I am Claire. The campsite has been in my family for more than 50 years and I have fantastic memories of spending the summer here when I was a child. I always secretly hoped to run the campsite one day but I accidentally became an Ottoman historian instead which meant I spent a long time reading very old manuscripts written in a now dead language, thinking about the nature of truth and worrying about both the liberating and problematic ways in which history is used.

I took over the campsite in 2009 when my dad died and I am now finally realising my dream and running the campsite. I  have spent the past 15 years bringing the campsite back to life, developing a smallholding and the Blue Rabbit Cafe. I have mad schemes and grand plans for the cafe and smallholding which may or may not come off in the next few years, but I am giving it a go.

I juggle running the campsite, cafe and smallholding with playing with my sheepdog Cem. Cem is very much a part of the campsite and loves to play. He is also a star attraction of animal feeding and honestly doesn’t know why we bother with all the other animals.

I like keeping goats, winter swimming (despite the imaginary sea-monsters), knitting and doing agility with Cem. I am a bad beekeeper, expert goat wrangler (despite the new hips), a pretty good cook and not very good at time management.

We also have a motley selection of cats (currently five) – some of them contribute through their pest control activities, most of them don’t. There are also 4 alpacas, a lot of goats, more bees and slightly fewer chickens. There are often pigs, the current ones are in the freezer and are available as sausages and bacon!