Spring is always a busy time at the chateau. A lovely time of year, full of optimism and enthusiasm. Warm sunny days have meant lots of time outside doing essential maintenance. Builders have repaired storm damage to out buildings, friends have helped clear fallen trees. For the first time, this year trees not just used to share and store for firewood, but some trunks made into planks for chateau restoration material in the future.

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For the first time we had a stand at the London Pen Show. A great event, hopefully we can do this again. It’s a good opportunity to meet our customers face to face. Our internet shop means we rarely meet the people buying our pens.

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Now the days are longer our free range hens have started to produce more eggs. In a lovely assortment of colours.

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It would be easy to write pages on all the wonderful things we see at springtime here. In this rural area many creatures visit our garden. Springtime is just magical watching them and their young. I thought for a while about choosing just one thing that is so special at this time of year. I decided it would have to be bluebells.

For so long bluebells are dormant and we could easily forget they are there. The fine green leaves barely noticeable in March. But by April, WOW! A fantastic display of wonderful flowers. It feels so special to come across such beauty suddenly, in a very specific part of our woods.

We have been fortunate over the years to have had access to bluebell woods near our home. Such a treat on a sunny Sunday afternoon to take our children and dogs for a glorious walk through a mass of bluebells, with their wonderful perfume and vibrant colour. The thought of bluebells brings back such happy memories. We would never have thought that one day we would have bluebell woods of our own.

Now we walk the wood not just with our children, but our grandchildren too! The bluebells here mark the half-way point of our Easter Egg Hunt. It’s not just the perfume in the air and the sea of blue flowers, but the rush of pink wellingtons dashing through the blue. Hearing the giggles and squeals of excitement of having found hidden Easter eggs and the taste of chocolate, Yum!

Hopefully beautiful bluebells will be part of our grandchildren’s memories too.

Every day at the chateau is different. Always something interesting or exciting happening.

After many years as a furniture designer, Barry’s attention turned to restoring vintage fountain pens. It started as a hobby in 1998 but quickly turned into a business. His website www.heritagecollectables.com growing so large it became full time and sells restored pens worldwide.

We were not expecting to become quite so involved in our customers lives. All sorts of parcels arrive often with touching letters about how a relative once treasured this pen and how wonderful if it could be restored. Oh the pressure! These delicate antiques need opening, re-sacking, polishing, new parts, each stage needing the utmost care. As he has someone’s precious memories in their hands. We also receive messages from customers so thrilled they can now write with a pen so special to them.

Sometimes a pen needs Barry’s miniature engineering skills. It is a joy to work on something small sometimes, as with chateau, restoration everything is so huge

The East tower has become not just a workshop for technical pen repairs, but a beautiful space for sculpture, art and music. (And the home of Oakleigh Bear!) For many years art could only be a hobby but now with a new lifestyle many sculpture projects have been able to turn into beautiful products for sale. It can take many months for an idea to turn into an item for sale and the low numbers produced means each one is special.

Lot’s to do but now we have products ready to be purchased