Computers!

 Well all I seem to have done this last few days is work on the computer..........either uploading, downloading or  transferring data! Replying to emails, writing e mails, writing a cancellation policy and compiling lists!!! Frankly, all a bit tedious and not overly exciting. One of the most frustrating things was uploading this video (link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkY4h-XYon ) of the 'Old Gaffers' who came to the Victoria to sing last week.  It took close on 5 hours to upload to You Tube!! I thought these things were supposed to be easy................. I've also been playing around with our Victoria Inn website and after a couple of false starts I think I've got the hang of it now!

Anyway what a fantastic evening we all had last week and what great blokes the Old Gaffers are!!  They are all local men and they bill themselves as: Men of the Sea singing Songs of the Sea, and my goodness they did just that. After the event a few of them stayed on and after just a couple of pints started singing again and at gone 10.30 we were all still singing and customers were still walking through the doors! In all of our three years here that evening ranked as one of the best ever and we can't wait to repeat it again and again - here's to the Old Gaffers becoming regular fixtures at the Vic!  

What else? Well half term was an amazing week for trade. We were very, very busy almost every day of the half term break and it was fabulous as usual to see so many old faces coming in to say hello and spend time with us. Consequently, we were both a bit shattered after such a busy week, half term is normally agentle introduction to the season to come, but not so last week!

The weekend was particularly busy with about 80 covers downstairs and a private Birthday party upstairs in our function room for 'Bruce' and 16 of his friends and family. The function room lends itself really well to this type of intimate gathering - good light, great views out over the harbour - and of course great food and service! What more could you want??

Our new 'special' specials board was also a great success last week  with new Lamb and fish dishes flying off the board. You may recall I've talked about ensuring that our main menu reflects a good 'pub grub' approach with dishes for most pockets and tastes. But to run beside that we wanted our 'specials' board to be really special and reflect not only our Chef's James greater cooking talents, but also dishes that are that bit more complex in content and taste and reflect that we can offer a more refined menu as well. You can see the new menu's in full on the Vic's website - http://www.victoriainn-salcombe.co.uk/  On another foodie note, James and I have been mulling over the idea of working with more sustainable fish other than Cod or Plaice etc, so on tonights menu we are trialling Gurnard with sauteed Leeks and Chorizo on crushed Garlic Potatoes - guess what I'm having for Dinner tonight?! 

More work has started today on the garden, this time the very top end of our garden - we are going to transform a dull patch of garden that hardly anyone ever sits in - to a place of nautical interest.......! Boats, ropes and watery artifacts......... You'll just have to wait for the pictures! Better still come and see progress for yourself!

I'm off again this weekend to Portsmouth to see my son and his wife, and as it's the second time I've driven there on my own I'm not feeling so anxious about it and in fact I'm looking forward to it this time - and beter still - the weather forecast is good!!!!   

Just before I finish for todays entry I thought you'd like to see a picture of some of our hardworking staff from last Sunday........... captions on a suitable postcard please!?!



Jessie, Karen and Alex - Great youngsters!




Tanya our second Chef and  the boys: Mattie and little James



Hoorah it's half term

Victoria Inn Frontage

Hoorah it's half term and we're all ready to welcome our guests and give them a great time!

The new spring menu is up and running and wow, it's been given the thumbs up by everyone who's eaten with us - absolutely everything is selling well. The closed sandwiches with new exciting fillings are proving hugely popular especially the Chorizo & Brie and the Crayfish Tails. The Steak & Onion Baguettes are to die for......... they are juicy and full of flavour - it's difficult keeping me away from them!

As for puds - well the Pan Seared Pineapple with Lime & Chilli Ice Cream is amazing.   As well as a great new menu we have an improved 'specials' board and high upon it are Scallops, Monkfish and a wonderful Rack of Lamb with fresh Asparagus at the moment......Crikey, I'm salivating!  

 Other new ideas to look out for at the 'Vic' are firstly, a basket of reading glasses - how often do you get to a pub or a restaurant and you've forgotten your specs (all the time in my case!) well, know we have a basket of reading specs on the bar for you to help you see the menus or papers.  Then if you want to sit out on the terraces right now, well it's still very cold - but we have some really colourful blankets for you to wrap yourself in and enjoy the fresh clean salcombe air. 

