After all the talk about what goes on here it was great to get home yesterday afternoon and share Christmas with my family.  Rachael & Tom are always very pleased to see me as this means they can start on round two of the present opening.  We try and control them and do manage to keep them to one at a time, interspersed with letting them give us a present or two as well.

Rachael was really pleased with her Singstar PS2 game - she and Tom did disappear up to the office to try and out sing each other, Rachael also got a new soft and fluffy dressing gown which she has worn almost non-stop since opening it!

Tom had his main present before Christmas as he needed it for school - he’s now learning the base guitar which he serenades us with every now and then.  He also had a couple of PS2 games and we all got various books, CDs and DVDs to occupy us for the next few evenings.  We listened to two of the new ones yesterday evening while getting dinner ready and eating that - Foo Fighters and Scouting for Girls.

Dinner was lovely and we were very good, not overdoing it at all.  We had fillet steaks, partly because I’ve seen enough turkey but also because Val didn’t want anything hanging around the fridge for the next few days.  Rachael did ask where the turkey was so we may have one next year. 

Today we managed to get the kids out for a bit of fresh air, they both adamantly told me they weren’t going to go for a walk but Val managed to convince them they would enjoy a play on the beach while we went for a walk up towards Pentire Point.  It was a lovely clear day and as usual there were loads of people out walking, we were on the way back when I got a “hurry up I’m hungry” message from Rachael!

We did get back for a late lunch and then I left them watching Harry Potter when I came back to work - I must admit I did watch quite a bit of it and found it quite entertaining, never having seen any of the films before.

We all had a good time, hope you enjoyed your Christmas too.

Or Happy Christmas if your Cornish isn’t up to scratch.  We’ve had a great start to Christmas here at The Met, all of the guests have turned up (which is always a bonus) and we got Christmas Eve off to a good beginning with a lovely dinner and then a visit from the Padstow Carollers.  They sing so beautifully with full parts and harmonies, the carols are a mix of traditional English ones and some old Cornish songs too, many of the tunes are different so it makes for a really interesting time.  A few guests went to the midnight service here in Padstow. 

Perhaps I shouldn’t have but I went to my Church’s late night service, Gareth had told me all the service was on powerpoint with the music for the hymns from our set of backing CDs so I thought he could do with a bit of help.  That was a lovely service but it did make for a bit of a late night, which wasn’t great when Gyorgy our night manager called me at 6.20 - the kitchen keys were locked away and his key to get the keys was locked away safely!  This means I haven’t seen much of my family yet today though Val was awake when I left!

We’ve now had time for a quick break while getting ready for lunch - this really is a journey from meal to meal.  Lunch will be a bit livelier than dinner last night as we have 26 more people to look after but with a few crackers to pull and rocket ballons to blow they should be well entertained.  I’ll get home after lunch and we’ll then finish off our Christmas then - an no turkey for us!

This is prompted by a conversation I have just had with one of our regular Christmas guests: he has come on his own because his wife has just started a new job and has to work on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  I asked who she is working for, thinking it would be something essential like a hospital or something but it turns out it is a clothes shop!

I would have thought she would have had Christmas Day off at least but it is because of the sale starting on Boxing Day that they all have to be in on the 25th to get ready for it!  Grumpy Old Man time - why has our society got so obsessed with shopping that we can’t wait until after properly Christmas to go and grab a bargain.  Boxing Day always used to be the day for going to see family, watching or playing local sports teams or just getting out for a walk, why can’t we reclaim these family days?

One of our developments this winter was to buy some new beds, these duly arrived at the beginning of the month on two big trucks and were all stored in the Met Lounge while we sorted them out and put them in the rooms.

Having new beds is great but it does present the problem of what to do with the old ones.  We could just bin the bases but the mattresses are really costly to send to landfill, both in cash terms and environmentally, so I sent out a message over the COAST network to see if anyone wanted them.  I had a referral from a colleague to one homeless charity and through them found another who would take them.

We had everything arranged for the pick up last Friday but at the last minute they weren’t able to come, neither could they come this week either!  Cath did volunteer her mum’s partner Doug with their horsebox but unfortunately  for us Doug had some more work come up.  This meant it was down to us, we couldn’t leave the Met Lounge full of beds for Christmas and the garage is already full.  I hired a big Transit from the local garage and Ginty and I loaded up and set off yesterday morning to the depot outside Pool, way down west.  We found the depot reasonably easily and the guys arrived soon after us to help unload and store the beds.  We had to make a second trip so headed back up the A30, it was quite windy yesterday and I really felt it a couple of times on the bridges. 

