Batten down the hatches

Heave to starboard, splice the mainbrace and lash yourselves to the bar me hearties.
Yes, it looks like 2007 is going to begin in stormy style. The street parties planned for Stirling and Glasgow have been cancelled already and if the Edinburgh one doesn’t follow soon I’ll be surprised. It’s a wild night in Jed with winds of 70mph forecast throughout Scotland. The lights have been dimming periodically but we hope that our emergency generator won’t be called into service.

Looking at last year’s post around this time I see that my new year resolution was not to make any new year resolutions. That one has been kept.

Happy New Year to all our readers. Stay tuned for exciting developments in 2007.

John & Lorna

Christmas is a time for giving…

Nonsense! Christmas is a time for setting fire to things - as demonstrated last year.

This year’s exploits involved less fire but a lot more smoke.

This device is called a salamander iron, but is usually sold as a creme brulee iron, which gives a clue to its function. Before the days of miniature blowlamps and electric grills this was how you got that nice dark caramel on top of your creme brulee. As you can see, the iron is heated until very hot…

then pressed onto the brown sugar on top of the brulee. White sugar does not work nearly as well due, L thinks, to its higher melting point. There is much bubbling and LOTS of smoke…

and here’s the result.

Happy Christmas to all our readers

Wherever you are, Whoever you are.

Some new drinks and some old ones

Cherry sourz has joined its more popular Apple-y cousin.

Our cask ale is now usually either Hadrian and Border’s Legion Ale or Wylam’s Gold Tankard. Both are made in or near Newcastle. We try to make sure there’s always cask ale available, but we have some bottled ales as well. These are Black Sheep from the brewery of the same name in Masham and Hobgoblin from Wychwood in Oxfordshire.

More deja vu

Last year I wrote that going to Tesco in Galashiels three days before Christmas probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
So have a guess what I was doing today, two days before Christmas…

Mad Friday
The last Friday before Christmas is called “mad Friday”. The past two years haven’t really lived up to the name, but last night did. We had staff, but it was so busy we both ended up helping with serving and glass collection. This morning only two of the guests made it down for breakfast.

Renovations
Work has finished for the holidays now. One of the last things to be done was this:

which means that most of the public areas now have new carpets. The front hall has intentionally been left until last. The workmen will be back in January, but before that the insurance company will be sending a loss adjuster to look at the flood damage. That’ll be next Wednesday.

As I was sitting on the stair

I found the carpet wasn’t there

because the carpet fitters had removed it and taken it to the skip. They’ve now started fitting the new carpet from 1st to 2nd floor level.

Meanwhile I went to Kelso where a farmers’ market was in full swing. Having tried and failed to find Brenda Leddy’s farm (Stichill Daries) it was nice to meet the lady herself at one of the stalls. I bought some of her jersey cream and some other goodies. I also met Erica Garratt who lives near Hawick and makes handmade chocolates and puddings.

Renovations
Joiners and plumber(!) here today along with painters who are painting the area beside the front door. Tomorrow will be pretty well the last day’s work before new year. Meanwhile estimates for the work on the outside of the hotel have arrived and are less than we thought they’d be. It’s worth noting that we now regard any estimate with fewer than four zeros on the end as reasonable.

I’m skiving tomorrow. Off to Edinburgh for my niece’s 19th.

Brrrr!

Frosty in Jed (and most of the UK) last night and tonight isn’t looking any warmer. I was up at 6 (completely unnecessarily - I just woke up) and had the beer lines and coffee machine cleaned by 8am. We had one guest who arrived late but declared the hotel “very nice in a wonky sort of way” but given that he was in Room 9, which hasn’t got anything approaching a level surface, that’s fair comment.

Renovations
Stop press, Shock! Plumber arrives! Hard to believe, but yes, the plumber put in an appearance and the first floor bath is almost connected. Some painting was done in the front hall and the joiner continued the fitting out of the dining room. Another joiner attended to the bedroom windows which were supposed to have been done earlier but weren’t. They now all open and all the cracked panes (thank you previous joiners) have been replaced. The carpet fitter arrived and said that they would try to get the carpet laid on the second flight of the main stair. We’d like to leave the first flight and front hall until we’re nearly finished. The quote for the flood repair is apparently nearly ready - all that remains is for the electrician to supply his quote,

Now pay attention

You might remember me mentioning common reasons for fires in hotels and restaurants.

Well it seems like Cafe India weren’t paying attention to that post since it went up in smoke yesterday. Reports in today’s paper say that the fire began when the tandoori oven got out of hand and the flames spread to (wait for it) the extraction system. I’d intended to go there last Monday when I was in Glasgow but it was a wild windy night and we ended up
here instead.

Renovations
I called the plumber this morning. He said he couldn’t get into his van. Some problem with the lock apparently. Full marks for originality anyway. Two electricians and four joiners did appear and we now have power in the new dining room. That’s good because it means that the external floodlights are working again, so people walking down the street might just notice that we’re here.

Penguin power

Nerdy
Yes, Mandriva 2007 has finally arrived.

and very pretty it is too. Wizzy 3 dimensional desktops and stuff. And unlike 2006, file sharing seems to work too.

Renovations
There was a brief appearance from the plumber on Friday to fit the new bath in the 1st floor bathroom. Alarm engineers were at work reducing the number of bare wires hanging through the ceilings and the joiner was installing shelves in the new function room bar. Even Belhaven’s technical services got in on the act and installed the new T bar font.

Shelf-ish behaviour

Would you believe that this room used to be a bedroom? It’s one of the three at the top of the main stair that we planned to turn into a double ensuite and a family ensuite. This room was going to be the ensuite of the double.

And the fact that it isn’t is the main consequence of the structural work we did during the summer. While we’re waiting to see if we will get any money from the structural engineers who failed to spot the very obvious fault we’ve put some shelving in the room. We spent yesterday assembling it.

This cactus is older than me. It was brought down to the Spread two years ago and treated with wanton cruelty. It got covered in plaster dust when the old kitchen ceiling was removed and I discovered it a couple of weeks ago lying on the floor in one of the unused bedrooms covered in old curtains. It had been there for a month.
And it’s about to flower. Given that it’s a Christmas flowering cactus that seems like a reasonable thing for it to do, but it would be just as understandable if it turned brown and died.