Fishing in March

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 and with little fly life showing fishing deep has provided the only sparse activity. As the water warmed towards the end of the month rain put its oar in and levels rose into the 'no fishing' bracket.

Despite everything contriving against fishermen, there have been some notable successes. The key ingredient has been the help and advice of ghillie, Jimmy Devoy. His years of experience of fishing the Usk and his knowledge of local fly life shows even when he takes out relative beginners. About 10 days ago he took Tony & Shona Prosser out in difficult and cold conditions but they caught two lovely wild Usk brownies on a Gold Head Phesant Tail Nymph (deep).

Then two days ago Jimmy was out with Stefan Krasz and all of sudden at around 1pm on our Top Beat there was a significant hatch of dark olives for about 40 minutes so typical of this time of year. Fishing to the rise with an Usk Nailer Stefan caught two trout and missed a further four. Jimmy recommends fishing all levels of the river at this time of the year and will always use a dropper and sometimes two but fishing dry when they are rising. He stresses the need for something bright for fishing the bottom; a copper john or a pheasant tail pattern with a gold head and a spider pattern for just under the surface. Fingers crossed for warmer weather which can only improve the fishing.

I have included the latest news (31st March 2010) from the Wye and Usk Foundation below;

Back to winter again and, to the disappointment of many upstream salmon anglers, there has been no proper rise in the river while to the disappointment of many trout anglers, there have been several small coloured rises of cold water. Snow is now back on the hills and tomorrow is 1^st April! 

Trout fishing had been gradually improving although we are still waiting for the main olive hatches of the season. Good reports have been coming in from the Monnow system with some decent catches also being made on the Usk. With water levels rising, trout fishing early next week is likely to be best in the rockier, faster-clearing tributary streams such as the Escley, Honddu (both Monnow) Cilieni (Usk) and Edw (upper Wye).

What will Easter weekend bring? The best hope is that the forecasters have got it wrong and after all there will be some sunshine and warmer days or it pours with rain and washes out the rivers for the week after.  However, we fear that they might break with tradition and get it right, ie cold, snow, wind, rain etc. Suggest you keep a watch on gauges and forecast. The online booking service is available if a late opportunity arises.

For the Foundation, it is a very busy time of year. Today is the last day of coppicing before the teams start fencing and re -liming the headwaters.  We have fish passes to design, consent and build in the Arrow (4), Gavenny, and Llwyd and projects that will redress some of the damage done by diffuse pollution. ISAC, our EU life+ Irfon restoration project has started with a survey and consenting of works which includes restoration of sections of the Irfon forest to manage pH and flows.

An Inspector Calls

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 continues to produce a massive, doorstop sized guide, which lumps almost anywhere with a bedroom to let into one, far from easy to use, book. Does anyone really buy this massive tome at £16.99 when all that content is available for free on the web? The AA website is not found when searching for accommodation on the web and in the whole of 2009 the A.A. website sent me 178 visitors or 0.2% of my total traffic. Let's be generous and say that 2% of those visitors to my site convert to bookings, that then works out at about 3-4 bookings per year. This is not a good return on marketing spend.

What has prompted me into thinking this? Yesterday  Gliffaes was visited by the AA inspector ( not an overnight stay and he did not have a meal) who wanted primarily to know if we had put information on ironing boards and shoe cleaning in our guest information folder. He then asked about any improvements we had made since he was last here and I reeled off all the work we had done and he was generous enough to admit we had done a lot and it MIGHT improve our quality score. Hang on - we pay them - I am the customer, what are they doing to help drive business to us but how can they when they represent almost every hotel in the country? They carry out a quality grading identical to Visit Wales, ( the new Wales Tourist Board) and award the same number of stars based on your facilities. I am loathe to get into the debate about rosettes awarded for cooking but I am very keen to know if people use the rosettes to select where they might eat. 

All I can do is compare the efforts of the AA to other marketing groups. Today I spent over two hours with Jeffrey Epstein & Peter Jarvis of Best Loved Hotels and the difference  between the two organisations is chalk and cheese.  They are selective about who they work with thus sending  highly targeted visitors to my website viz. people who are in the market for what we offer at Gliffaes. They 'get' marketing and want to help you drive business with new and innovative ways to leverage the power of the internet. They were enthusiastic about Gliffaes and did not worry about ironing boards. They cost one and half time more than the AA but send me ten times more business. Do I take the plunge and ditch the AA?

Tell me how you feel about the AA stars and rosettes?

