AUGUST 2010

Hello!

It’s a lovely sunny evening here in North Wales and no doubt it will be another fabulous sun set over the Menai Straits this evening.  Dinner seems to be finishing earlier and earlier in an evening as guests rush their dessert to get out and enjoy the sun melting into the sea from the strategically placed benches with the last of their wine.

We’ve had more fun and games with sheep this month.  The naughty things are getting out of the field via some secret route and enjoying the luscious grass on our lawn.  It’s always the same three.  I’m getting really good at herding sheep and if I ever change careers again maybe I should become a farmer!

Peregrine Armstrong-Jones has kindly loaned us some more family pieces such as paintings and small pieces of furniture which are now installed around the house so look out for those on your next visit.

West Wing Cottage has ended up being almost back to back booked for the whole season so it was well worth opening up.  You can book now for 2011 when it will have an all new fitted kitchen, brand new utility and newly decorated lounge.  The Lodge can also be booked for next year and also accepts bookings throughout Winter.  Don’t forget it comes with efficient central heating, two log fires, thick duvets and hot water bottles!  Ideal for a winter break - and Christmas week is still available!

We’re hoping you can make it to see us soon so take a look at your diaries and get booking…

See you soon.


Andy, Julian & Patsy!

PS
Breaking News! 
We are proud to announce that we will soon be stocking our rooms with a luxury range of Molton Brown toiletries which are only found in the world's finest hotels. If you fancy treating yourself to a relaxing night away you know where to come!

The Big Weekend!

Lots of you will have listened to or watched Radio One’s Big Weekend in Bangor recently.  As we’re just down the road, Sony Music chose to take over the whole place.  We had Diana Vickers from the X Factor along with her band, makeup artist and manager.  We also had the manager of Leona Lewis and JLS who are also Sony artists.

It was great weather that weekend…luckily so as we also had a wedding that same day.  Congratulations to Selina & Matt.

We also had a recent visit by the soap queen herself off ITVs This Morning - Sharon Marshall.

Anyone who has visited us recently may have seen a few new faces around the place.  Now we’re busier in the summer we’ve had to get some more help in – we can’t make Carole our head house keeper work every day of the week.  So, both her son and daughter have been helping out and they’ve got waiting and house keeping experience so it has been really handy.

Some of you may remember Elin from last year.  This year her younger sister is working as a house keeper.  And an old face has returned.  Gwenan has not been working much recently as she is now a full time teacher.  Due to the six weeks hols she’s now back with us for a while too.  It doesn’t seem to matter how many staff we have though, there still doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day!

Fancy a break across the bank holiday weekend?
We have just one week left in both cottages - if you want a late summer bargain, book now...

WEST WING COTTAGE
FRIDAY 27TH AUGUST - £349 (WAS £399)

PLAS DINAS LODGE
SATURDAY 28TH AUGUST £399 (WAS £475)

Apart from that, West Wing Cottage is booked through to the end of September when we are closing it down for winter for the big kitchen re-fit and building work.  Don’t forget that the Lodge is available throughout winter and prices are really cheap from October onwards - take a look at our availability calendar.

Christmas week is still available for self catering breaks at both the Lodge and the main house. 

If you fancy a really special Christmas with family, friends and the run of Plas Dinas all to yourself, take a look at www.largecountryhouses.co.uk or give us a call. The main house can sleep up to a maximum of 20 and can be booked from Monday 20th December, leaving on the 27th.

Not many people know we have an airport at Caernarfon.  It’s only for small private planes and we’re not on any kind of flight path so I suppose most people wouldn’t know.  However, recently had dealings with it when I treated my nephews and my sister to a pleasure flight over Caernarfon Castle, down the Menai Straits and over towards Snowdon.  They had a great time and it was well worth doing.  There’s a museum and café down there and it’s next to the beach too.

For those of you with your own aircraft, we’re only a ten minute taxi ride away or if you have a helicopter, you can re-fuel there then come and land in our grounds…this is particularly welcome in autumn to blow the leaves off the lawn!

There is also a small airport on Anglesey where you can fly from Cardiff.

If you want to know more, here are their websites…

www.caernarfonairport.co.uk
www.angleseyairport.com

A big thank you to everyone who sponsored Julian for The Great Drag Race. He completed the 6.2 miles in just under an hour but his legs paid the price!  He raised £220 and the event as a whole raised over £22,000 for Prostate Cancer Research.
Julian ran several laps with Peter Duncan from Blue Peter – and no, he wasn’t wearing his green & white checkerboard suit - he's in the middle between Julian and his father!

We’ve got a copy of an old news real from 1962 when Princess Margaret came on an official visit to Caernarfon and of course Plas Dinas.  All her other visits were personal ones and so not documented.  You can see the press photo from that day in the Drawing Room and the engraved spade she used to plant a tree is displayed in our Gun Room.

The news real is now available for everyone to see on the British Pathe website.

Have a look…oh…and why did people speak like that on the news in the sixties?!!

We know money is tight at the moment so why not indulge yourself and save money?!

For example, stay longer and save up to 25% on your B&B rate.

Or why not dine with us and get one 3 course evening meal absolutely free?

See our website for all our offers >>

For any couple who fancy doing two days (6 hours each day) weeding & general garden maintenance in return for two nights B&B in a Classic room mid-week between Sunday & Thursday.  Please give us a call if you are interested!

You can now follow us and get the latest news, gossip and offers via these social networks and be amongst the first to hear about new offers and events. Follow us at:-

facebook.com/plasdinas

twitter.com/plasdinas

We experienced some freak summer weather a few weeks back – hurricane category winds in an overnight storm.  It was only North Wales that was hit but thousands of homes were left without electricity and our neighbours’ phone cable was broken.

We awoke the next morning to find two trees had come down and about 50 huge branches littering the drive and lawn with hundreds more smaller ones and leaves everywhere.

It took over a week to clear up and we’re just lucky that no buildings or cars were hit.  We’ve never had a storm as bad as that even in winter so let’s hope it was a one off!

Thanks to Adam our plasterer and the old fashioned skills of Classical Décor who made a replica cast of our cornice in the Drawing Room, we’ve finally had the repair done from the water damage shortly after we moved in.  It’s been a long and expensive process but it has been worth doing properly and sympathetically and now looks great.

No, “Mole Man” isn’t a super hero like Spider Man but he’s our hero none the less. He’s managed to catch a couple of moles who have been wreaking havoc on our beautiful lawns.

He only lives down in the village so he now pops in regularly to check activity.  We know they are really cute creatures but they dig holes rapidly and one little mole can make quite a mess.

We have been getting some good press lately, so keep your eyes peeled...

Keep a look out for Heritage Magazine next month as we’ve been featured in their “Special Places to Stay” section.

For all the Midlanders who read our newsletter – did you spot our excellent write up in the Express & Star last week?

If any of you subscribe to Candis Magazine, we also have a review coming up in there after their Travel Editor came to stay with us recently.

We also featured in the Travel section of the Manchester Evening News last weekend - have a read!

We have been asked to join Best Loved Hotels – a glossy coffee-table book and “The perfect guide to a perfect getaway…offering the cream of the crop across Great Britain and Ireland – from stately palaces to welcoming inns – each the best of its kind within its locality”. 

We will join a host of other luxury establishments across the UK.  We’ve already had our first couple of bookings just from being on their website so we’re hoping this will continue.

Unfortunately this years Faenol Festival has been cancelled due to lack of advance ticket sales. It was to be held over the upcoming bank holiday weekend and we are usually fully booked with Faenol guests, so if you are looking for a relaxing bank holiday getaway we still have some availability - so why not book now?