For those of you who know the hotel you may be aware of some odd panelling over the door into the lounge opposite the stairs.  This looks like somebody has put some plasterboard up and painted it white.  The other side has been similarly boxed.  I have been curious as to what was behind here for some time and decided that we would have a look when we redecorated the lounge.

Peter the painter is back in now and once he and Tony had stripped the paper off Tony cut out a section of baord and we could have a look.  The original Georgian wired glass is still there and all the old frame is too so it is all off already!  Peter will be painting it up on both sides while he is doing the lounge and this, combined with our new, lighter paper in there will make it seem so much brighter.  One step at a time and we will soon be able to look back and see what progress we have made!

I was back to work yesterday after a couple of weeks off and today I came in on my bike.  This was quite hard work as it was the first time I had been on it for almost three weeks!

Thankfully it was a lovely, crisp morning so that side was quite pleasant but it will take a few days to get the fitness back to where it was before.  I think I will ache a bit when i get home but it is all worth it.

Not at all!  We hosted the first of two lunches for the Cornwall WI today - it was a lot to get ready and as ever with lunchtime events many of the guests were early so it did make things a bit tight but all was ready long before the off.  The ladies had the usual raffle table and also a small stall and I didn’t see any jam and no singing in evidence - Julie Walters has a lot to answer for!

We have a second lunch tomorrow so today was a good warm up - we will be even better prepared! 

Even worse than getting wet on the way to work!  After I got a towel out of the linen room this morning I made sure the door shut behind me.  Normally this would be the sensible thing to do but not today:  the bin which sometimes catches the door open fell over and fitted really snugly into the gap between the door and the chimney breast behind it!

I could only move the door about half an inch at the top and almost nothing at the bottom.  The windows were properly fastened so I couldn’t get in that way, I tried to push the door but nothing doing.  The next trick was to prise the top of the door open and hold it there with a screwdriver while fishing around the edge with an unravelled coat hanger.  As this is one of those bins that is just a lid on a stand it was rally hard to catch hold of anything, especially as I was having to fish around the corner.

I decided I would have to leave it until after breakfast - you can’t go around being noisy at 8 o’clock in the morning.  The door is a panel door so in my naivety I thought I could pop off the architrave and then pop the panel out.  Once I’d removed all the trim I realised what I had in front of me was the main sheet of the door with all the other decorative bits fixed on to it.  Not to be defeated by this I resorted to even more desparate measures, I found Ginty’s drill and a pointed saw and drilled a square of holes in this bottom panel and then sawed through (like a reverse join the dots) until the square dropped out and I could fish through with my crowbar to move the bin!

All in all this last part of the job only took about 20 minutes and that included cutting some squares of plasterboard to cover up my damage.  I think Tony and Ginty will need to do something better with this one day when they have a bit more time to make it all look a bit prettier but at least housekeeping could get to their linen and the door is once again fireproof!

I’ll be more careful next time.

Andrea, my friend who manages our sister hotel in Fowey, had to leave our group management meeting early on Thursday afternoon as she and The Fowey had been nominated for “Small hotel of the year” in the south west tourism awards.  I heard early on Friday morning that they came second, runner up to The Old Quay House, a very small privately owned hotel also in Fowey.  Well done to them, it is always great to be recognised by your peers for what you do.

Once we have carried out a little more work here then we will be able to enter the next size category up - may be we will be able to have a “Richardson Hotels” table at the awards ceremony in a couple of years time.

…but completely at the wrong time!

We’ve had some lovely weather this October and I have been true to my committment to keep cycling in to work in my shorts.  This morning was one of the harder mornings as it was very dark when I came out of the house and I could see it was quite a bit blacker over towards Padstow.  While going through Whitecross past the showground the first spots of rain came down and continued all the way until I was in St Issey.  Not for long but long enough for me to get soaked!

Now that’s gone the sky is clearer and it is looking like another good day - one of our guests is even going out fishing today so we wish him luck with his catch.

Padstow lifeboat crew are producing a calendar to raise funds and the pictures on it will be the crew members doing their various day jobs but in their lifeboat kit.  Peter the painter asked me last week if it would be OK for him to be photographed while he was working here but he didn’t tell me about the lifeboat kit first.  I just had this image of him up a ladder with carefully positioned paint bucket or something.  Peter could obviously tell what I was thinking by the pause before I said anything so he did then tell me he would be dressed!

