In the dark

We were full last night. One of the guests came down this morning and said that the power had gone off in the bedroom. On closer investigation the power had gone off in all the bedrooms. This was because the 60 Amp fuse in the main fuse box (yes they are lengths of fuse wire) had blown. The electric showers in the rooms are 8.4KW or 36A each. So if more than 2 people have a shower it’s going to cause problems. Our aim is to replace the electric showers with ones fed off the hot water system.

Doing 10 breakfasts involves a bit of predicting what folk want. Most people have a fry up, but not all want black pudding and haggis. Almost all want bacon and most want sausages. So we can pre-cook them maybe 15 minutes before breakfast starts and that makes things a bit less fraught when folk all appear at once.

Rolling stones

Work began this morning to remove the ruins of the end outbuilding. The back wall’s being retained and two buttresses are being constructed to stabilise it. This is part of phase 2 (or is it 1b?) work to create the beer garden. The overall plan is to pave the current courtyard area beside the ex-boiler house. Later, the boiler house will be removed as will the breeze block wall at the end of the courtyard. A wall built with stone reclaimed from today’s operation will be built later. Of course the boiler house and breeze block wall are both listed (listing applies to the site not specific buildings) so we can’t go ahead with that part of the project until planning permission and listed building consent are given.

Also now requiring planning permission and listed building consent is the conversion of the old owners’ accommodation into a suite. That’ll delay work a bit, but there are other things we can get on with such as refitting the laundry store above room 9 and setting up room 8 as our office.

Pop goes the Henry

The removal of all unnecessary debris from the old owners rooms has been completed and we have a shell. Q*** V*** and D** are here and plans are being shown, coffee drunk and presentations made.
Work will start on the beer garden on Monday. This will also include tidying up the half demolished outbuildings at the rear of the hotel. Work will also begin to sort out the mess the previous roofers left. The main slating work is adequate, but much of the leadwork and guttering was very poor.
After a brief investigation above the office ceiling, we brought out our splendid British made vacuum cleaner (called Henry) to clear up the dust. Henry was duly plugged in, switched on, went “weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee -BANG!” and is now on the skip.

Seeing the wood for the trees

The lower room of the old owners rooms has been stripped out. As we thought, the middle wall used to be an external wall and it has a window in the middle of it. V**** the architect suggested this as a feature in the bathroom which will be in the middle of the suite. The rest of the room is now a shell with bare walls and beams. Q**** is coming tomorrow to see how things are going.

The floor outside rm 9 has been reinstated and appears OK apart from minor problems with one board. We hope to have this room usable by friday.

Deconstruction

The old owners rooms were partially demolished today. These two rooms will form a suite, though the layout is difficult. The rooms are entered off a turn on the main stair and then you go up a short flight of stairs to one room and down a short flight of stairs to the other. The plan is to have the upper room as the bedroom and the lower one partially as ensuite and more beds. In the short term we’ll move in there to allow the development of the rooms we’re in as a family and double ensuite. Later there are plans to open up the roof area of the old owners area to make more room up there.

Meanwhile Q*** s roofer arrived and declared Roofing Direct’s effort a disaster area. I won’t all have to be redone, but there are substantial shortcomings.

Ye canny change the laws of physics

So, the water board folks arrived to fit a new 30mm meter in place of the 15mm one. They dug a big pit around the old meter and were about to fit the new one, when I checked that the connecting pipes were also 30mm.
Workmen - “No, no they’re 25mm”
Me - “So what’s the point of fitting a 30mm meter to a 25mm pipe then?”
Workmen - “Oh, it won’t make any difference. The 30mm meter will give a better flow rate than the 15mm. Far better”
Me - “Maybe so, but not as good as if it was connected to the right size of pipe”
Workmen - “Oh, no, it won’t make any difference. The 30mm meter will give you much better flow rate. Beautiful plumage”

OK, they didn’t say that last bit. I phoned their supervisor who, for an employee of a water company seemed also to have great difficulty getting his head round the concept that the flow rate of water in a pipe is determined by its narrowest point.

They’re fitting the new meter now, but it looks as if the pipe from the stopcock in the street may have to be replaced.

Bed and breakfast

Five folk in tonight - three sent by the Glenbank and two chance. I’m waiting for them to come down for breakfast.

L has rewritten our website and signed us up to various online listings. The little counter at the bottom of the first page records all sorts of useful data about who’s looking at the site and where they’re from.
We’re now on Yell.com, roomfinders, bed and breakfast directory and (probably) several others.

The public bar was very quiet until around 9.30 when half a dozen folk piled in to watch the football. From 12 til 4 there were only two folk in.

The current problem is that the public bar is dark and not very inviting. Another problem is that we’re not currently doing food due to the renovations. We’ve had quite a few folk in looking for food and we send them to the Pheasant, Simply Scottish or the Glenbank depending on what they want. A third problem is that kids are theoretically not allowed in the public bar. In practice if it’s quiet there’s no problem - we had a couple in yesterday with young son and we sat him in the back bar with a glass of coke. Once we’re doing food we can use the morning room for families. Or our proposed beer garden.

Quiet night in

That’s what everyone seems to have had last night. For a Saturday night it was very quiet. Part of the problem is that we have currently a very small group of regulars and if they decide not to come out we don’t have any customers. It’s very easy to lose customers but harder to attract new ones. The people who come in at present do so because they have always come - they treat it like their living room and get quite upset if “strangers” - as they call anyone they don’t know - come in. The bar is not inviting with unsympathetic upgrading over the years leaving us with dark plywood and a scabby laminate bar top.
More planning needed.

Bar

One of the things we considered as desirable when looking for a property was a public bar. So far the Spread Eagle bar is the only thing generating any noticeable amount of money, though accommodation is building gradually as the tourist season gets under way, The problem with running the bar though, is that someone has to be there all the time even if there are no customers in. Our worst day, a few weeks ago, had me standing in the bar for 10 hours for total takings of just over £10. Very dispiriting!

In contrast, last Saturday was busy enough to put smiles on our faces and this Friday promises to be reasonably busy too. The occasion is the “Declaration of the Callant” when the local lad who leads the Jedburgh festival is named. The criteria for being Callant are quite restrictive - you have to be born in Jedburgh, unmarried and not going to get married for several years and you have to be able to ride a horse.
Oh, and you have to be able to sing too.

It’s traditionally a “ladies night” so we have stocked up on girlie drinks:-)

Nearly there

Hot water was reconnected yesterday. We confidently predicted that this would mean we wouldn’t get any guests, but we have two.
The water is a direct fed pressurised system (relatively new to the UK, but commonplace elsewhere) and the result is that the flow rate’s much better. It’ll be even better when the new bigger water meter is installed.
One slightly odd side effect of these unvented systems is that the hot water comes out looking like soda water - slightly fizzy and almost white in colour. We hope this doesn’t freak the guests out too much (it’s less noticeable in the bedrooms anyway).