While talking to our broadband technician I have just learned some new “geek speak” - Adam asked me if I could “run the router through its power cycle” again which I interpreted as “turn it off and turn it on again!

I’ve just heard that my friends at The Fowey Hotel have raised over £1000 for Shelterbox.  They held a fundraising day selling coffee and cup cakes as well as an auction and raffle - with the most eye watering event being some of the chefs undertaking a sponsored leg wax!

I am doing my bit by trying to blackmail Andrea (The Fowey’s manager) for some extra cash for her appeal!  Can’t tell you what the hold I have over her is but it’s worth a couple of pounds I’m sure!

If you feel like making a donation do please do so on the Shelterbox web site and it would be good if you could let the team at Fowey know too.

I have been determined to get back on my bike, partly for the exercise but also because my wife wants the small car for her journeys around the local lanes.  I had made sure the bike was good to go, pumped up the tyres on Monday evening (100psi!) and was ready for this morning.

The first thing I heard when I got up was the rain - not much of an issue really as it isn’t at all cold and I can dry my stuff when I get here, I just might want to stand in the shower for a bit longer.  While going through Whitecross, past the Royal Cornwall Showground, I heard the unmistakable sound of 100psi letting go rapidly.  If I have to have a puncture Whitecross is the best place to have it, the road is flat and there is a bus shelter for doing the repairs.  Fortunately I carry a spare tube so within 10 minutes I was back on the road.

As I drop into Padstow and the hotel there are a couple of very sharp bends so I crawl around those as slowly as I can, even managing to avoid the spilt fuel on the road, however as I turned into the hotel I caught the smooth lowered kerb at too much of an angle and bang, big heap on the floor!  Luckily I slid a bit so not too much of a thump but it was enough to take my watch and glasses off.  The grazes did sting a bit in the shower but I now have a few plasters on my left hand so I don’t make a mess of things and a dressing on my elbow - will just have to take things a bit easier today and see how I am for getting home tonight.

I have to admit this is an unashamed plug for a new branch of a local business.  Matt has been delivering excellent local food to holiday cottages in North Cornwall for a while now and his new venture, starting in early March, is to deliver our excellent local produce to your door if you happen to live in London.

Have a look at Matt’s web site and see if you can use his services - for all the remainder of the country that doesn’t live in London I’m sorry he can’t look after you yet but this is for two reasons, one he has to start somewhere and two he has a friend who can do the distribution for him there.  If enough people from other UK cities ask you never know he may well be able to expand further and reach you - even if we have to plough up the garden here to grow enough to supply everyone!

http://www.cornwallinyourkitchen.com is the web site, paste the link into your browser and happy shopping!

This was the cry when I had to go up to room 7 on Tuesday afternoon - the guest had been up for a swim in the hotel pool and naturally had a shower when he came back.  Unfortunately we don’t think he shut the door quite fully so we had a good inch of water on the bathroom floor.  The reason we found out about it was because it appeared in the restaurant just below!  After a quick mop up all was OK and no more water has been seen!

After a couple of not that newsworthy weeks we’ve been quite busy here in Padstow this last few days, what with David Cameron in the hotel yesterday and then today it is lifeboat day and we’ve got Billy Smart’s Circus up the road!

I was having a chat with Adam in the kitchen when we could hear a helicopter - both of us thought that this was going to be Keith, the hotel owner, dropping in for a pot of tea but I remembered hearing Tony talking about the lifeboat coming in today so we spent a few minutes watching them do some mock rescues and drop offs just otside the harbour wall.  I must admit it was pretty impressive the way in which the pilot handled the helicopter, not too sure if I would have wanted to have been in it.

The harbour side was really busy wih plenty of people watching and more lined up on the path to the crazy golf, I just hope they raised enough money to pay for the helicopter’s fuel!

I had seen some posters saying a circus was coming to town but hadn’t given it that much thought so I was quite surprised to see such a splendid big top up by the football field yesterday.  I haven’t seen inside it but the whole set up looks very professional.

This is a subject that most of us normally associate with overseas where it has been instrumental in making huge improvements in people’s lives all over Africa, South America and in Asia, indeed last Sunday’s Observer Food Magazine had a great article on the Ugandan Fairtrade Coffee industry (see here: http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/drink/story/0,,2286157,00.html ).

