseli Hills. We base ourselves in the small town of Newport at the mouth of the Nevern estuary in the middle of the Pembrokshire Coast National Park. The beach here

A Generous Host + Good Friends + Good Venue = A Great Party

2010-07-12T14:59:00.007+01:00

Every once in a while some generous individual decides to throw aparty for his or her friends, nothing too unusual about this you might think. But when your host decides to take over the whole hotel for a weekend and treat his friends to what is, in effect, a giant house party - that is pretty unusual. No small undertaking and I was very pleased to be entrusted to arrange a special birthday

Queen comes to Gliffaes

2010-07-05T12:58:00.001+01:00

I bet that headline got you going, well its true, we have two queens living at Gliffaes now. In the beehives at the bottom of the walled garden. Susie and I started keeping bees some years ago when the man who used to keep several hives here passed on. We had some very successful years at first and then we hit a rocky period along with most of the country's bee keepers and had a struggle to keep

Skip dinner and go Fishing!

2010-06-23T12:18:00.001+01:00

At the height of summer with bright, hot days and low flows in the river it is almost pointless going to the Usk to fish for trout. The trout are sleeping at the bottom and you will just get hot and bothered wrapped up in rubber waders. However, if you take the brave decision to skip dinner (or eat something early)and head down to the river from about 8.00pm onwards you could be rewarded with

Home Grown & Local

2010-06-14T20:00:00.009+01:00

The mixture of sun, a couple of hours of rain and our very own compost ( made from a combination of food waste and wood chip) has meant a burst of activity from our vegetable patches at Gliffaes. Everything Peta has planted seems to be coming up now. While we can't pretend to grow anything like the quantity of veg we need we can grow salads and herbs very easily. During the summer and autumn we

Evening Trout Fishing

2010-06-10T16:01:00.000+01:00

That wonderful moment when evening trout fishing is here has arrived. I fished last Saturday and started at about 8pm on a beautiful evening. I set off to the top part of Llandetty where I know good fish live and found lots happening and good sized fish. Using a klinkhammer with a grey body and a grey wolf hackle size 14 I soon found takers but all going short until a fish was hooked. It took off

A Useful piece of Timber

2010-06-09T18:44:00.003+01:00

We had this huge oak tree felled a couple of years ago and have since burnt all the cordage on the fires through out the hotel but Nick decided to save the butt and get it cut into useful lengths of timber. So today, Martin and his mobile saw rig turned up and with the help of large tractor and its winch to get the timber into position they got the whole job done in around two and half hours.

Enjoy a Bike Ride

2010-06-08T11:08:00.002+01:00

Although the countryside is not exactly flat around Gliffaes a bike ride along the lanes of the Usk Valley can make for an enjoyable couple of hours. Sitting up on a bike means you can see over the hedges and engage with the countryside, wrapped up in your car, windows shut and air conditioning on, your purr through the lanes filtering out most of what is so special about the landscape in early

Crickhowell gets a Brasserie

2010-06-02T11:31:00.002+01:00

Crickhowell has a new restaurant, well brasserie to be exact, the food offering in and around the eastern end of the Brecon Beacons just keeps getting better. This new brasserie, Number 18, (that's the name simply because it is number 18 Crickhowell High Street) has been opened by my friend Steve Lewis who all his business life has relished a challenge. By George he got one when he decided to

Enjoying Summer Food Outdoors

2010-05-24T10:04:00.004+01:00

The best thing about good weather and Gliffaes is being able to sit outside in truly wonderful surroundings and enjoy a long and leisurely lunch in the company of good friends. Simple pleasures indeed but I think we fail to under estimate the importance of the simple things in life. With so much rush and hassle everyday, two hours sitting in the warm shade of a tree next to an old friend with a

Festivals, Events and Family Days Out this Summer

2010-05-23T13:58:00.000+01:00

June, July and August are when most of the countries big outdoor events take place and the Brecon Beacons and surrounding area has many established events and a couple of new ones have come on to the scene this year or last year. I have listed the events with a link to their own websites along with the time taken from Gliffaes to get to them. Crickhowell Art Trail - May Bank Holiday weekend Over

Fly Fishing for Beginners at Gliffaes

2010-05-17T10:08:00.001+01:00

Fishing is this country's biggest participation sport and this weekend Gliffaes swelled the sports ranks by another 9 new recruits. Over the last three days we have hosted our tenth, 'Fly Fishing for Beginners' course. Gliffaes is the perfect venue to learn to fish, although not an easy one, we don't stock the river so new recruits have to get used to stalking wild brown trout, which are wild in

