What weather.........ugh!

Its late Saturday night almost early Sunday morning and I'm sitting in the office typing this as the rain is absolutely belting down outside...... to look out of the window you'd think it was winter! It has to be something to do with us having purchased a huge BBQ grill for the garden!!

Seriously - it's been the most awful day here in Salcombe - but my goodness the pub has been absolutely packed out! We were fully booked upstairs (private function - walkers!!) and downstairs by mid afternoon today - at tea time here there was not a spare space to be had.... incredible! Oh look, can I have a quick rant while we're on the subject of no spare spaces - we advertise free wi-fi access....... great! But where do we say 'oh and while you're at it - please feel free to plug your laptop into our electricity' and free access means you can just pitch up and not buy a drink - or if you do buy a drink it's a half of coke between 3....... arghhhhhhhh!!! Oh well, thank goodness that sort of customer is few and far between!

Oh yes, and then my second rant (go on, be gracious - let me rant!) was the letter to the Telegraph from a woman who wanted to talk about 'anti-social behaviour' in Salcombe at 2 in the morning when pubs have turned out - I couldn't let that go by could I??? Oh no - I fired off a letter to the Telegraph - and blimey, they printed it - AND, almost in it's entirety!! It was really bizaare and totally surreal to hear a customer reading it out in the pub this morning! I actually hid round the corner, I didn't want to hear what they said about me - now I wish I had!!!

Talking of anti-social behaviour - I was in Pompey at the weekend and me and my mate Tanya went out on the Saturday night - best frocks etc for a bit of a wander and a boogie......... oh my goodness, it was all a bit grim! I saw more tattoo's (on women!) in one night than I've seen in the whole time I've been in Salcombe - and I never knew that lycra could stretch as far as I saw it stretch in far too many cases to be pleasant!!! In one of the clubs we ended up in (for the total price of a tenner!) you got plastic glasses for a bottle of water (me!) and yet glass bottles of Bud etc for the drunken young men - bizaare!! In the end we were just giggling at the sheer awfullness of it all.

Last rant of this blog - it's sooooooo good to get it out of my system, much cheaper than therapy...... what is it with customers that they find it so difficult to say please and thank you - and one of my girls was raging tonight at a customer in the bar (not of course to their face) who kept saying'what' instead of pardon!! Then David, one of my bar staff was appalled at the state of the pub when a couple of large parties left this afternoon - he wants to be a publican himself so I'm making sure he knows not just the nice bits about the job but wharts and all........so there's been a fair bit of ranting today - glad it's not just me!! lol...... But what I really love about this job, is that the really great customers far outnumber the ones who aren't so great - and today, (despite my rants) we have had some really nice people in - particularly the walkers upstairs as a private function tonight. Many came in late afternoon absolutely drowned.... bless 'em and I was really proud of Rea and Leah who looked after them tonight - my A Team at their best!! Another lovely family were in tonight and the dad had looked at our website and read my blog when he booked for tonight - their boys were so cute and incredibly polite!!

So there we have it - p'ing down with rain and we have the mother of all bbq's to put up in the garden, with a fence round it etc, etc.......... so SOH has got to pull his finger out and get this sorted as we start the bbq week after next! Menu's are ready to rock - I'll be putting them on the website shortly. New crockery ordered - most of it in the store. New whites for the boys as they'll be on public display (gawd help us!) and SOH down to cook bbq 2 nights a week. Please, please, please let us have a good summer......................

Thats about it I think - I'm hoping to get up early tomorrow to go to church, it's family service and there's always such a nice feel to that. I think work starts soon on the church to modernise it a little - a glass wall at the back of the church, and then meeting room / counselling room and kitchen etc to a newly created upstairs. Next Sunday I'm being confirmed with other by the Bishop of PLymouth and also a sort of top up baptism... as although I'm sure I've been christened, I've no living relative who can actually confirm that I have been!?! So, the Bishop will do a sort of top up , just in case! :)

I have been praying an awful lot lately - and you know what, I think He's listening! Now then God - about the summer................. X