Next, my lovely SOH has been working hard , planting up the tubs, and great new boxes we had especially made for the garden - and very nice they're starting to look as well. We also have something really, really exciting going to take shape in our garden,  but until; it's done and looks as fabulous as we think it's going to look it's staying a secret - but I think all of the visitors to our garden will LOVE IT!!!!

 SOH has also been working on the wine lists to make sure that they are reflecting what's popular and what people are drinking - AND - we've also introduced a loyalty card!  You nominate just one item, and that could be a pint, a glass of wine or a Steak meal, but you pay for 9 and we give you the 10th one - COMPLETELY FREE!! Anyone who comes in the Victoria will offered a loyalty card as a way of us saying 'thank you' for their custom.  On the Ales front we have the utterly amazing Admirals Ale on the pumps as a spring 'special'.  I'm especially excited about Thursday 24th February at 8.00p.m - we have our first visit from the OLD GAFFERS!  Devonian Men of the Sea singing singing Sea Songs (try saying that when you've had a few!!)  

The Victoria 's own 'Likely Lads'!

Behind the scenes there's a lot going on as well and here are a couple of boys you'll be unlikely to see 'front of house' but this is Mattie and James - 2 of our kitchen hands who work their socks off ensuring the kitchen works to full capacity, they do most of the prep, cold section and the washing up and clearing down. 

Our lovely Jessie

This young lady Jessie - well you will see her... she's one of our front of house staff and is really great either behind the bar or serving in the restaurant! Always a cheery smile and although quite shy, we think she has great potential in the hospitality business - in fact we're going on a 1 day course together in March (now I can drive I think there'll be more courses to go to!). Jessie is also very talented at writing the blackboards - an art all in itself! Lastly, of course there is James our Executive Chef with his back to the camera - working hard as always making sure that we have enough dishes to satisfy our guests!  So it's off to the bar I go now - see what's going on, check up on the bookings for tonight and the weekend...... Hope we'll see some of you very soon!

Chef James doing what he does best!

The Dash

Since I've been officially sworn in as Church Warden at Holy Trinity Church in Salcombe I have pottered about a bit in the Church, attended a couple of meetings, sat and had informal meetings with Father Daniel our Vicar but not much else yet really, except sadly having to 'look after' two very large funerals for local people. The Verger is the person who does the hard work of getting the Church tidy and ready - tidying and sorting etc - but I had to be around as the 'face' of the Church.  The two funerals I've attended in that capacity were for people who were much loved in Salcombe and who made great contributions to Salcombe as a small town. 

The funeral this week was for a lady called Jean Furness. I only met Jean a handful of times and found her in some respects to be a quite formidable lady - she had a great sense of humour and she was polite to me, but I always felt she was also a little guarded with me.  I suspect that this guardedness was about us being outsiders coming into her beloved Salcombe, but the one thing I think we both had in common was our love of her home town - Salcombe!  As well as a wife and mother she had been a councillor for many years, Vice Mayor and Mayor of the town and was instrumental in homes for local people as well as other important town decision making.  

But until the tributes were read out I was unaware quite what part she'd played in the traditions of Salcombe and it's young peoples welfare. She'd been part of the Regatta committee ( a massive part of Salcombe tradition) since she was a very young girl, and played a huge role in making sure the event happened year in and year out as well as numerous other activities including the local swimming baths and the local Brownies etc.

It got me thinking about what small communities will do as the stalwarts of our communities start to disappear through age and death.  Who will take up the mantle of ensuring that traditions carry on for generations to come. Does anyone care enough to step up to the plate and take on the responsibilities??  My own Church is a very good example of this (as I expect it is up and down the land) the average age of the congregation can't be much under 55 and for tasks around the Church I seem to be calling upon the same people time and time again - for that, I guess we need to look at how we get younger people to attend the Church - but is there that spiritual draw for people? I don't know the answer - do you...??