National Garden Scheme & Timber Operations at Gliffaes

2010-05-14T13:18:00.001+01:00

There has been a fair bit going on in the garden this week. Last Sunday we opened the gardens as part of the National Garden Scheme which helps raise money for various charities but in particular the Macmillian Cancer Care Trust. This meant a flurry of activities; straitening the edges of the lawns and paths, strimming, mowing and sweeping and brushing around the buildings. We opened for

Guest Report on a Fishing Break at Gliffaes

2010-05-07T12:23:00.000+01:00

This piece and the photographs has been supplied by Jonathan & Peter Steeds. To celebrate our fiftieth birthdays my twin brother Peter and I thought we would treat ourselves to the three day fishing package offered at Gliffaes - what a treat it was! Although we have done a fair bit of still water trout fishing over the years, we are both pretty new to river fishing so arranged to meet up with

Grannom & Stonefly on the Usk

2010-04-29T17:53:00.000+01:00

As I look back over the last two weeks I cannot remember a year in the last fifteen that has produced such dense hatches of grannom, and, in addition, that huge fly that literally crawls out of the river, ‘the stonefly’ has been in evidence. The water has been relatively cold and the result has been of a lack of rising trout for two reasons. One, trout like stonefly, and a stonefly

Spring Blossom at Gliffaes

2010-04-29T15:25:00.000+01:00

Here is a very short and very amateur video of the wonderful trees in blossom in our garden at the hotel.

Volcanos, Earthquakes and other Tremors

2010-04-26T14:48:00.002+01:00

This time last week I was feeling very smug; the hotel was fully booked for this weekend with a group of Texans off to wedding near by. We were laying on a lavish dinner for 60 on Friday night, the night before the wedding, for the brides family, and with all the Texans out at the wedding on Saturday night I had arranged a Chilean Wine Dinner for locals to keep our restaurant busy for

A Walk around Cwm Mawr ( The Big Valley)

2010-04-24T17:33:00.023+01:00

My wife suffers from what she calls, "ridge envy" and the condition is brought on by gazing up to the top of any stunning ridge, plenty of them in the Black Mountains around Gliffaes, and on spotting a tiny speck of a walker or two, she immediately turns green and wants to swop places with them. The treatment is swift and pretty tiring - you have to climb the ridge. Saturday morning and a

The Sun has finally Arrived

2010-04-19T09:55:00.000+01:00

What a difference the weather makes to running a hotel in the country. The sun comes out and the first thing to be done is not sort out the parasols on the terrace but rush to the boiler and turn down the heating, that is the first sign of spring for an oil burning hotelier like me. The first proper sunny weekend of the year and it is a really great to see people outside on the terrace

More Cheese than France

2010-04-11T11:45:00.000+01:00

The U.K. has over 1200 different cheeses, more types than France has, which everyone thinks is the home of cheese. Wales alone has about 150 cheeses made by around 25 cheese makers. The growth of the artisan cheese maker has really taken off in the last fifteen or so years across Wales. Farmers soon realised that just selling milk to super markets was not a very profitable business so they

High Water on the River Usk

2010-04-06T16:32:00.000+01:00

Goodness me we had a lot of rain at the end of March begining of April and the river rose fast and furious, putting paid to any ideas our guests had of fishing over Easter. You would think that everything in the river; fish, eels, inverterbrates etc would all end up in the Bristol Channel, but somehow they all just hide under rocks or move to the edges of the river to ride out the storm. The good

Waterfalls Walk

2010-04-01T11:28:00.002+01:00

Guests often ask us where they can walk and see waterfalls and with all the rain we have had lately I decided to take a wander up Blaen-y glyn and the Caerfanell river, the stream that feeds the large Talybont Resivoir. This stream runs down hill through quite a steep gorge and over a series of about eight waterfalls varying in size from about two meters to about 15 meters. A walk of about

Fishing in March

2010-03-31T11:10:00.011+01:00

The 2010 fishing season has been open for a month now and I would be lying if I said that it had got off to a good start. The very late spring and the cold weather through out most of March seems to have delayed the hatches of Olives and Grannoms and in late March the ever dwindling March Browns, for which the Usk has a great reputation. The very cold water has kept activity to a minimum

An Inspector Calls

2010-03-23T20:58:00.004Z

What value do you the hotel guest put on the A.A? In the increasingly fast changing world of the web, the growth of social media (Twitter, Facebook et al) and the advent of web sites like Trip Advisor, I would really like to know how you feel about old stagers; the A.A. To me, as a small hotelier, this once big player is far diminishing into the background in terms of marketing value. It still

