Greetings, and welcome to this weeks blog, which is slightly different.

As regular readers will know, we have reached a milestone in our repair & maintenance of Old Bolsover Yard. Our roofs are watertight, our windows have got new frames, our doors are now in place, and we have moved on to decorating the interior of each of the Units ready to offer to local craft businesses, the opportunity to develop their business.

So, last weekend, we did more work on the Gallery, and it is now ready & waiting too open. The good news is that this will be on Monday 5th November, and will mark another step along the pathway to a fully open Old Bolsover Yard.

Earlier in the week I decided to take some photos of the 'new look' both during the day & at nighttime, and these are in the photo gallery at the end of this blog.

We hope that you think it looks good, and worthy of Bolsover - 'cos we do!!! But then we are slightly biased!

Finally, we are taking a break for a week from Old Bolsover Yard, after 7 months of effort.

This means that there will be no 'Blog' next week. Now I understand that for many of you this will bring a tear to your eye, but fear not! we will be back in two weeks, renewed, refreshed & bursting with even more ideas!
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And so is our Christmas Fayre on December 1st!!

Hello everybody, and welcome to this weeks blog, which features news of our Christmas Fayre on December 1st.

The Fayre is our contribution to the Bolsover Christmas Festival & Lantern Parade, and will take place in Old Bolsover Yard from 10am to 5pm - or possibly even later.

We will be featuring 5 craft small businesses as well as our own Gallery, and there is a special 6th stall which I will tell you about later on.

So let me introduce you to the stall holders - 

• J&S Crafts - knitted toys, fairy door & bags
• Handmade by Helen - handmade crochet cowls, hats, blankets & bunting
• Ann Gray - traditional hand made adult & childrens aprons, Japanese type aprons, Swedish peg bags, Christmas stockings & a few tote bags
• Dragonfly Cottage Crafts - hand painted plaques set on reclaimed wood
• Ka'vana Emporium - handmade bags, clothing accessories

In addition we will have with us - Brimming With Beer, from Brimington, with their craft beers, providing you with the opportunity to purchase a bottle or two.

And if all of that wasn't enough, then we also have Creswell Colliery Brass Band with us during the day, with a programme of Festive music & Christmas Carols to join in with.

Hopefully, we might have some of our new tenants in residence by then, but our Gallery will be open all day with a wide selection of crafts that would make ideal Christmas presents.

I can confidently predict that we will be visited by the Bolsover Town Crier during the day, and then there is the Lantern Parade to round off the day.

So what could be more exciting than that to 'kick off' your Christmas celebrations?

More details in the weeks to come, but make sure that your plans for the day include time to visit Old Bolsover Yard & support our crafts people, and enjoy a quiet drink. whilst 'foot tapping' to the brass band.

Don't forget as well that the Beehive Cafe will be open on the day serving teas, coffees & lots of goodies.

.......that is the question!!

Now that we have finished the building work, we are now turning our thoughts to getting the Units ready for new tenants.

Whilst we await the report from the Valuers, who I spent almost two hours with yesterday (Tuesday) and look at the financial figures, we are turning our thoughts to making each Unit 'bright & gleaming' - hence the title of this weeks blog!!

We had thought that we might try and keep the original paintwork and rustic look of each area, but on reflection & some sage advice from one of our valuers, we are now going to go for painting & sealing the walls with a delicate shade of white, known as 'Brilliant', to give them all a fresh new look & have that smell of fresh paint when you open the door for a few weeks after!!

We are concentrating on the Gallery first, because that will then free up space in the individual Units which are currently, full of exciting stock!

So, this weekend we are going to start the process, and if you are one of those people who claims to be able to - 'stand and watch paint dry' you now know where you can go to do just that!!

Lots of other activity going on in the past week - we are continuing to work on our Heritage Lottery Fund bid, and the project team will be meeting next Thursday to review where we are at.

Discussions have started with a number of people about the Courtyard Programme 2019, which is going to run every Saturday from April to August next year. We have got the first date in the Programme, and hope to be adding a few more in the coming couple of weeks, So, more of that in future weeks.

The information has gone out to the stallholders for our Christmas Craft Fayre, and we are now fully booked again. Make sure you have the date in your diary - Saturday 1st December, and we are part of the Bolsover Christmas Festival & Lantern Parade.

Other than all of that, it has been a fairly quiet week really, but we are excited to be moving ahead with Phase Two of our renovation, and hopefully to welcoming in new tenants into the Yard.

​Until next week then ............

​Yes, here we are again! - Wednesday & 'blog time' - all the news from Old Bolsover Yard.

So it has seemed rather quiet this last week since the Builders finished and left, but it has given us time take stock and plan the next phase of development. And what are they I hear you asking?

Well, here goes - 

* get the units cleared & cleaned out, all swept to within an inch of their life
* put a waterproof layer onto the walls in each of the units
* get the Gallery sorted & the first displays in place
* get the Valuer to come & give us valuation on the whole of the site & the individual units
* talk to a locksmith about getting locks on the front gates
* put up the fence at the back of the courtyard to make us more secure
* make contact with those people who have enquired about renting Units
* and these are only the things that I can think of, off the top of my head!!........

Last week, I told you that we had now filled all the stallholder spaces for our Christmas Fayre on December 1st - spoke too soon!! One of our stallholders has had to withdraw, and so we have a space to fill. Remember - this is a 'Craft Fayre' and we are looking for stallholders who produce 'hand made' goods eg. woodturner, potter, sewer, knitter etc. etc. If you are interested or know anyone who might be then ask  them to message me from our Facebook page along with a description of what they produce & a couple of photos of their work.

Still working on our Courtyard Programme 2019, and there is now a page on the website dedicated to this Programme, so that you can follow who is coming & when.

Finally, we will be having our own Nursery Rhyme Scarecrow in OBY on December 1st, to co-incide with the Scarecrow Festival being run by Bolsover Church.

So, as you can see we are not sitting back 'sucking our thumbs' - we are working very hard to get Old Bolsover Yard up, ready & launched!

More next week..............!!