I have been thinking about how to write this post for a while and it’s proving to be one of the more difficult ones to do.  After nine very happy years here at The Metropole hotel in Padstow I am moving on, but not completely out of the picture, as I have a new group role with the company looking after all Richardson hotels.

I am very pleased with what we have achieved here at The Met over the years.  While still recognising that there is a lot to do, the team I am leaving in place is set to complete what we have set out to achieve.  I am also very happy to be handing over the reins to Janette Jansson, our new manager, who is starts on Monday (July 12th).  Janette has a wealth of experience drawn from many different types and styles of  hotel and will bring this to bear in her own way at The Met.
Once I’ve worked out how to set up her up as a Blogger, I hope she will be able to continue keeping you all informed and up to date with what is happening in and around the hotel and Padstow.

Thank you for your support and do please keep an eye on what we’re all up to on the various blogs around the group as well as Facebook and Twitter pages as they appear.

Andrew

We have another family of ducklings up at the pool, we’re hoping these ones do better than the previous brood!  Giles has taken some lovely pictures of them and Amy has put these up on our facebook page.  Do please have a look: our ducks on facebook
There is no competition on this occasion for the best recipe sent in!

Just an advance note - we will be using our facebook page for trialling some special offers so do become a fan to see how this works.

This week we’ve said good bye to Joyce!  I must admit we all knew it would happen one day but never wanted her retirement to come around so quickly!

This last few months Joyce has been ready to retire, she was saying on Monday that a year ago she wasn’t but now it’s here she’s really looking forward to spending some time at home and with her daughters and their families who both live in Padstow.  Having said that she’s gone off on holiday today with her brother!

This really is another tale (and what prompted the retirement a week or so earlier).  Her brother came down to see her recently and they had such a good time he invited her to come away with him and his wife to Spain.  Joyce is used to travelling all over the world with cruises and other holidays but even at the age of 64 there is still time for new travel experiences - Joyce is flying from Birmingham and has had to go up to stay with her brother today and at this moment is experiencing her first ever journey on a train!

Back to the retirement - we had a lovely afternoon on Monday to say goodbye, we arranged to have a cream tea with a glass of champagne up by the pool and we managed to set it all up without Joyce knowing!  A big thank you to Claire who did all the hard work to get this done.  The sun shone and we all had a lovely time, even Joyce’s gift from us was just what she wanted (thank you Lisa for stopping Joyce going to Trago to get her own one) so we are looking forward to some pictures of Joyce enjoying her free afternons sitting on her own sun lounger soon.

All the best Joyce and thank you for all you’ve done for us and the hotel over the last 22 years!

The show starts on Thursday and we’re hoping it will be as busy as ever: over 100,000 visitors last year!  It is a little different in the hotel this year because the show is a week later due to the bank holiday slipping back a week but there is still a major golf tournament on locally and we have a big contingent staying here for that too so quite a different mix of business.

The golfers go on Friday morning so we do have rooms available for Friday and Saturday whereas normally the show people go on the Saturday morning and we end up with rooms just for that night which are much harder to  sell.  We will see how we go this year!

I am hoping the show itself will be as interesting as usual, one of our regular clients isn’t here again this year but the supplier list looks good.  We are looking at having a stand to sell the group hotels next year and the plan is for Amy to visit and do some research on stand sizes and locations etc.  As she has just hobbled back in today after completing the Plymouth half marathon last week I’m not sure if that is going to be a good idea!

Amy’s run is another story which I will see if we can get on the facebook page but I must say that Amy has had a few days holiday after, it hasn’t taken her over a week to complete the run.

The hotel was really buzzing last night, it was a beautiful day and we were almost full.  We have a lovely group from Belgium staying with us for a few days at the moment and they were all eating last night, we had a few other guests already booked in the restaurant too and then as the evening started we just kept picking up extra people in the restaurant and the cafe bar too.

There is a small group of engineers who work for the National Grid who always eat with us when they come (in other hotels they make a point of going out they told me last night!) and then a family of 10 decided they wanted to eat from the cafe bar menu as well.  I lost count of the number of people we served but it was a good number. The only dificulty was remembering which language to say good evening to people in!

On that note I shouldn’t really saythis but Danni wanted to make sure she said “bon soir” to the Belgians properly so she wrote it down phonetically so she wouldn’t forget!

Virtually everyone is out for the day now so we can get on with clearing up and cleaning the rooms ready for their return this evening.

One of the issues we’ve been struggling with here of late is the condition of the car park: how could we most cost effectively make the entrance look better and be safer.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have but I did agree to a local contractor coming in and top dressing the entrance way, much like the loose chippings that get put on our country roads.  We will have a few bits trodden into the hotel I’m sure, much to the wrath of the housekeeping team but I hope it will be worth it.  The guys will be back tomorrow morning to do the next bit of the drive down the the garage and I just then have to hope it won’t all get washed away by the rain!

Usually all that the media covers about May Day is the festivities and often focussing on the dancing and drinking.  While this is an important part of the day for many there really is a lot more behind it that hasn’t really got much to do with May or Spring.

The 1st of May really is Padstow’s focal day of the year and it is a time for meeting up with friends and remembering all those that can’t be here and also those who have passed on.  I only found out about this side in such depth this year from Joyce and it was news to her too.  Early in the morning on her way to work she had gone to put some May Day flowers on Tony’s grave and was really surprised to see that somebody had already put some there and also the number of other people who were up in the cemetary doing the same thing as her.  It was touching to see the emotional side to the day too and to balance this agianst all the mayhem that we saw later.

All is quiet now - the Blue Oss party has been and gone, we have a few people sitting in the sun outside having a pasty and there is some lovely singing drifting across the road from Trevor’s house.

We may have a few more people calling in later on for some lunch and a bit of peace and quiet - everyone is talking to each other on their phones to see where is best to go so hopefully…

Well, we’re all set, the space is clear in the restaurant for the kids’ oss which we hope will appear shortly and the bar is open!  It is quite appropriate that Joyce has served the first drinks as it is her last May Day working before she starts her well deserved retirement later in the year.

More later and on the Facebook page as we go through the day!

Our Facebook page is getting more fans all the time - we’re up to 40 now and as we hoped most of the new followers are now people who are guests or potential guests.  We have got over the initial burst of friends and family who signed up!  We will use this as well as our own site to keep people updated over the coming months about things that are happening here at The Met and also in Padstow too.