The Glasshouse
A helping hand for our NHS
With plenty of free time on their hands, we’ve been thrilled to welcome some staff back to help provide lunches for Watford General Hospital. We all know that the NHS are facing a huge strain, so our teams have helped to provide 280 sandwiches, every Monday to Thursday for the last couple of weeks.
In the kitchen
Our chefs are missing the buzz of creating and serving beautiful dishes in our restaurants, but they have certainly kept themselves busy at home. Whilst some are treating their families to The Glasshouse style dishes from home (yes, we are jealous too), others are busy putting together a spring menu for when we hope to be able to re-open.
Sequoia team at home
With Sequoia also closed, the team have been researching upcoming trends in beauty and wellness.
Digital detoxes will be more important than ever this year. You won’t feel alone if you’ve been spending far longer staring at a screen of late – we all enjoy a gripping series and are guilty of endless scrolling through our social media pages too. As we emerge from winter, we are hopeful that restrictions will begin to be lifted and while the sun will be sticking around for a little longer each day, we’ll see eyes peeling away from screens and focusing on the great outdoors once again.
The ‘no make-up look’ is a beauty trend here to stay for 2021. Those who opt to wear little or no make-up during lockdown may find that their usual go-to products feel a little heavy on the skin as we begin to revert to our prior make-up routine. With this, it is becoming more desirable for foundation to feel lightweight and breathable on the skin. Our spa director recommends Estée Lauder’s Futurist Hydra Rescue.
Our friends at ESPA have been running a wellness hour 12-1pm each day with a focus on wellbeing while working at home.
Glorious golf greens
From maintaining the golf greens to rescheduling bookings and training our PGA Professionals, lockdown has not been so quiet for our golf team.
Maintaining 18 holes would be a mammoth task for most but not for our greens team who you’ll find on the course from the early hours. Our professionals are improving their swing with fitness programs and training sessions to keep them up to date with the modern golf game. But the training hasn’t been just for our professionals, our operational team have been spending time on their personal development programmes too, in order to provide the very best golf experience for all of our guests.
Busy bees at Asher’s Woodland Trails
If you go down to the woods today, you’ll be in for a big surprise. Our green-fingered gardeners have been busy transforming the estate ready for our next guests’ arrival, whenever that may be. Natasha, our Head Gardener says they have been “Coppicing hazels to create new boundary faggots which act as corridors for our birds, small mammals and other wildlife. Of course, we are also ensuring new growth of the hazels as these will provide us with long straight material to use in 2 to 3 years’ time which will be used for structures in the gardens.” Have a stroll through Asher’s Woodland Trails to see this transformation for yourself.
Long term residents
If you’ve popped by for a stroll around the formal gardens, we’re sure you’ll be familiar with our long term residents. You’ll often find them taking a dip in the ornamental canal or snoozing on the greens nearby. It’s an easy life for some!
Bedroom overhaul
While some of our guests have had the pleasure of experiencing the first of our refurbished bedrooms already, we are utilising Lockdown 3.0 to complete the transformation of our West Wing bedrooms. Martin Hulbert, inspired by the nature that surrounds our 300 acre estate, has brought the outdoors in with earthy tones and natural textures. And the good news is, we’re on track to have the whole west wing refurbished by summer!
We look forward to welcoming all of our guests when the time is right, we do hope you, too, are doing well and keeping busy throughout this difficult time. We would also like to share our continued gratitude to all key workers working above and beyond; thank you from the whole team here at The Grove.
