We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support over the past year and a half. It was wonderful getting to meet everyone and we hope to see you all back again sometime. Blanco without the guests is simply another place. It is a certain type of guest that falls in love with this place and so our age old theory holds true; "if you love Blanco tell your friends about it and if you hate Blanco, tell your friends about it". We would just like to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of our guests for helping make Blanco the special place that it is today.

We have been at Blanco for 20 months now and are happy to report that being here has completed our lives. The past 20 months have been extremely challenging yet at the same time unbelievably rewarding. Not only have we started a completely new venture; we have also managed to have our first baby in the middle of it all. Blanco and Cody have certainly added a new dimension to our lives but one that we intend to embrace with all that we have.

Our intentions with Blanco are very simply, to keep the traditions as they always have been but to give the old lady a face-lift. Blanco has worked beautifully for the past 60 years and we would never dream of changing anything about her character. We have begun our room upgrade project and to date have managed to complete all the Golf Course rooms. The theme for the rooms is "simple country" and everything has been homemade by our talented staff and local ladies. The tennis courts have been resurfaced and new tee-boxes have been built on the golf course. We have started tackling the gardens and are very excited about this project but flowers unfortunately do not grow overnight and being an ex yuppie from Johannesburg, I am still on a learning curve next to none. I have had to rope in a few of the Farmer's wives with green fingers to advise me. Talking of the gardens, we have been extremely blessed as we have had fantastic rain this season. The dam at the airstrip is completely full and dam number three in the valley has a foot to go before it clears the spillway. Hopefully by May we could even have some run off into the 1st and 2nd dams.

Our staff compliment is currently a mixture of the old and the new. We have loads of old faces that you will recognize but also have some of the younger generation coming through to replace the staff that are a bit long in the tooth. They have had a wonderful innings with Blanco but it is only fair that they too get to enjoy some of their retirement years. All the new staff members that have joined us are related in one way or another to the oldies that have left. As you probably know by now, Gwyn has joined us in the office and is the perfect lady to trust as a front line representative to our Guests. We love her dearly and hope that she has a long and happy stay with us. Ruben and Dolly have joined us as a management couple and a better team one we could not hope for. Ruben is our trustee Kitchen Manager and Dolly helps out part time when she is not at school (teaching that is). Chris and I are extremely grateful to have such a wonderful team working with us.

Well folks, that is all our news for now. We will be posting regular updates on the news section of our website and will send mail drops to notify you. You can visit our website now and browse the news section as we have posted some lovely photographs of Blanco and the goings on over Christmas. We will also be posting some photographs fairly soon of Chris' sister's wedding which was held at Blanco on the 12 February 2005. It was a magical wedding and will always remain a most memorable occasion for us

May 2005 be an extra special year for each and every one of you, filled with everything that makes you happy.

Blanco Quote for the month:

Very best wishes
Chris, Kim and the Blanco Staff