Seeing the Wood for the trees at Powis Castle

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 of the promised spring flowers? Well, we saw one daffodil, like the rest of the country the exceptionally cold winter has delayed the arrival of spring by about three weeks. However, the lack of spring foliage and flowers meant we could see the garden laid bare and appreciate how the gardens have developed over the centuries and we had the added bonus of the famous yew hedges and tumps looking their very best.

Powis Castle is a National Trust property on the outskirts of Welshpool right at the northern end of Powys and was once the seat of the Clive family (Clive of India). Both the castle and the gardens are open to visitors, with the castle being full of treasures brought back from India amongst other things. We did not venture into the castle but our hour and half tour around the gardens was excellent. The gardens reflect the changing fashions and grand visions of landscape gardeners over the last 300  years, all of which are visible in part  to the visitor today. The most dramatic part is the series of 300 year old terraces stepping upwards to the castle which is perched on the top of a rocky outcrop. Built into the terraces are an orangery, an aviary ( no birds in it now) and a balustrade complete with lead statues. The terraces trap the sun and protect from the prevailing winds resulting in micro climates in which the unusal plants and shrubs thrive. The newest part of the garden has been planted  on top of the old  vegetable garden at the turn of the 20th century. Lady Herbert  thought that vegetable gardens were vulgar and should not be visible from the castle and had it shifted and the unusually clipped ornamental apple trees that grow there now are something I have not seen before.

The real trump card Powis has is yew. Yew in all shapes and forms, from straight hedges to huge strange shaped 'tumps' formed over the centuries by the annual round of clipping and shaping. Keeping the yew in shape is a full time job and the annual clipping is a three month exercise for three gardeners.  Standing on the terrace looking across at a bank of yew trees left unclipped and growing naturaly we saw what appeared to be smoke blowing through the trees, this turned out to be thick clouds of pollen from the male yew trees blown free by the wind. The wilder part of the garden has some magnificently tall oak trees planted around 250 year ago and should not be missed. All in all a good day out and the drive across rural mid-wales is interesting, for those not keen on driving there is a train to Welshpool from Abergavenny which takes about and hour and fifty minutes with a change at Shrewsbury.

Useful links: Powis Castle

A Trip to Tanners of Shrewsbury

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 out their rabbit warren of cellars, shop and offices at Wyle Kop in Shrewsbury. This is a great chance to meet and talk to several producers who come from all over the wine making world to show off their wines personally.

There were around 75 wines on show so I had to have a careful look at the tasting list and not just diving in at number one and working my way to the end - I just can't taste that many wines. One of the high spots for me were to meet Bruno Fina from Scilia and taste his lovely Grillio, a grape grown only in the west of the island. It has a very distinctive orange peel nose and will be great summer aperitif. He also gave me a taste of his unusual desert wine (El Aziz, Vendemmia Tardiva, Vino da Tavola) using late harvested Chardonnay, it is superb and he has kept the balance between sweetness and acidity perfectly.

I always try to find wines for the list that are not run of the mill and certainly never found on the shelves of the supermarkets. One such producer is Sami Ghosn of Massaya in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. A partnership with the brothers Brunier of Chateauneuf has produced a number of powerful Rhone style reds, real meaty, spicy wines that need to be drunk with red meat and rich sauces. Look out for the Massaya Selection Silver on the wine list when you are next at Gliffaes.

By the way, an interesting day out from Gliffaes can be to take the train to Shrewsbury (about 1 hour 25 minutes from Abergavenny) all the way up the Welsh Marches, a pretty journey in it's own right. Shrewsbury has plenty of interesting things to see and do and you would be most welcome to call in at the Tanners shop.

Useful Links : Tanners Wines

100% Pure New Wool

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 Susie and I first visited there some years ago we were determined to get some of the blankets to use at Gliffaes in the bedrooms.

We had our first delivery yesterday of 'spotty' blankets and cushions to go on the beds in rooms, 'Cottage 1' and 'Cottage 2'.  The blankets complement the new fabrics and soft furnishings Susie refurbished the rooms with during January beautifully. I am afraid that these photos do not really do the rooms justice but what a difference these vibrant & contemporary blankets make. These rooms also have new paintings hanging in them by local Welsh artists; Dionne Sievewright, Viv Luxton and Rhoda Partridge. The cottage rooms are big, warm and large enough to fit an extra bed in if you are coming to Gliffaes with children.

Useful links : Melin Tregwynt

Best Walk near Gliffaes

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 with a good stop for lunch. It can be shortend very easily down to about 8 miles.