Anyway, back to the funeral - of course a very sad affair but with a Church absolutely full of people eager to show their love and pay their respects to Jean and to support her grieving family.  I was reasonably detached through out the proceedings until a poem was read out called 'The Dash' by Linda Ellis, which moved me to tears with it's beautiful, simplistic message. 

For me personally, this poem has been a sure sign from God that He is watching over me, as in the last couple of weeks when I've been mulling (short hand for worrying/anxious/stressed!) over various financial, business and personal matters it has put my life completely into perspective - and I'm really grateful that I was able to be at Jeans funeral to hear this poem.    So there is no more in this blog post except for this short poem that I want to share with you, and I hope it moves you to reflect on what your life is and what you can do with your 'Dash'! 

The Dash

by

Linda Ellis 

I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone from the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth and spoke of the following date with tears,

But he said what mattered most of all was the Dash between those years.

For that Dash represents all the time that she spent alive on Earth,

And now only those who loved her know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own, the cars, the house, the cash,

What matter is how we live and love and how we spend our Dash.

So think about this long and hard; Are there things you’d like to change?

For you never know how much time is left that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough to consider what’s true and real

And always try to understand the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more

And love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile,

Remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read with your life’s actions to rehash

Would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your Dash?

Good evening from the Victoria Inn

Good evening blog readers and what I thought was going to be a straight forward normal Sunday evening blog write is anything but as the B*****ds at Google have changed the way you add text and photo's and not told me!!! Hence this is my third attempt and as for photo's?? Well, that's going to be more luck than judgement and all because I have got a new camera and lots of pics to show you!! Growl.............   Why change things when they're working so well......... I just don't get it! And I don't like it either!

OK - moving swiftly on - otherwise you'll think I'm auditioning for Grumpy Old Women! No thank you, I am not quite one of those just yet but I'm sure getting close! 

Firstly, have you seen anything of two great TV programmes on recently - Mary Portas and Michel Roux? Both about customer service in their own way and both quite fabulous! 

Mary shows customer service at its worst and how she would put things right and Michel Roux has taken a bunch of kids who've barely been in any thing other than McDonalds and turned them into good waiting staff with some showing signs of a great career in hospitality.  But he's done it in such a lovely way - no hysterics, no Mr Ramsey swearing episodes and I think even I learnt a lot from the series - and even though I think we're great at customer service here at the Victoria I'm going to try to put some of his ideas in action.  I started today with talking to a customer about Champagnes and then taking a glass to the table (we sell it individually) and going back to check she was happy etc ( ala Michel Roux's sommelier) and really enjoying doing it all a bit more fully! I've even got staff enthused about a different kind of customer 'experience' so watch out for some changes!!

Also I have a new camera thanks to SOH, so I've been out and about happily snapping away....... whether I can get them loaded on here is a different matter tonight! So here goes..........Ah - now I have to load the photos on to the net to load them on to the blog! Ah well - I have  nothing else to be doing..... so then, here are some of my first offerings!    

The gentleman here is Mr Smith MBE - known to all as Smee! He had a very prestigious Lifeboat career here in Salcombe and is a thoroughly nice man - photo taken obviously in the Victoria Inn bar. Great character and it was him who supplied the tractor for our wedding.  The scenic one is of Salcombe 'bar' this week, the entrance to the Estuary - very wet, very windy, very wild and fantastic - Salcombe at it's best as far as I'm concerned. Lastly our little dogs: Rosie and Archie, both under 18 months and harder work than any child alone!! But we love them to death!  The photo at the top is of our great sign outside the pub.  

That's it for tonight - putting those 4 photo's on has taken me the best part of 30 minutes, loss of temper, a bar of chocolate and a glass of wine!!!! Hopefully next time will be easier.......................Night night all. X  

Introducing Captain Morgans

Just a quick blog tonight to let you know I've started a second blog - I know I can hear you - where do I get the time!!! I have to make the time to advertise our business's and blogging is a great way to do it! Plus, I think the Pub Landladys blog is getting a bit crowded with all the things I have/want/need to write about.......... hence the new blog: http://captainmorgans-salcombe.blogspot.com/

This new blog is all about our other business Captain Morgans - the breakfast cafe over the road from the Victoria.

