Here we are again at Christmas time - we have as full a house here as we can do, being limited by the space in the restaurant as to how many people we can take on our Christmas programme.  The good news is that this year we have managed to reach this limit despite all the economic doom and gloom, I really think it is about time we all started to talk things up rather than spreading the doom and gloom messages. 

All of our guests are having a great time and the staff are enjoying themselves too - we’re even wearing our party hats already.  We had a good time last night on Christmas Eve, having moved our music and dancing to the first night when our guests have more energy to get involved.  The first feedback we have had is that people did enjoy it more and the bar take was up too.  This morning everyone was up reasonably early and breakfast went very smoothly, it’s now 11.30 and we are all ready laid up for the big lunch, with an extra 20 guests joining us for this.  It was a little tight fitting them all in but Mel has managed it even though we are a little short of chairs again - the Cafe bar is a little lighter than it normally is, everyone will just have to come straight in for lunch.

I hope to get home early / mid afternoon when I can have my Christmas with my family.  The children being teenagers hadn’t stirred at all when I left this morning but at least they will be pleased to see me when I get home as this means they can have some more presents.  We’ll be having our Christmas dinner early evening, one of our family traditions which I can’t join in with is having lasagne for lunch, it’s one of their favourite meals and Val can get it all ready early and it makes for a much easier day.  We are having turkey this evening which will be a first for us for a number of years but not being too traditional I have got a bottle of red wine for us to drink with it - an Argentinian barbera which should be interesting.

 Back to work now - have had my little break to write this.  I wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year.

Last night we had our joint hotels staff party down at The Falmouth Hotel, Greg’s team looked after us really well but I have just one item to share with you from the evening.  Everything else is embargoed by the “what goes on tour” rules!

The highlight of the evening was Mel, our Restaurant Manager, getting engaged.  Matt took her outside into the dark on the lawn, got down on one knee and popped the question!  Great news for them both and we wish them every success together.

I’ve been priviledged to try the Polgoon Vineyard’s sparkling cider twice in the last couple of weeks and it really is excellent:  all made by hand in the champagne style.  My first thought was that it was not cheap for a bottle of cider but thinking of it as a really good aperitif wine I changed my perspective !

The first time I tried it was at Wadebridge Wines Annual Christmas tasting and then again last night at a Celebration of Cornish Food and Drink, one of the opening events of Padstow’s Christmas Festival.  The two other producers at this event were Bob Lindo from Camel Valley Vineyard who spoke about the success he has had with his wines, particularly the sparkling “Cornwall” and he also gave us all a cutting to take home and plant!  He was followed by Stuart Howe, the head brewer at Sharps who talked us through the development of Chalky’s Bite which he did with the team from Rick Steins and also the follow up beer, Chalky’s Bark.  We were the first people to try this new beer outside of the tasting team and it was a real shame I had to go back to work afterwards!

David Sharland, Rick’s executive chef, prepared some excellent canapes too so we all had a really good evening.  We have our debrief meeting next Thursday when we see how we did with the festival and decide what to do next year.  If the rest of the week end followed this standard then we will definitely be back!

Last night was one of our busiest of the winter so far as we had a dinner for the local masonic lodge, this was for 65 people which in itself isn’t taxing for us but we also had a table of eight of their wives in the restaurant and a few other diners too.  What nearly tipped us over the edge equipment wise was our local rotary club.  Every year previously they have met somewhere else on this night as we have not been able to fit them in but this year they didn’t make any other arrangements in advance and we didn’t say anything to them.  I was chatting with one of the members on Sunday who said yes they were coming to us, not a problem we can fit them in because we have been feeding them in the Met Lounge all year. 

Where we started to come unstuck was with the number of chairs we have available - we set up the 65 with the restaurant chairs plus 6 from the cafe bar, then had to set up the rotary for 20 with the remaining armless chairs from the cafe bar too (leaving 4) and then move the larger comfier cafe bar chairs to the front tables for the guests to use.  We left a few tables unlaid and chairless as we didn’t need them all but couldn’t put all the chairs on the ladies’ table.  We kept rotary’s dinner moving as quickly as possible and then as soon as they started to leave we managed to nip in quickly and get the last few chairs we needed!  All part of the fun of doing this job - though perhaps I shouldn’t share the secrets like this!