Sherry February
Glorious Tuscan retreat secures a Green Globe; the Fforest grows; and you're probably going to live miles from the nearest hyperloop station.
After the grey dawns of Dry January, surely Sherry February (or ‘Sherruary’ for the portmanteau-istas) is a shoo-in as the next month to be adopted by some cause or other?
Credit for the putting together of ‘sherry’ and ‘February’ must go to 17th-century satirical wordsmith Edward ‘Ned’ Ward.
See his inspirational four liner here:
‘February’
He who would, in this Month, be warm within,
And when abroad, from Wet defend his Skin,
His Morning’s draught should be of Sack or Sherry,
And his Great Coat be made of Drab-de-berry.
Well, Ned, welcome to 2022. It’s been a pretty warm start to the month, with people ditching the Drabdeberry (17th-century Joules) and donning the Ray-Bans to mellow the low and bold winter sun.
It can feel that spring’s arriving early. A month early, apparently, as reported on the BBC and elsewhere. It’s bad for all sorts of ecological and farming reasons, but no probs, as we’re on top of this.
Or not, as apparently one in five UK councils have no climate action plan. So let’s raise a glass of Oloroso to top-performing Nottingham, Telford and Wrekin, and Somerset West and Taunton councils.
You may say while looking at the table in the article: well, poorly-performing Shetland, it’s hardly a major population center like Hackney, is it? Well, in fact, the windswept northern archipelago has one of the highest domestic carbon footprints in the UK.
But let’s not be too drab-de-dreary - leave that to January.
Let’s turn out faces to the sun.
BORGO PIGNANO, Tuscany
Italy, with its heritage, Slow Food, and adherence to tradition has always been a bit of a natural at this sustainability thing. So it’s not so surprising to find that the Tuscan hotel/heaven that is Borgo Pignano has been awarded the international Green Globe certification.
From the over 150 + accreditations for the sustainability performance of travel and tourism businesses, Green Globe is one of the most high profile, operating in 80 countries (but not in the UK).
The certification is awarded only after an independent audit that breaks down under the following categories: ‘Sustainable Management’, ‘Social and Economic’, ‘Cultural Heritage and Environment’.
Set on a 750-acre organic estate with a restored 18th-century villa at its heart, Borgo Pignano’s history actually stretches back to the 12th-century (still a mere stripling in Italian terms).
Farmhouses and cottages dot the estate, spruced up with locally sourced stone, reclaimed slate, organic plaster, and eco-paints.
Tucked away in the rolling country between Florence and Siena, it’s perfect for a back-to-nature-in-a-completely-luxurious-kind-of-way-break. You’ll need some kind of transport if you want to go see anything but the estate.
It’s very possible you’ll be able to live without transport.
On-site transport options are available. Guests are invited to insert the hotel’s e-bikes into their lazing and swimming routines. Take them for a spin around the nature reserve in which Borgo Pignano is enclosed, wending in and out of the rows of upright cypress.
Bee-keeping, organic soap workshops, and herbal laboratory workshops fill out possible itineraries. If that sounds too much like work, head to the art studio, daily yoga classes, or guided horseback tours.
Or just laze in the bath, musing about how the heating of your bathwater is achieved through woodchip-fired boilers, harvested from the estate’s forests.
While elegantly swigging a Negroni on the veranda, muse over Borgo Pignano’s use of swales—apparently a first in Tuscany. This nifty ditch system helps retain rainwater and prevents soil erosion. Soil conditions improve as a result, with the need for less irrigation. Nicely done, Borgo Pignanoans.
www.borgopignano.com
Borgo Pignano is also a member of Beyond Green—a “portfolio of 27 hotels, resorts, and lodges that exemplify sustainability in action”.
A couple of Beyond Green’s members are in French Polynesia.
Of course, the typical way to reach this spectacular atoll from North America or Australia or pretty much anywhere other than the rest of French Polynesia is by a long-haul flight.
Certain sectors of the hospitality industry do find themselves in a bit of a pickle these days.
Time to have a lie down in the Fforest.
Fforest Farm, Pembrokeshire
Fforest is a rural outpost in West Wales (or more accurately the lush Teifi Valley aka ‘the Loire of Welsh cheesemaking’) offering an array of idiosyncratic, eco-friendly accommodation (as well as a cedar barrel sauna for when the tropical Welsh weather fails).
Created by a married pair of art school grads, it’s a glamping-kind of scenario but with idiosyncratic design flare amid the corrugated iron and bare wood walls. It’s well-located as well: just a ten-minute drive (or satisfying walk) from Cardigan or silken-sanded Penbryn beach. On-site, there’s also a stone smidgen of a pub, Y Bwthyn. It serves beer and gin.
Something new and intriguing is joining the Fforest family this spring, but first here’s a quick introduction to some of their digs.
We’re talking Onsen Domes:
We’re saying Luxury Garden Shacs (they spell it like that):
Traditional Crog Lofts:
But Fforest doesn’t sit still. This spring it’s launching a hotel - The Albion in Cardigan overlooking the Teifi River.
The hotel is named for a historic brig that carried 27 families from Cardigan to Canada to establish the first Welsh colony there. Someone wrote a ballad about the crossing and, from the sounds of it, it was pretty rough going. A lot of deck swabbing required once they reached New Brunswick, one imagines.
Not so at the new hotel. Themed around Cardigan’s maritime history and the Albion story, each room, according to Fforest, ‘will have the feeling of a ship’.
But don’t expect life preservers on the walls and anchor rugs kind of awfulness. Within will be more of their custom-made furniture from hand-picked reclaimed materials, Welsh wool blankets, and textile decor woven to Fforest's own designs.
www.coldatnight.co.uk
And if only those Welsh families had had a hyperloop instead of a leaky brig. Now Hyperloop had dropped off the agenda of late, but there seem to be quite a few people taking this slice of Futurama very seriously. Happy to link to these guys (rather than tech dillhole-in-chief, Musk) who have produced a proposed global hyperloop system. Intriguing map. From flyover states to being ‘out of the loop’?
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