Ethelred the unready

Will I never learn? Nobody booked in on Monday night and no bookings for dinner. So I told the waitress to take the night off since, in the unlikely event of a stray chance guest coming in I’d be able to cope fine with both cooking and waiting.

I was up in Edinburgh again to see Mum in hospital and got back late (roadworks at the city bypass). Almost on the stroke of six, two folk turned up looking for a room.

Followed by two looking for dinner

Followed by two looking for a room

Followed by one looking for dinner

Followed by the two who had booked in coming for dinner

Followed by one looking for a room… and dinner

All of this happened in the space of fifteen minutes. It got a bit frantic

but I managed.

just…

No dinner tomorrow.

At a premium

Ann Miller (who?) called us today asking for prices for our rooms. She said that her internet connection wasn’t working - could we fax or phone her with prices?

Well, we could, but we aren’t going to…

…and the reason (as lots of other accommodation providers will already know) is that both numbers supplied have the 0872 prefix which, while not a top rate premium number is still firmly in the scam category.

That’s probably the mildest form of scam around, but there are plenty others with exiled Nigerian princes in touch every second day. Granddaddy of them all is the Swiss CD-ROM scam which arrives with monotonous regularity every six months or so. Postmarked Lucerne it describes itself as a european tourist directory distributed on CD. In large print at the top it encourages you to fill in your details for free addition to their directory and in much, much smaller print at the bottom it mentions that doing so will commit you to paying them 970 Euros for the next three years. I bet it’s run by lawyers! Best advice is to screw it in a ball and throw it in the bin.

Changeable

There’s a joke about British weather to the effect that, if you don’t like it wait five minutes and it’ll have changed.That’s certainly been the case for the past week where we’ve had brilliant sunshine at 5am (thank you Frances) followed by jet black skies and torrential rain at eight.
I was in Edinburgh today to see my Mum who’s been in hospital for a fairly major operation. She gets out next week and is coming down here for a few weeks to recover. Fortunately Wimbledon’s on so she has something to take her mind off things.
Back at the hotel and we have seven folk in. We almost had another four, but they’ve “gone to think about it” and we all know what that means! No early breakfasts, but an early baby will probably make up for it.

Employees and their little ways…

We’ve been a little short staffed since Gillian left to have her baby and a month or so ago another staff member handed in her notice. She was never the most… erm, dedicated of employees, but in the last week or two she became decidedly unreliable. She was on holiday the week before she left and was due back to work on Monday evening. So she texted another staff member to tell them that her flight was delayed and she wouldn’t be back in time for her shift. Miraculously she was spotted just half an hour later in Jedburgh High Street.

On Saturday at 3.30 in the afternoon she phoned in sick. Fortunately I had been forewarned that she was going to do this and had set up tables and done a lot more prep than usual. That left me with five diners to cook and wait on, not to mention having done breakfast and a six hour bar shift first. The following day (her last shift) she simply didn’t show up. I’d have been very surprised if she had done and served another four happy diners (and breakfast and the six hour bar shift of course).

The thing is - she’s actually done us a favour. I wouldn’t have attempted to do both cooking and waiting unless I’d been forced into it and it means that, providing we have small numbers of diners and can space them reasonably, I can do both at least some of the time. It also means that no waiting staff is a nuisance rather than a disaster.

There’s been a big youth golf tournament on and the hotel has been full of youthful golfers (or possibly golfing youths). It’s been a busy weekend and it’s not even half way through yet. I’m cooking/waiting again tonight, but I don’t expect anyone in since the weather’s grim and most of the residents have other plans.

We did some interviewing last week and now have a new member of staff who will be starting on Tuesday. Hurrah!

Summer evenings

At the risk of tempting fate I have to say that this summer’s been pretty good so far. The boiler shed is gone and the evening sun in the beer garden prompted me to take this rather lovely shot along the vennel…

The beer garden was well used last weekend. This weekend everyone’s at the Hawick common riding so it’s empty. Ten folk in tonight, 14 for the rest of the week. 7.30 breakfasts - Ack!

Farne away

We don’t sell a lot of real ale, so we normally get it delivered in half kegs called pins. We had a brand new one ready to go at lunchtime today…

and gone it is. All 36 pints of it. We have eight walkers staying with us and, as walkers are inclined to do, they wired into the ale with vim and vigour. There are two new pins that arrived today but they’re not ready yet. I’m reduced to drinking Kronenbourg for goodness sake!
Still, it’s been quite busy. We had 13 dinners - 8 residents and 5 chance - which kept Charlie busy. I’ve got eight early breakfasts tomorrow so I’d better catch up on sleep. This might not be easy though as Miz Frances is teething which results in wailing and gnashing of gums at unsociable times of the morning. Rending of garments may be involved too, but I can’t be sure.