HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS! Hope you’ve had a blast – a right merry old time of it spent with all the people who mean the most to you. The trouble is sometimes you just love it so much you don’t want it to end so when the new year comes and it’s back to work and the kids are back to school everything can seem a bit dull and flat after the excitement of Christmas and New Year’s Eve – but hey, don’t worry because before you know it it’ll be spring again, and in the meantime there’s much to get happy about.

Well, it’s certainly feeling a lot more like Christmas now, isn’t it? We’ve all got our trees up and presents wrapped, we’ve been out carol singing, and today it’s mince pies, Christmas jumpers and festive music in the office. Oh yes, here at Sleeps12 we are stepping into Christmas big time!

Well, Christmas is just around the corner and here at the Sleeps12 office we’re all looking forward to taking time off, putting our feet up and being in the moment with friends and family, but in the meantime there’s much work to be done. What a year it’s been - busy, busy, busy! We’ve taken on some fabulous new properties, seen additions and improvements to some of our long timers, and we’ve got more lined up to visit in the new year. We’ve met more lovely people, had a lot of laughter, and on occasion, it’s been hectic, but we’ve done what we strive to do - another year of happy customers enjoying amazing holidays and short breaks at our large group holiday houses in the UK and France.

Our team have been up to Hampshire this week, to Lyndhurst in the heart of the New Forest to be exact – and look what we’ve got! Boy oh boy, we are so thrilled to add Ortus House to our portfolio; we’d be doing cartwheels in the office if we could! This is a truly amazing house with a lovely history – it used to be a maternity hospital so lots of bonny babies came into the world there, curling their little toes, the source of much rejoicing! Maybe that’s what makes it so perfect for celebrations and entertaining, the laid back happy feel that wafts through every room.

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat; if you haven’t done it already, it’s time to plan something to look forward to and how good does a gathering of friends, family or colleagues in a gorgeous house in the country sound? The thing is, Christmas gets very, very busy, we all know that, and what with other commitments, it’s not always possible to do these things during the festive holiday, so do it earlier in the month and kick start that wonderful build up to Christmas with a weekend or a midweek break away at a luxury Sleeps12 holiday house.

Life seems so much busier these days and everyone gets caught up in the constant ebb and flow of work and school, chores to do, keeping on top of things, and well, just everything really. Eventually you reach the stage where you just think “I need a holiday” and then you find your friends and your family are saying it too, and actually, you haven’t caught up with them properly for a while, so hey, why don’t you sort the numbers, put your heads together and book a big house holiday?

We get a lot of enquiries these days from people who have a property that they think is right for the Sleeps12 collection. Sometimes it’s a house or cottage that’s already been run as a large group holiday let for months or years, sometimes it’s a newly built or developed property and sometimes, it’s just a collection of old barns waiting for a new lease of life.

Those of you familiar with the Sleeps12 concept will know that our large group self-catering accommodation is absolutely spot on for holidays and for gatherings of friends and family, but what we’re seeing more and more of these days is bookings for corporate hospitality; people who want to step away from the usual hotel based stays and treat their key clients to a few days away at a luxury holiday home that sleeps between 8 and 30 people.

We have some exciting news to share with you! A new property that’s great for all kinds of large group stays, and this time it’s a gem of a rural retreat tucked away in a lovely private location in the beautiful Somerset countryside. We say tucked away, and it is, but it’s still very easily reached from the M5 and the A303, and only a couple of miles off the A358, so easy to get to and well worth the travelling. Without any further ado, may we introduce to you Frog Street:

We’ve all got our different ideas about what makes a holiday, and for some it’s a big group of friends going off on an all-inclusive package holiday to somewhere in the sun where you share a hotel and all it’s facilities with hundreds of other people – you eat with them, you socialise with them, you relax with them, you swim with them.