The photographer has just arrived so I’m going to see where he is being photographed - actually just seen him getting into his van, hope he hasn’t got camera shy! Will hopefully publish a link to the calendar when it is published.

Peter is now working on the restaurant - we have had a bit of a damp problem which has got worse recently and had really made the paper in this one corner peel away.  This is one time where the restaurant shape is helpful as we can just do the extension and then the rest of the room later on when time allows.

Mark had made some lovely quiches today, partly for a conference buffet lunch but also for staff tea.  I saw mel tucking in to her tea in the kitchen and she told me it was lovely.  I brought mine back up to the office and noticed a slightly odd colour on top and thought it might be where the egg had slightly over cooked but then I noticed more colour and recognised the taste! 

I do like blue cheese so would have thought no more of it but I did remember Mel’s allergy to penecillin.  I hot footed it down to the kitchen to see if Mel was still eating and to stop her if I could.  Her mum would have been pleased at the good clean plate and she was already in discussion with Mark about the blue cheese.  Kate asked why she hadn’t noticed the taste but of course it is something she’s never experienced. 

Mel was eating just after 5pm and it is now 5.40 and no reaction yet…

Hopefully it will pass but I’ve got my latex gloves and resussiade handy just in case!

Well the good news is that Cornish Blue cheese is OK! Mel suffered no more than a bit of anxiety and worked all Friday evening and was back in this morning for breakfast.

We had another meeting yesterday for the Padstow Christmas Festival and things are certainly taking shape quite rapidly.  Many of the town’s businesses have already committed to join in and we were very pleased to have some of the national companies on board too:  with people like Fat Face and Crew Cloting in the mix it certainly adds an incentive for more people to come and therefore more of the independantly owned shops will be open too.

The entertainment around the shopping is cominig together too, we will have cookery demonstrations from some of the local chefs, a visit from Father Christmas and the Padstow Carollers singing too.  The carollers are exceptional with their singing, they come to us on Christmas Eve and are loved by all but for this festival they will be singing primarily around David’s Christmas Tree outside his wine shop Bin Two.  We haven’t forgotten the local traditions too so we will be involving the local school children in a lantern parade as well as art and photography competitions too.

There will be no shortage of things to eat and drink too - St Austell Brewery will have a tasting stand in the market and we are talking to Sharps too.  A couple of groups will be running barbeques and possibly hog roasts down in the town.  it really will be a special few days, I will have to make the most of this on the Thursday evening as we have dinners on on the other two nights so I won’t be able to get out.

We’re all very excited about it - come and see if we’re right to be!

The main difference for today’s happy couple compared with most of the other weddings up and down the country this summer was that the sun shone!  After that things were a little more interesting too as they had chosen a radically different menu once they finished their Camel Valley Brut and canapes in the garden:  fish, chips and mushy peas!

This did present Adam, our chef, with a few logistical issues as we only have two small fryers.  We didn’t seriously entertain the idea of oven chips but did look around to see about hiring in the extra fryers we needed.  This was proving to be trickier than either Adam or I thought so Adam went to plan B.  We had again almost jokingly discussed hiring a fish and chip van for the afternoon but this turned out to be the best solution.  The fryer arrived after all the wedding guests had arrived and set up near the back door of the kitchen.  Adam had bought all the fish and made the batter but we did buy the potatoes from the chip man.  Once we knew everyone was on their way in Mike started cooking the fish and chips with some help from the professional.  As each batch was cooked one of the other chefs was bringing them up the back steps and into the kitchen so the rest of the team could plate up.  All 60 covers were served feesh and crispy inside 20 minutes and it was all very well received, by the staff as well as the guests as we did have a few pieces of fish spare.

Once we had finished and cleared down the van was on its way to another function tonight!

The fish and chips were followed by a choice of ice cream sundaes - these looked great but unfortunately there were no spares of these.  We’re now ready for the evening do: a swing band from Birmingham who will entertain them through the evening but thankfully not too late a finish.  In keeping with the non traditional feel the evening buffet is cheese and biscuits and good old Cornish pasties!