Then, all of a sudden

Regular visitors to this site will know that since mid November last year the beer garden has been closed to the public due to the structural work in the function room above. A month ago… forget that, a day ago, the area was thick with dust, sand and builders’ junk.

Today that was all cleared away and, while we can’t open the beer garden to the public until the boarding is replaced under the pend, we can go out there.

So here’s the inaugural pint of Wylam’s golden tankard.

There was work inside today too. The steelwork was fitted in the old kitchen and brickwork fitted round it. Now we wait for the joiners on Monday…

After the dust settles…

There’s certainly been a lot of dust today. The builders were here knocking holes for a steel beam in the upstairs kitchen. This is the last piece of steelwork to go in and should happen this week assuming the b***dy thing arrives. D**** was here today too and met the joiners, fire alarm people, plumber, butcher, baker and candlestick maker all of whom have a valuable contribution to make, The joiners will be here next Monday, or earlier if the job in Hawick gets finished sooner than expected. That’s more fallout from Denholm school going up in smoke - they’re building the temporary replacement.

The big props were removed from the function room yesterday and the doors on the top floor either jam or don’t close properly now. The overall movement at the centre of the room is probably under half a centimetre, but that seems to have been enough.

Morning

I’m sometimes asked if I regret buying the Spread Eagle. My usual reply is - about three times a day, but only in eight hour stretches.

It’s five to seven on a bright sunny morning and I’m up to serve breakfast to one of our resident workmen before getting ready for the other six residents at about half past seven. In between I’ll start cleaning the beer lines.

Or I’ll sit here and drink coffee and play sudoku…

I’m reluctant to say that this is the week when the renovations really get going because I’m sure I’ve said that every week since January. However, Finlaysons take over as principal contractor today and the manpower problems that have caused delays in the past have been resolved. So nothing can go wrong - can it? D**** (project manager) will be here today to check progress and discuss the finer detail of the work with Finlaysons.

The ceiling in the old kitchen has been removed revealing some very dodgy looking beams. Most of the timbers are staying in place only because the woodworm are holding hands. A steel beam is going in there, once the old hoist has been taken out. The new hoist, despite being called a microlift, is 100mm deeper than the old one. We’re not installing it now due to the cost, but the space for it has to be left for later installation.

Real ale arrives from the Wylam brewery today. Because of low sales we don’t keep a large stock (see previous postings) so if we have a couple of moderately busy days we sell out. We haven’t had any ale since Sunday, but today’s delivery is “bright” beer which should be able to go on sale immediately.

Ask me about pins

Beer comes in all sorts of containers.
The biggest, the tun is 216 gallons. Half a tun (108 gallons)is a butt often used to hold rainwater.

A hogshead is half the size of a butt. Halfway between a butt and a hogshead is a puncheon at 72 gallons.

A barrel at 36 gallons is half a puncheon and used to be the size distributed to pubs. That’s why the Cross Keys up the road at Ancrum has a huge winch in the restaurant area which was used to move barrels of beer when the cellar was there. Breweries still price everything in barrels which is extremely confusing.

A kilderkin is half a barrel (18 gallons) and a firkin is half a kilderkin (9 gallons). The firkin is the normal size for cask ale. Keg beer is distributed in 11 gallon containers (nominally 50 litres - though everyone still calls them “elevens” just as firkins are “nines”)

At the bottom of the heap all alone is the pin, the runt of the litter holding only 4.5 gallons. We’ve been using pins for our cask ale because of low sales. We can usually clear a pin in a week where we’d be struggling to sell a nine.

But not this weekend. Farne Island went on sale on Friday and we’d sold three gallons of it by 7pm this evening. At this rate it won’t last until tomorrow. We’re getting a delivery from the Wylam brewery on Tuesday, but we may have a real ale-free day on Monday.

Late check-in

11pm to be exact. A trio from Colorado who had understimated the time taken to travel in this country. They hadn’t even had time for dinner, so we sent them down to the Indian restaurant which, thankfully was still serving. We also had a couple from Normandy who are taking part in the continental market which is taking place today and tomorrow. A nice selection of wine, Spanish sausages, smelly cheese, Breton biscuits, flowers and nougat. It seemed to be well attended, it’s just a pity it’s a one off.