Load two wasn’t quite as successful as load one as this was the bases which wouldn’t squash in - the van was 4 inches too short to get them all in, we will have to ask the team from Home Comforts to come and collect the rest after Christmas.

Going back to the title, we had been joking about having to buy Yorkie Bars to have in the van so I did get us one each when I put a bit more fuel in to get us back to the hotel, I think we deserved the extra fuel too!  It was great to get all the beds out of the way, especially as they have gone to a good home and the lounge looks really festive now - a real tree, some poinsettias and a few decorations. 

While we are spending so much time looking after other people for their Christmas parties it is always good for us to be able to look forward to our own event.  We had this last Sunday evening at The Falmouth Hotel where we joined up with the teams from The Fowey and The Idle Rocks and we all had a really great time.  Greg and his team put so much effort into getting everything right and it really worked well.

The food was lovely, we had a fishcake to start, lovely and hot with a good fishy taste and a crab mayonnaise with it.  The main course had to be turkey and yes we did have sprouts too!  We went off tradition with a chocolate and orange tart for pudding, really rich and gooey, not even I would have wanted more than one of those!

After dinner the party started good and proper with a really lively disco in the main room and a fun casino in the bar.  I must admit I spent most of the evening in here, not being a natural dancer!  I discovered I have no talent for roulette either but Gail came away with a full rack of chips which she then lost on the black jack table, Jackie’s husband Paul won and lost his house twice playing black jack!  Some of the younger lads were quite entertaining with their decision making so it made for a fun time.

Some of our guys stayed over, others came back on the coach, which made for a late night but well worth it.  From my management side it is great to have the opportunity, with my colleagues and our owner, Keith, to say a big thank you to all the staff who work so hard throughout the year.

Some people always want to know the gossip from these events but all I will say here is what goes on tour stays on tour!!

I had been thinking for a little while that it would be great for the managers from the 4 Cornish hotels to get together for dinner one evening in the run up to Christmas, we have a fair few meetings and so do see each other quite often but I wanted us to get together socially with our partners, some of us have met before but not all and it is great to know who we are all talking about.

I suggested this to Andrea who thought about this for all of a second or two, we ran the idea past Fraser, one of our Directors and invited him too, and then I issued the invitations.  I chose the Custard Diner in Padstow as the venue and Carrina was very helpful arranging the table - it turned out they don’t open on a Sunday in December but as it was the only day we could all make she opened up for us specially.

Unfortunately Chris and Margaret couldn’t make it at the last minute, St Mawes had been without power all afternoon due to the high winds and quite a few trees were down so he had to stay and look after his guests.  Andrea and Keith arrived mid afternoon and Greg and Neil early evening ready for a drink in the bar before we headed into town. 

We had a lovely evening, the food and service were really good and I would strongly recommend you go there.  I had wood pigeon breast to start and skate for main course, Val had monkfish, Andrea had the rump steak and all were cooked really well.  The have a great wine list too and I think they come from David at Bin Two (www.bintwo.com).

I had booked our taxi home for 11.00pm from the hotel, thinking that would give us enough time to have coffee and walk back up the hill.  We got to just after 11 and I said we needed to make a move and as we were all getting our coats Mike the taxi driver came in to meet us!

Do have a look at www.custarddiner.com and see for yourselves - we’ll certainly be going back.

Not normally a statement to worry me too much, Tony, our maintenance manager, is a heating engineer by trade and we know our way around the system quite well by now.  What caused a little more concern was that I had this message at about 1.15 in the morning!

Mike wasn’t sure what he needed to do to rectify the problem so I made a couple of suggestions and said to call me back if they didn’t work.  15 minutes later Mike is back on the phone so I decided it would be easiest and less disturbing to my wife if I were to get up & go in to see what the problem was.

When I got in to the hotel we went and had a look at the boilers - everything had cut out, red lights everywhere and the pressure / filler unit on the end beeping at us.  It quite often used to think it had insufficient pressure so I didn’t take too much notice of the flood alarm, after all we couldn’t see any water in the boiler room and no guests had rung down to report a leak.  I rebooted the unit and we went upstairs for a cup of coffee while it got back up to pressure.