There is, however, a need for a similar system here in the UK to ensure that our farmers are protected and get a fair price for their produce and are encouraged to continue growing high quality local produce for us to use.  Our fruit and vegetable supplier, Bristol Fruit Sales, has developed its own brand called “Growfair” to do just this.  We have been buying asparagus and strawberries from them under this scheme this spring and summer and we are looking forwards to seeing what else is available later in the season.

I have found their web site but as yet they seem to have been concentrating on getting the food out of the fields!  More information will be available here soon: http://www.growfair.co.uk/ .

I have come across a few people recently who have been using the Cornish language, I must admit not conversationally but it is good to see it used.  The main language groups have now agreed on a common form so we should see more people learning this traditional language.  It will take a long time for us to get to the level of the Welsh but it is something to aim for.

From starting out just discovering what “Happy Christmas” is in Cornish I have picked up a few phrases myself and do exchange greetings in Cornish with a few people.  I must admit that most of these people are newcomers to Cornwall but at least there is some interest.

While I was at the Royal Cornwall Show I went into the county council exhibition with my Red Cross colleague and found the Cornish Language stand:  my colleague is Cornish but doesn’t know any of the language so I told him one of my favourite phrases to say to the staff ( no, I didn’t set him up with something rude!).  We both had a chat with them and even got some Cornish stickers.  Mine was the word for “cool” so I managed to use this when setting up our latest offer on the web site so when you have a look you will understand what “Koeth Kernow” means.

This also appeals to my literary tendencies with the alliteration, thankfully we didn’t have a third K to put in as an offer shortened to KKK would not have won us many friends!

Have a look at this web site and learn some Cornish before your next visit:  http://www.cornish-language.org/english/phrasebook.asp we’ll see how much of a conversation we can have!

I’m back in The Met today after spending two days looking after The Idle Rocks Hotel in St Mawes for my colleague Chris.  He has had a tough time recently and needed the chance for a couple of days off so I volunteered to baby sit for him.  That’s not really the right phrase to use as his team is really good and ran the hotel very well. 

Chris has been building up his team since Christmas and is now set for the summer with some lovely people around him.  As ever in our industry and in Cornwall these people have come from all over the world so there is a wide range of accents and characters.

We did run into a few minor operational issues along the way but the girls just needed a little help in steering the right people into the right jobs.  In a small hotel it is really important for the staff to be ready to help each other out and many of them do switch from department to department during the day.  This gives them enough hours work and ensures that all the jobs get done, it also helps to break down lots of the barriers between departments that can build up in big hotels.

All the guests enjoyed their stays while I was there, the service was good and the food I saw last night from Amos and his team was stunning.  I am planning to make two trips back there, one with my wife just so we can enjoy the whole experience and another visit with Adam, my chef and Mel, my restaurant manager, so we can crib some good ideas from them on their cooking styles and service systems.  Hopefully we will be able to share some of our best practice too.

If Chris will let me I’ll be back there next week for a day and Andrea from Fowey will cover a couple of days too so Chris can get used to having time off again.  His team is coming together well and I’m sure he will be having regular (and frequent) days off with his team looking after the hotel for him confidently and competently.

Peter, our winter painter, has finally finished his winter work.  We have worked with Peter over the last four or five winters to get on top of our redecorating work and he has just put the last drop of wallpaper up on the stairs today.  This means that we have done all the bedrooms and the hall, landings and stairs but as with all these old buildings it will be time to start again next November!

The look on around the hotel is getting much more contemporary without forgetting our classic roots, we are trying to make the hotel feel much lighter and fresher with much simpler designs and a cleaner look.  The task for Peter next winter will be to work on the Met Lounge, some of the premier rooms that we did first and I’m sure some of the new rooms will benefit from a touch up too.

We will leave the restaurant, lounge and bar for the moment as we have bigger plans for this area and may well need a larger firm to do this job.

One last job that Peter did, which provoked a tongue in cheek complaint from one guest, was to paint the window frames in the restaurant.  These have been crying out for some TLC for a while now and we decided we couldn’t wait until we do the big job next winter so we set Peter onto them and they now look great.  The complaint was that these windows had become so much a part of the hotel’s features over the last 15 years!