Seeing the Wood for the trees at Powis Castle

2010-03-18T12:57:00.006Z

A guided walk around the gardens of Powis Castle (Welshpool) ,in the company of the Head Gardner, to see the spring flowers was the promise made in the advert of the local paper. Having not been to Powis Castle before I felt that this would be a good excuse to visit so we could recommend it to our guests. Was it worth the twisty two hour journey from Gliffaes? Very definitely, did we see any

A Trip to Tanners of Shrewsbury

2010-03-17T09:58:00.000Z

Keeping a wine list of over 80 wines fresh and interesting for guests means going to tastings. This is not a great hardship and its is about this time of year that most wine merchants hold their annual tastings. Yesterday was the turn of multi award winning merchants, Tanners of Shrewsbury to throw open the cellar doors to the trade for their annual tasting. The tasting is arranged through

100% Pure New Wool

2010-03-12T17:40:00.003Z

There is a wonderful tradition in Wales of blanket making, when you consider how many sheep there are it is not surprising, but the designs have changed little over time. That is until recently, a fantastic Welsh mill still weaving in a traditional manner has really gone off on a tangent with some of their designs. The Melin Tregwynt mill is located in deepest rural Pembrokshire and when

Best Walk near Gliffaes

2010-03-10T15:05:00.001Z

The Crickhowell Walking Festival ended on Sunday and I think was generally regarded as the best yet, with about 1100 people taking part in some form or other and some 65 lead walks organised over the ten days. The second walk Susie and I led on Thursday of last week is really one of the best walks to do while staying at Gliffaes. It is about 11 miles long and will take about 5 hours to do

Spring Flowers at Gliffaes

2010-03-06T17:25:00.006Z

It was just before Christmas that a little white showed on the Snowdrops by the Lodge. Now, over two months later Galanthus to use their proper name are in full flight everywhere. The very cold weather has extended their season and there is a bumper crop as result. Specialist growers with often hundreds of different varieties would expect to have blooms well into March but with only

The Fishing Season is back

2010-03-04T16:43:00.001Z

What a beautiful day. I couldn’t resist going to the river with the two black dogs to see if there was any movement. One of the things about the Usk at this time of year is the importance of arriving on time for the hatch, and its early this early in the season. Needless to say I think I was too late, but it didn’t matter. You must be there by 10.30 am. When the sun is out and its warmth is

Crickhowell Walking Festival

2010-03-03T17:45:00.007Z

It's Wednesday and it is smack in the middle of the Crickhowell Walking Festival - a ten day long event of daily walks guided by locals around the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons. This is the third year of the Festival and it gets bigger all the time with over 60 walks this year. It is a community event put on by local volunteers. The idea is to bring people into the area at a quite time of

Singing for their Supper

2010-03-02T16:53:00.005Z

One of the perks of running events at Gliffaes is that, although it is hard work to organise, it is fantastic to join in! I love music and Saturday night was our annual opera evening, a charity concert for Breakthrough Breast Cancer and George Thomas Hospice Care in Cardiff. This year the singers were Penny Chalmers and her husband John, Alison Duguid, Eric Roberts, Harry Nicoll, John Games (

Fresh and Local

2010-03-01T16:15:00.003Z

Fresh and local, that’s how we like our meat at Gliffaes. When we can we like to get a whole carcass and do the butchering ourselves. We can’t manage a cow but lamb, small pigs and roe or fallow deer we can. It means we hang the meat for the right amount of time and cut it into the portion sizes we want. Karl Cheetham, head chef, will make sure that pretty much every inch of the carcass is used.

Riverside Clean Up

2010-02-28T16:27:00.002Z

Getting Ready for the Fishing Season. Fly fishing season begins on March 3rd on the River Usk. Gliffaes Hotel has two and half miles of fishing on the Usk so before the season begins we have a day cleaning up the river bank, yesterday was the day. A lot of rubbish is brought down by the high winter flows on the river and before all the trees and shrubs spring into leaf makes this a good time to

A Day Out with The Lords' of The Marches

2010-02-20T12:52:00.000Z

A visit to three Castles; Grosmont, Skenfrith and White Castle. Almost a thousand years ago the border between England and Wales was definitely view by the English as the ‘Wild West’. The Celts were unruly and dangerous and the border lands, known as the Marches, had to be defended against the Welsh. Around 1100 the Normans built a series of small castles to defend the lands that they had won

Tinkering with the Wine List

2010-02-19T12:08:00.006Z

We have around 80 wines on the list not including Champagne, sparkling and dessert wines, and I like to include types of wine from around the globe that really show off the best wine offerings and grape varieties. Today I pulled off a sales report from the last four months to see what is moving and what is not moving. It is never a surprise to me to see that the ‘big brand names’ of wine outsell

A Dose of Winter Sunshine

2010-02-14T11:50:00.004Z