We’ve been basking in some glorious sunshine here in Padstow for the last couple of days and all the visitors have really been making the most of it.  It really is the right weather to wrap up warm and go for a good walk - which is what the local seagulls have been doing.

OK, not putting on hats and gloves but they have been walking around on the harbour!  Rob the harbour master has told me that there is about 1/4″ of ice on top of the water.  We won’t be selling ice skates just yet but if this weather carries on…

Or bledhyn newydh da as we say in Cornwall.  We saw the old year out in style last night with a great houseparty here at the hotel - almost 70 people partying away till the early hours and what was really great to see was lots of people still staying up chatting in the lounge afterwards.

One family had gone out in to town to see the new year in and came back around 1 ish and got chatting to a young couple who were just finishing off their drinks in the lounge and not surprisingly ended up getting quite a few more.  I left them playing games with sambucca and a lighter (passing the flame around the group).  When I saw them at breakfast they were all Ok but may be one or two sore fingers!

Everybody else was in fine form this morning an only a very few people didn’t make it down for breakfast and most of those had been out at different parties.

I think my only resolution for 2009 must be to write here more frequently!

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!

…and the Christmas decorations are going up!  This may seem a little early for a seaside hotel like us but we have our first Christmassy functions towards the end of this week so we just had to bite the bullet and get on with it.  In keeping with the last couple of years we are going for a “less is more” approach so you won’t be bombarded with tinsel and the glittery strands that have been known to litter Christmas trees.

We always seem to struggle to remember which bit is which, despite getting better at putting the right labels on the bags and boxes.  Jill and Joyce have done the tree in reception and started the Met Lounge as well as some of the smaller decorations in the main lounge, I did the new big green garlands with the lights over the archways through to the cafe bar and we have the tree up in the restaurant too.  I’m now just trying to sort out which new bits went over the arch in the restaurant!  We’ll get this all finished off over the next couple of days so by the week end it will look great.

I hadn’t seen our wild rabbits much recently and thought they may have moved on somewhere more sheltered as winter is approaching but while showing a client around the hotel earlier this week we stopped to look out of the window over the pool and saw one of them out in the corner near the shed - good to know they are still around and keeping the grass trimmed for us!

I was going to wait until the sweep had been to light the fire in the hall but was actually told by them that it was better to light the fire first so everything dries out properly before the chimney is swept.  Tony tested the draw first just to make sure there were no blockages and then we lit it late this morning.

It does make a lovely feel to the entrance and to see the coals glowing in the grate makes you feel warmer straight away.  My next task is to order some more coal so we have enough to see us through the next few weeks.  I will arrange with the sweep when he comes to book next year’s visit earlier so we can have the fire going from the beginning of November.  It would be better if we could find somewhere to put up a coal bunker and buy loose coal in the summer so that is all here ready to go too.

Now comes the fun of lighting the fire every morning!

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!