As the year draws to a close it felt right to step away from the quality streets for a moment and take a minute to look back on our first year at The Burrow. It’s hard to believe that this time last year we didn’t even have carpets down in the holiday cottage, and we were still endlessly painting! The first four months of the year were a whirlwind of all the fun stuff thats involved in a renovation project, and I really revelled in finally having fun stuff to do in ther such and spend a small fortune on bedding, stock the kitchen, and FINALLY unwrap the smeg fridge freezer!
Along with all this fun stuff though came a healthy dose of nerves; mostly about whether anybody would bother to make a booking! I’d spent all my savings on this passion project and it was way too fancy to switch to a residential let now! I also spent a fair old while worrying about other worst case scenarios; thankfully none of which have come true yet!
Then in April we welcomed our first guests; they must have enjoyed themselves as they gave us a lovely review and I decided for definite that this was the life for me.
I spent my evenings ironing bedding and got really good at doing changeovers during the babies nap time. People seemed to love The Burrow just as much as me and quite quickly I had myself a few regulars (love you guys!), I tried to learn as much as I could about the beast that is social media and realised that between that and website maintenance there was a lot more to this holiday cottage lark than just changing beds!
After a month or so I started offering breakfast hampers and the picnic hampers (inspired by a lovely guest who asked where a good spot for a picnic was).
Then we started introducing some local small businesses to The Burrow which felt exciting and a great way to offer guests a touch of luxury and local produce at the same time. I also got into rediscovering local attractions with our guests (and instagram content!) in mind, I’m so excited to get into his again this year and really make the most of what our beautiful county and beyond has to offer.
Then at the end of August I finally stayed over at The Burrow myself! Every time I pencilled in to have a sleepover in there before that – we got a booking! I was really keen to stay there so I could mystery shop myself and check if anything was missing during our stay – also what a lovely treat to pretend I’m on a free holiday.
It was of course lovely, and I understood immediately why everyone raved so much about how comfy the bed was, I also think about that beautiful bath with longing every time I sit in my own bath now!!
The year just seemed to whizz by after that, I indulged in some Autumnal decor, and introduced the themed hot chocolate station (an idea I had always had but worried guests might think was a bit silly!). We took part in the village scarecrow festival and before we knew it Christmas was around the corner!
The end of the year was a whirlwind of TV appearances (hello BBC Look North!), and then a national accolade from Airbnb. I won the ‘best new host’ category out of over 800 applicants and it was such a lovely way to round off our first calendar year. My trophy is apparently in the post!!
So now it’s time to look ahead and wonder what 2023 will bring, Im hoping plenty more guests and more and more repeat visitors! Ive finally gotten around to designing our business cards and we even have gift vouchers available to purchase now after some requests for them this Christmas. On that note it wouldn’t be right to do a round up like this without thanking those of you that support my small business; whether you have been to stay, or like my silly social media posts, or spread the word to your friends and family about The Burrow Escape – I really do appreciate it, and you are helping me live my dream. Thank you!