 The walk starts just behind the small village of Bwlch (SO161 224), about a 5 minute drive from the hotel. There is a short steady climb to begin with up on to Mynydd (mountain) Llangorse. The path then follows a glorious ridge for about 4 miles north with great views of Llangorse Lake and the Brecon Beacons off to the West and the Black Mountains off to the East. The ridge is home to a heard of Welsh Mountain ponies who live up there all year and is also a great spot to collect wimberries in the late summer. The route takes you down the end of the ridge and then straight up the steep south face of Mynydd Troed, a lovely hill not yet overrun with bracken but still covered in heather. We stopped on a sunny bank here for lunch. Come off the hill at the SW end and cross the lane at Blaenau- draw before picking up the obvious bridleway back to where you parked you car. The shorter version would be perfect to do with children as we can show you how to avoid the two steep climbs.

Spring Flowers at Gliffaes

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 three or four different kinds here at Gliffaes we are delighted, and they certainly cheer up a dreary winter's day and give us hope for Spring!

Winter Aconites began to appear in January and add a welcome touch of colour. The first Camellias are beginning to peep through, as always the white ones first. Their foliage is invaluable in flower arrangements, and like the skimmia which saves the day in vases at this time of year it lasts for a long time in water  inspite of central heating.

The next excitement will be the daffodils which are just about to bloom and very late they are this year to. (I've cheated actually and encouraged some to flower in the kitchen near the Aga!) Unlike the Snowdrops, which naturalized in vast numbers but are very ordinary varieties, we have a large variety of Daffs and Narcissi ensuring a good long flowering season and a  regular supply of  fresh flowers for the Hotel. This season I must remember to count just how many different ones we have. Roll on warmer weather.

The Fishing Season is back

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 having an effect on your back you really feel that at last winter is losing its grip. On my knees looking under stones with a shallow flow I found exactly what I expected – trillions of fresh water shrimp and a good spattering of nymphs mainly olives, but I am not expert in distinguishing which are which in the nymph department. This year on the Usk we are doing a survey on March Brown numbers so if you do come and see any bring home a sample and identify where you saw it.

As I walked up the beat most of the wildlife one expects to see was there, mallard now all paired, the odd dipper but not many about as they are sitting, and I didn’t see a kingfisher though plenty of noisy wrens! Joys to come will be the various wagtails, sandpipers and later sand martins, house martins, swallows and swifts.

It is a stunning river and a delight to see the whole thing springing back to life. No reports of any salmon yet. Last years official catch was 488, well down as were all other rivers in the UK except for the Dee in Scotland which was 7% up probably because of 100 % Catch & Release law.

Nick Brabner

Useful links
River Usk March Brown Survey

Crickhowell Walking Festival

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 the year, trouble is the locals enjoy it so much not a lot of outsiders get a look in.

Susie and I are leading four walks between us, the first was today, a circuit of Tor y Foel, a distance of around 10 miles. We each had a group of about 15 walkers with us and set off with a 15 minute interval between the groups. This is a great walk to do right from the hotel's front door and has a good mix of terrain and nice steady climb to the top of Tor Y Foel from which you get wonderful views of the Beacons and the Usk Valley. It was chilly but clear on top with ice on the puddles. Home via the Brecon Canal in time for tea by the fire, about 10 miles in total. In fact, the walk works as a marketing exercise as well. We get everyone to meet at Gliffaes, so they get a look at the place and we time the walk to finish just as we are serving afternoon tea! It is well worth thinking about for next year if you are keen walker. If you give us enough notice Susie or I would be happy to take you out into the hills around Gliffaes.

Useful links:
Crickhowell Walking Festival 

Singing for their Supper

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 (from Llangynidr) and Virginia Kerr. David Seaman from the WNO was a hero as he had to step in at the very last minute to replace the pianist who had injured her hand.

The programme was a mix of favourite songs ranging from Mozart, Verdi and Humperdinck to Offenbach and Gilbert & Sullivan and many more. John Games, our neighbour and local Bass, also sang beautifully to add a little local flavor to the evening. I particularly enjoyed his Drinking Song, which he performed with relish!

It is pretty special having professional voices accompanied by a grand piano in your sitting room and it is certainly very different from actually going to the opera. The sound is fantastic and really very uplifting and powerful. The singers certainly brought the house down and everyone had a great evening. Most importantly we raised £1300 for this year’s very deserving charities.

Fresh and Local

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.

In the clip below we can see Carl begining work on a fallow deer from the Forest of Dean