Afer a while we went and checked it but it still didn’t work.  We tried a few more things to get it all going but decided it needed a bit more time to fill up.  After a further period of time I decided that we really ought to have a look around just to see if there were any problems as the unit should have got back up and running by then.  Thankfully we didn’t have too far to look - a pipe had been repaired in the linen room next door to the boiler room, thankfully Ronnie had used the wood that Tony had got to repair the floor so I could see what was what.  There in the corner was a horizontal fountain coming out of a 4 inch heating pipe.  I was in a way glad I’d found it but would really have preferred something simpler!

At this point I decided I needed some more help so rang Tony at home.  By this stage it is about 3.00 am, Tony suggested I try to drain the system down as this would then stop the water gushing out into the foundations.  I found the valve but in my ignorance treated it as a tap and kept turning it around, trying to open it fully!  Still, this meant I did have a spanner so I tightened up the nuts on the joint that had leaked which did work and stopped the water.

Next job when Tony came up was to get the boilers going again, with our new system it is very simple to shut of the heating side and just have hot water.  Once we had this shut off and the leak stopped we were able to get the control panel restarted and the water heating up.  We kept an eye on it for a while (another cup of coffee) and decided the water had all got back on track.  We decided it wasn’t safe to trust my repair work so we left the heating off (why do these things always happen in winter?) and get the engineers who had done the work back in the morning to do it properly.

I quickly wrote a letter for all the guests and left these for Mike to put under the doors and left for home, Tony was able to get away too.  When I got home I was as quiet as I could be and slipped back into bed, Val hadn’t stirred at all.  Then she asked me in a very wide awake voice if we’d managed to fix it all!  Luckily she hadn’t been awake all the time I’d been out.

We were all fixed and the system filled and vented by the end of lunchtime the next day so all back to as near normal as we ever get here!

This isn’t what I would normally expect an 81 year old lady to ask but I did hear this said today.  Now I do owe this friend the duty of putting her question into context.  She was enjoying her family Christmas lunch here when she began feeling a little feint, luckily her doctor son was on hand to help her but she suddenly felt a lot worse which lead to me calling for an ambulance and the local first responders.

We had help from Sally and Alan very quickly and these two with their expertise and equipment added to the doctor’s and the ambulance technician grandson meant she was in good hands and was starting to feel a lot better.  Moving her wasn’t easy as she does suffer with arthritis but duly done.  Shortly the ambulance crew arrived, they wanted to run some tests so moved her onto the trolley and this was when the famous question was asked!

After a few checks in the ambulance the crew decided to take her to Treliske to be assessed by the cardiology team, I had a call from the doctor son then and one from another son later in the evening to say she was home again!  The concern from all my team was lovely to see, Adam kept in touch during the afternoon by text to see how she was getting on and we have all signed a card for her which I will try and deliver tomorrow.

What was lovely to see today was a strong family in action, we all read and hear so much about family structures breaking down with no-one looking after the needy ones but this is one good family and I look forward to seeing them here at the hotel shortly - if nothing else to finish their puddings!

It’s Barbara’s birthday tomorrow - we know for 2 reasons, 1 we are good employers and know these things and 2 because the Atlantic FM 4 x 4 turned up in the car park this afternoon and Dean Moore came in to present Barbara with a bunch of flowers, courtesy of her husband.  This will be broadcast tomorrow (7th Dec) between 6 and 7 pm.  Barbara was delighted with her flowers and the lovely things Martin said about her but she was still mightily embarrassed by all the attention! 

As well as recording the little chat Dean also had a photographer with him - the pictures should be available on www.atlantic.fm sometime tomorrow so have a look and join me in wishing Barbara a happy birthday.

Today was blood donor day again, it doesn’t seem like 4 months since Cath and Mel were crumpling into little heaps on the floor and I was struggling to type with a plaster on my finger.

Team Metropole grew again today as Laura came with us, all of us managed to get appointments at similar times so we all crossed over in the waiting room at some point.  The good news is that we all came through unscathed, no one fainted but as you may guess from the title of this post 1 of us wasn’t able to donate this time.  Cath needs to work on her iron levels - she is always on the borderline and it seems like she will only be able to donate every other time.  In April we will be buying lots of spinach, liver and Guinness for her! 

We are under instruction to take things easy this evening, not such an easy task as we have a dinner for 60 and 22 in the restaurant but as Mel & I were discussing it should make us manage more and do less!