This is where it all started... I had been glamping for my friend Jen's 30th Birthday and thought it would be great to do something similar at The Grove. So I called my brothers, Richard and Chris and asked if they considered setting up a Glamping site. They said that they already had plans to bring a company in to do glamping. That didn't really work very well, so when I offered to set a site up the following year, they were keen. I had just sold a house and had £50k to spend, which seemed like loads of money, but it doesn't go that far.

I went to the Red Lion pub in Cromer in about October 2014 and sat down with my friend Kate and explained what I was planning to do and drew the Glamping plan on a napkin. I'm the sort of person, who, if I have a vision and can see it, then it's fairly straightforward to make it happen.

So I went about building a glamping site...

My family were so supportive in this. My brother Chris suggested using a booking system called Freetobook, he explained how to set up a bank account, gave me his accountants details (thanks Emma) and suggested we advertised on The Grove website. He also invited me along to an awards dinner. At the dinner I sat next to a guy who was Head of Marketing for Potters Resort. I asked him to give me a few hints and tips for marketing a new Glamping site. He basically shared about 10 tips with me and I quickly made a note of them all. I felt like a complete beginner in all of this, but was quite enjoying giving things a go. I set up a Facebook page and documented everything I was doing.

My Dad was incredible. As a civil engineer, he was incredibly helpful in planning how to set up decking. I didn't have enough money to buy proper decking and so used pallets. I purchased something like 78 pallets for £1.75 each and had them delivered to The Grove. Sadly, the lorry couldn't fit up the driveway to the glamping site and so we off-loaded them outside my Aunty and Uncle's house next to The Grove. My Dad and I then had to get them up to the glamping site - by his John Deer lawn mower and trailer and by carrying them. They are pretty heavy and carrying 78 pallets was hard work. But it was cheap decking and so was worth it. We had to level the ground using breeze blocks. That took ages - weeks!!! I had some good faith-filled music (Elevation worship) and podcasts to listen to as I spent December and January moving mud around to try to get the decking straight.

The next thing was to order the bell tents. They were £500 per bell tent and then a lot more for the interiors of them. I got them all from a company called Soul Pad in Thetford and the bill was massive but it was fun going to visit and buying loads of things.

By March, I had everything delivered and the pallet decking was up - time to put the bell tents up... it didn't take that long and was really fun to do it. We put fake grass down on the decking, as some of the decking had big gaps in! My Mum made amazing bunting (that took her ages!) and everyone helped with setting them up. I had never really used a screw driver before, but during the glamping set up, I probably fixed about 5,000 screws!

A new glamping site was born. But would anyone come and stay? Would it be a success? Would it grow into anything? Time would tell.