Positives: peaceful, remote, rural location. Spacious house, antique and quirky interior. Close to a pretty village with bistro. Supermarket 15 mins away. The house stayed cool downstairs.
Negatives:
Dog: The owner has a great dane which roams freely round the garden. Great if you love great danes but It was slightly skittish. It stood on our 6 year old son’s foot on the first day and he was in a lot of pain.
Deposit: 1 month since departing the property and we have still not received our deposit back. The owner did not mention anything at the time but 4 weeks later when I chased up the deposit she decided she is claiming £50. There were 2 old plastic garden chairs which were very brittle as they had been left out in the strong sun. They slightly cracked when my partner leant back on them. We discussed this with her at the time and as they were so old there was no mention of us being charged for them.
Lake: The lake was wonderful for adults, but our 2 children aged 6 and 8 were not so keen. Dangerous to get in as the owner had placed 3 concrete steps in the water, these were very slippy. Clay soil at the bottom so very murky which our daughter did not like. The children could only stand up in an area of 1m x1m, and the rest was very deep, so not good for children to play in for a long period of time, like they can in the sea or swimming pool. No flat area to lay or sit near the lake, just a small area of grass on a slope. There was also a bench. As it was 30 degrees when we were there it was too hot to stay at the property all day with no water to cool down. We explored the surrounding area and found some great swimming pools, this didn't seem to go down well with the owner who asked if we “prefer chlorine”.
Facilities: No washing machine. It says on the website that the owner will do the washing. We asked her to do 1 load but didn't feel comfortable asking her again. It would be better to have a machine in the property. The kitchen was very well equipped with various bits of equipment like toast maker, electric oven but many of these had uk plugs with no adapters available. It made the kitchen feel very cluttered with little worktop space. Several lights upstairs in the bedroom but most either didn't work or didn't have continental plugs.
Very hot upstairs in the bedroom. Babette, the owner, an interesting lady and helpful when we asked for information but it did feel abit like we were living in her house with a list of rules to comply with.