Another year over

Frances and her support staff would like to wish all our customers, friends and blog readers a very happy New Year

Twas the night before Christmas

and all through the hotel…

Nothing was stirring, especially not Frances.

Until bath time anyway.
We’re closed for three days to have Christmas with the family. For a special treat I’ll be doing Christmas lunch for 10. Happy Christmas to all our readers.

Food glorious food

We’re anxious to try it… but it looks as though Daddy is too busy posing for the camera to bother. We’d better ask Mum instead…

That’s better!

What’s in a name?

The General Register Office has just published a list of the 100 most popular girls and boys names for 2007. Frances comes in at number…

In fact Frances isn’t on the list at all. That’s maybe understandable since there aren’t any famous Frances on tv or in films. We just chose it because we liked it. Frances’ middle name Jean doesn’t feature either. This is the family connection – it was Lorna’s grandmother’s name and it’s my mum’s middle name. Both sets of relatives kept happy!

Cold again in Jed. It was well below freezing all day yesterday and today feels much the same. We have a meeting booked for the residents lounge and, as a special treat I’m going to get the woodstove going. How many conference rooms have a woodstove? All this and tea and coffee too!

Recipe of the day: Coffee fudge.

Well, it had to be coffee if I was making it!

300ml milk
550g sugar
100g butter
45ml coffee essence (I use espresso)

Put everything except the coffee in a pan, heat gently til it all melts and bring to the boil. Boil covered for 2 mins then uncover and boil a bit more vigorously until the temperature reaches 116C.

Cool for a couple of minutes then add the coffee. Put in the bowl of the Kenwood and beat it like mad until it sets.

That’s roughly what the recipe says. In fact the stuff goes from very runny to completely solid so quickly that you have to pay attention.  For a first attempt I’m quite pleased with it. I’ll try chocolate truffles today if there’s time. We may even give them to guests with their coffee.

If you can’t stand the cold

It’s four degrees this morning! “Big deal” I hear you say. “That’s not so cold, get back inside and start cooking breakfast”.

That’s the thing – I am inside. I’m in the kitchen which was created from scratch last year and therefore complies with all current legislation. Part of said legislation is the requirement for n air changes per hour (where n is a large positive integer) and this means that part of the window is taken up with an air intake.

Outside it is six below zero.

And it’s beer line cleaning day. Or rather it’s “damn I forgot to do the beer lines on Friday, didn’t have time on Saturday and slept until 11.30 on Sunday” day.  This involves flushing the lines with water, filling them with cleaning solution and then flushing again with clean water.

The cellar is outside the back door. I am not looking forward to this.

Meanwhile little Miss Frances is ensuring that we have our hands full and our eyelids half closed. Sleep? Who needs it!

The cavalry arrives

In the shape of Bron and Graham, Lorna’s parents. They flew in on Tuesday which was when Frances would have appeared if she had been reading the script. They have busied themselves doting over their granddaughter (their first grandchild) and helping around the hotel to allow us a little breathing space.

Not that it’s busy. Although New Year is booked up to the roof and has been for some time, this week is quiet and I even managed time to replace the wireless station in the attic which got fried by a mains spike a few months ago. There are now three wireless stations in the building giving fairly good overall  coverage.

Duncan, thanks for your comments and congratulations! I spent a few minutes yesterday talking my father in law through the booking procedure so that I could grab a couple of hours sleep. I finished by saying that there were unlikely to be any bookings in the next couple of hours. When I woke Graham had taken a booking… from L**terooms no less!