Polly

Remember Polly? She was the sensible one in Fawlty Towers who always rescued Basil from his self-inflicted predicaments. Well, this week we have had our very own Polly in the shape of Charlie, my niece. She came down on Tuesday evening and helped with dinner on Wednesday and cleaning on Thursday. She would have helped with dinner last night too, except that there weren’t any:-(
She’s off home just now, but will be back next Friday.
Charlie/Polly is a bit camera shy, but rest assured a photo of her in action will be appearing soon!

Another kettle of fish

Tracy popped in this morning clutching a bin liner of fish which hubby Dave had caught. “I’ve not had time to clean them” she said, “but there’s six of them”.
Six fish needing gutted. Oh joy! Well, I did the obvious thing - I said “Lorna. How do you gut fish?”

Well she came and showed me how to do the first one which involved very carefully slitting the fish and gently removing the guts. I devised a simpler, if rather less scientific method of chopping its head off and pulling.

I’d never tried this before and by the fourth one was getting the hang of it.

So I went and told her that I’d finished and she said “I don’t really fancy fish tonight - can we have pizza?”
Hmmm

Fired with enthusiasm

One of our less popular desserts is creme brulee. This is a pity because it’s very nice (if I may say so) and because it’s fun to make. The finished product looks like this…

But I can’t help thinking that if people could see how we make them, they would be sufficiently impressed to look beyond the apple crumble and try one.
The following picture explains very neatly why Lakeland no longer sell creme brulee irons (bearing in mind that we have a fairly effective extraction system in our kitchen)

Meanwhile, here’s a pretty picture looking along the vennel to the beer garden.

Another string to our bows

The radio crackled into life as I was stirring half a gallon of cream and dill sauce and getting the soup up to 85C. “I think your coach party has arrived!” said Gill from the bar.
It was half past four. We weren’t expecting them until 5, so Lorna shooed them into the bar until we were ready. Tracy and Claire were poised and ready as waitresses, Mark was KP and Lorna was restaurant manager/co-ordinator/whatever.

By quarter to five we were ready. Rolls were warmed, hot bowls were ready, soup was bubbling. Within ten minutes we were serving the main course and they were finishing their coffee within 55 minutes. By 6.30 they were back on their bus and Mark was drowning in a sea of dirty dishes. The amount of washing up generated by 21 three course dinners has to be seen to be believed!

Tracy and Lorna reset the dining room and by 7 we were ready to serve dinners. We knew there were two booked, but in the end we had 9, which is OK for a Sunday.

Two folk from the Rotary were in today to look at our function room with an aim to having their weekly meetings there. They asked if we could do a two course fixed menu dinner for up to 35. Last week we wouldn’t have been able to answer them, but now we can.

Cross eyes (and other cross bits)

Up at 6.15 to make breakfast for the two lads working in Gala. 7a.m. breakfast for them. 7am comes, 7am goes. No guests.
Not only do they not want a 7am breakfast it turns out that they aren’t even in the feckin’ building! The booking was made by their company and it seems that they’ve finished the job early and buggered off. Gary and Andy our two long term residents used to do this regularly, but at least they came and told us.

We had another early breakfast at 7.45, but believe me 30 minutes in bed at that time of morning is important
If you haven’t checked out this site then please do. There’s always someone with a worse job that you.

The view from here

Five to seven on Tuesday morning.

We have 14 guests tonight, two of whom are wanting breakfast at 7. So some mug has to get up and cook it for them. Here we see the essential components of the kitchen. Most important is the large mug of cappuccino which brings the kitchen sufficiently into focus to allow some cooking to take place. A large pan of mushrooms is cooking gently on the hob and a smaller pan contains beans.

All very interesting I’m sure. The only reason I took this was that the camera was sitting in the kitchen. And the camera was sitting in the kitchen because yesterday I took a picture of a very fine fish…

Here it is. Our barmaid Tracy’s husband Dave caught it at the weekend and in doing so qualified for the Scottish Fishing Championships. So it’s a very important fish. And we’ve eaten it:-)

Cheesed off

When we started serving evening meals, we included cheese as one of the options for pudding and amongst the first cheeses we bought was a lovely smoked cheese from the Inverloch Cheese Company on the Isle of Gigha. When it was finished, I decided to order some more. So I phoned my friendly telesales person at Campbell’s (no relation) and asked for one “Old Smokey”

The first week they sent nothing. I tried again

The second week they sent nothing. I tried again

The third week they sent a cheese which, while smoked, was from the wrong Island (Arran cheesemakers). I sent it back and the following week tried a fourth time…

They sent “Island Herbs” admittedly by the correct cheesemakers. We decided to use it anyway (it’s quite nice actually) and once it was finished I tried again. I explained the problem to telesales…

“Oh, that’s no problem, I’ll run downstairs and check that they have it in stock”
Fx (frantic footsteps)
“Yes, that’s fine. They’ve got several in stock. It’ll be with you on Tuesday”
Tonight I decided that I’d have some cheese with my after dinner pint (after no dinner to be precise as there were no customers).
I opened the box with the cheese in it. Here’s what I found…

Well, it’s very pretty and it’s by the right company but…

Should I just give up? I’m sure it’s really nice.

Digital

The borders is going digital. Yes, our wee region is going to be the first to have its analogue tv service switched off. The new digital signal promises clearer pictures and a greatly increased number of channels.

Well, it does if you are within range of an appropriate transmitter. Jedburgh isn’t , so it isn’t entirely clear what is going to happen except that people are going to have to start reading books or talking to each other. TV in the bar is supplied by satellite broadcaster SKY tv, so that’s OK, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the bedrooms which currently pick up a terrestrial signal via an aerial in the attic. In a moment of unbridled optimism I installed a “digital ready” aerial so that when DTTV became available I would not need to buy another.
But the little relay mast at the end of the valley isn’t going to be upgraded to digital. I wonder what they will do with it.
Talking of digital, we used to have a cordless phone. It was old, it was analogue, it worked at a distance of 20 metres through several four foot thick stone walls. It stopped working. We bought wizzy digital ones. The base station is in the office. The handsets can’t receive a signal in the dining room which is above the office and through only one wall.
Isn’t technology wonderful?

Financial management

Here’s a story from yesterday’s Herald:
A man was found guilty of embezzling £200,000 from the hotel where he worked as manager. Eventually the hotel lost so much money it was closed down.
The really mind boggling thing about this story is that the money was stolen over five years during which time the owners did not notice. They even gave the guy a £20,000 bonus when he left.

You might be tempted to say “serves them right”. I couldn’t comment really.

Thank you Duncan for your comments on this post. I wouldn’t regard your company as the devil - I just took a booking from them in the middle of writing this. No, that honour goes to another organisation - the forces of darkness (aka “They who shall not be named”) based at Ocean Point One, Edinburgh.