Tag Archives: The White House

A month full of festivals

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You may think that things calm down significantly after the heady summer months of June, July and August, but September has been just as busy for us here at The White House and October looks to be heading the same way.

There are four different festivals taking place during October.  As well as the Literary Festival on14th – 22nd October and the Food Festival on 9th October, there is also New Music taking place between 16th – 20th October and the Wells Art Contemporary between 8th and 22nd October.

You can find out more about the festivals on our “Things to Do” page, and if that isn’t enough to tempt you to Somerset this Autumn, then the blackberry picking and stunning red, orange and yellow of the trees perhaps will.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

The Very Best!

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We were delighted to receive another great review for The White House yesterday.  And although I don’t usually blog about our reviews, I just couldn’t resist repeating this one.

So this is a huge thank you to all of our lovely guests for your very favourable comments, and it’s an absolute pleasure being able to share The White House with you all

“My friend and I were on a cycling tour and were lucky enough to get a last minute booking at this establishment. I’m not going to bore you with all the details , but suffice to say that I have stayed in many many bed and breakfast places, all over the world, and this is probably the best one I’ve ever stayed at, for numerous reasons!!!

Mary was incredibly welcoming and provided us with everything that we would need, including an amazing breakfast.

If you don’t like it here, then there is something wrong with you !!”

The White Queen

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Film crews have once again returned to Wells, this time to film the Phillipa Gregory novel, The White Queen.

The whole of the area surrounding the Cathedral is cordoned off and we were lucky enough this morning to see 15 costumed cavalry officers riding horses into Cathedral Green.

The White Queen is set in the War of the Roses, beginning with Elizabeth Woodville of House of Lancaster.

The White House has read the novel and is looking forward to the film

 

Glastonbury 2016

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We are already beginning to feel the excitement of Glastonbury 2016 here at The White House Bed and Breakfast.  While Dulcote remains as sleepy as ever, we have been hearing on the news and also from our neighours, of the terrible queues trying to get into the site.

Last week we were fully booked with contractors, busy making the site ready for the festival, and they shared that the ground was already a mudbath, so looks like its Wellie boots at the ready for everyone.  And guests arriving yesterday reported people playing cricket on the roadsides while they waited for the tractors to tow them onto the Glastonbury site

More of our guests arriving  throughout the day.  Dynamo is apparently staying just up the road, and we have a mystery guest arriving this evening…..

Lets hope the sun shines and that everyone has a great time.

Musicircus

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We had such a good day on Saturday and the weather was kind for the Musicircus. 

What an experience!  Cathedral Green and the Marketplace were packed and everywhere you looked there was a musical event – from accordion players, to choirs, right through to ukulele, brass and bagpipe bands. Drummers, cheerleaders, and not to forget the bell ringers!

We had the pleasure of entering the Cathedral belfry to watch the bell ringers at the start of the event and while we knew the bells were heavy, it was still surprising to see the ringer of the heaviest bell lifted from his feet  during the ringing.  Amazing to watch and scary to think that the original plan was for us novices to ring them!

When we put up the mobile belfry, most of the morning was helping to guide young and old, experienced and non-experienced ringers have a go, and these extremely light mobile bells were even more difficult to ring than those in our local church.

It was a real pleasure to be a part of this fantastic event and we are really hopeful it becomes an annual celebration for Wells and the Cathedral School

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All set for Glastonbury

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Here at The White House we are full of anticipation for the Glastonbury Music Festival and our first guests will begin to arrive soon.

The festival is a huge event for the area and almost everyone is involved in one way or another.

But while Glastonbury is a happy and perfectly safe event, and one of the cleaner major music festivals, there are always risks and dangers for those who aren’t sensible in their approach.  And so it was pleasing to see a pragmatic approach by our children’s school, who have offered guidance to all of our children, warning them of the possibilities that they may be offered access to drugs or what ‘legal highs’ (although they are now also illegal)

A sobering thought but one worth remembering – enjoy the festival but please stay safe…..

http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/line-up/line-up-2016/

Musicircus

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Here at The White House we are looking forward to participating in the Wells Cathedral School Musicircus which will take place on Saturday 18th June.

Over 400 musicians will participate in the event which will be opened by Michael Eavis at 11am.

Focused on and around the Cathedral Green, the event will include bell ringing, mass choirs, brass on the rooftops and piano serenades under the arches.

And at 12:30 the event will close with a mass rendition of the Beatles classic “All you need is love”

Watch out for us on the cathedral green – we will be bell ringing and have also been invited into the Cathedral bell tower for the very first time to see the Cathedral bells in action.  Although we are not expert enough to try the Cathedral bells (as you can imagine they are extremely heavy) it is our ambition to progress to these if the event is repeated next year.

One welcome back and one sad farewell…..

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This is our second spring here at The White House in Dulcote and this week we have welcomed back our stunning red poppies.

Just take a look at them in all their glory…..

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But this also brings me to a very sad farewell, to my lovely joules wellie boots bought as a gift by friends and colleagues when I left London.  So well loved, and worn almost every day since our move to Somerset,  they have now been relegated to the dustbin in the sky.  After a much too enthusiastic try to lift a stone that had fallen into the small drainage stream at the entrance to The White House, a huge rip tore into the side.  Farewell good friend……. or is that friends?????

Get your wellie boots to the ready girls!

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and put the 2nd-4th September in your diary ………………..

Here at The White House we have just heard about Valley Fest 2016 and can’t believe this escaped our notice last year.

More about the festival can be found at http://www.valleyfest.co.uk/ but what has really excited us here is thefirst ever mass  Zumba IN WELLIES!!!!!!

Can’t wait  and just let me know if you want to join us there!

Glastonbury is buzzing and its not even June…………….

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We all know the importance of bees to sustain and protect our environment and so it was good to read in The Wells Journal this week that Micheal Eavis, founder of the Glastonbury festival, is planning to introduce three colonies of Black Honey Bees to Worthy Farm.

The dangers of colony collapse has been in the news for some time now; we have already lost 3 of our 27 bee species here in the UK and more are under threat; and so its up to all of us to do all we can to help protect and nurture these lovely little pollinators. We’ve done our bit here at The White House by planting lots of flowers and plants known to attract  bees and our new orchard will also do a little bit more to attract and sustain them.  Unfortunately we can’t host a colony as Rod has been stung one too many times and is now allergic.

The Wells Journal puts the estimated value of Europe’s insect pllinators at £14.2 billion a year, and so colony collapse is economically significant in a county dependent on agricultural crops.

So – think about what you can do to help, if we all do a little then we can perhaps reverse the collapse.