Building work
A wee bit of finishing off of the brickwork round the new steel beams. Nothing more til Wednesday.

Inaccurate information

I’ve just realised, from looking here that one piece of information on our website is wrong. The hotel was first licensed in 1604 not 1603. The other two, as you’ll see from that link above were The Kings House and The Crook Inn , though the Crook Inn got Art - Deco-ed with a vengeance and doesn’t actually look that old. It does claim to be the oldest licensed coaching inn in Scotland which may well be right since we’re a hotel. Whether we were a hotel or an Inn in 1604 (or even 1603) is open to debate.

Market forces
There’s a continental market this weekend in Jedburgh. Rain is forecast. We have two of the stall holders staying with us tonight and tomorrow. They are from Normandy and make Calvados.

Renovations
Nothing likely to happen this weekend. There is a changeover of principal contractor with the building firm finishing off and the joinery/roofing/decorating firm taking over.

No room at the Inn

Four friendly Austrians showed up last night looking for two double rooms. We only had one double room left, so they stayed at Mrs Irvine’s B&B instead. They did come back later for some malt whisky. They liked Glenfiddich and Glenlivet but were not so keen on Talisker which, although from Skye has the smoky antiseptic taste characteristic of Islay malts. Glenlivet is a milder tasting malt and Glenfiddich is just plain boring.

Currently there’s no-one booked in tonight, but we are full for the following four days. It’s a bank holiday weekend you see (the third this month) and the weather has turned cold and wet in preparation for it.

Comments
Thanks for your comments Aarlene. The picture makes the hall look better than it is - it’s actually very dark despite the new lights, so we’re going to paint the bottom half a light terracotta with contrasting colour on the mouldings. The walls above will be white as will the front doors.

The current work involves restoring the function room (where all the structural stuff happened), a complete refit of one of the family rooms and a refit of the bathroom of the other one, refitting the upstairs kitchen and turning the old lounge bar into a breakfast/dining room.
All that should be finished at the end of the first week of July.
There’s also work going on with electrical, water and drainage throughout the building.

After that we need to stop and see if we can afford to do anything else this year. If we can, we’ll get the four rooms at the front of the building refurbished and do some general decoration of the public areas. That may have to wait until later in the year though. Stay tuned!

Siberian summer

It’s bright and sunny in Jed, but the temperature is in single figures. That didn’t stop the blacksmiths yesterday and the steelwork is now finished.

There will be some big double doors between the two nearest posts. The joiners are going to start next Wednesday with a small team concentrating mainly on bedroom 5. The following week the reinstatement of the function room, old lounge bar and upstairs kitchen will start in earnest,

Meanwhile, we’ve been looking at colour charts and trying to decide what colour to paint the bar. We’ve decide to paint only the top half of the walls and leave the rest wood coloured. The colour we’ve decided on is called “buttermilk” and is… well, sort of buttermilk coloured.

Some nice new lights for the back bar have arrived and they will allow us to use low energy spotlights there.

Typical. You wait all week for a tradesman and then four turn up at once

It would have been five, but the blacksmiths were on a first aid course. They’ll be here tomorrow.
Take a look at this:

This used to be the old kitchen and the corridor leading to the bedrooms. The partition wall was removed today and you can see how the room looked before it was turned into a kitchen. A steel beam is going to be fitted to the ceiling this week and then a new (fireproof) partition will be fitted.

All of which poses a problem for the National Museum of Scotland who want that lift contraption at the back of the room. We will have to try to avoid reducing it to matchsticks when we take it out.

Also installed today were some new lights in the front hall.

Nice aren’t they?

It’s a gas

Persistent problems with “fobbing” (that’s too much froth) on our beers has seen several visits from tech services. This morning they were back. John Smiths. Belhaven Best and Guinness were all pouring badly and a lot of wasted beer was resulting. Much head scratching until he noticed the cylinder of mixed gases which feeds these three beers…

The correct mix is 70/30 - 70% Nitrogen and 30% CO2. The cylinder had 70/30 written on the side of it, but the little tag attached to the tap at the top said 60/40. The extra 10% CO2 was enough to cause the problems we’d been having.

The builders were back today to do some brickwork. No more activty expected until Monday. I’ll take some pictures when the steelwork’s complete.