I hope you like it and will follow it.................... I will write another exciting episode on the Pub Landlady's Life hopefully tomorrow! But for tonight, I need to go and sit down and let my dinner go down - I cooked for a change and it's nearly always calorie laden, tonight, was no real exception to that!!

Night all x

Wine House of the Year 2010

That's right - we've won another award!! Not just us but all our wonderful staff as well! That's right, at the St Austell Tribute Estate awards (held at the Great Western Hotel in Newquay - very nice as well if you're ever in that neck of the woods!) last week we were delighted to find we had been short listed for 2 awards again this year - Marketing & Innovation (which we won last year) and Wine House of the Year - which we were shortlisted for last year but didn't win.

We were both really excited to see our shortlisting again this year (but soh who keeps my feet on the ground where he can!) advised caution against getting too excited........... the Marketing and Innovation came and went, and I sort of settled myself into the mindset of not being disappointed. This year the Wine House of the Year had 2 runners up - and when our name wasn't read out, I was almost sure we hadn't got it - needless to say when our name WAS read out - was I demure and gently pleased?? Hell NO!!! I let out a big whooop of delight and grinned from ear to ear!!

The award is a great for all of us at the Victoria Inn - it is judged on display, sales, knowledge etc and our staff certainly know their stuff when it comes to selling our wines so I am as pleased for them as I was for us........ it's a great all round achievement! The main picture is of us with Kathryn from the wine department at St Austell and Charles from De Castelnau - the sponsors of the award, and the smaller picture is of our friend Jim on the stage reading out the awards.

We were awarded a beautiful crystal trophy, a magnum of Champagne from De Castelnau, a weekend in Champagne later this year and a substantial monetary award - which I'm sure we will put too good use!

Of course, I stayed reasonably sober for the rest of the event.........(!) and I'm sure I must have eaten something that disagreed with me and made me feel so unwell for the next 2 days (coughs very loudly from SOH behind me as I say that!!). Needless to say, the last hour or so the evening are just a little tiny bit blurred....... :)

So then that's January and all of it's excitement almost over and done with - and my goodness, what a great month trading wise we have had.......... even today, when it's been freezing cold and blowing an absolute gale we have done almost 90 covers in the lunch hour! Without doubt our best January since we started here in Salcombe, and I'm absolutely sure it's down to the 2 new big hotel's that have opened here - The Marine Hotel and South Sands. Both great hotels, attracting the sort of visitors to them that are our type of visitor and the whole town feeling a boost because of it! Hoorah!!

Our bookings for the Hobbit House are coming in quite fast so far and February is fully booked up with a couple of workmen here doing some work on the Estuary, so all told, a good start to the year!

James (our Head Chef) and I have been working hard the last couple of weeks at introducing a Spring menu as I want to move away from just 2 new menu's a year to 4. This time we're also moving away from the open sandwiches to closed - but fantastic choices (Chorizo & Brie and Roast Beef & Creamed Horesradish to name 2 new ones) and also to a smaller main menu but more varied 'specials'. Great puds as always - Pan seared Pineapple with Cracked Black Pepper and White Chocolate & Raspberry Mousse to tickle your fancy amongst others, and we've desperately tried to keep the prices down as far as possible whilst having to work with the blessed VAT rise!

The new menu's come in on the 10th February - just in time for the half term, so it'll be interesting to see what our visitors think...............??

What does this week bring us then? Well, I think we're going to the EXPO 2011 show at Exeter - a trade show that's always worth a look round - with lots of free samples of all sorts of things as well as food tasting - memo to self: Pace yourself this year!! Remember that too much Ice Cream is a bad idea!! Then we may have to do a bit of cover at Captain Morgans because of staff changes and holidays etc - that might be a bit of fun as well! 2nd memo to self - Bacon Sarnies are lovely, but again - you can have too much of a good thing!!

Talking of food I've got my head back into gear about eating healthily and doing some exercise again - I have this great app on my IPhone which gets me walking and running, but the biting winds the last couple of days have hindered me somewhat, but I'm not getting too anxious about it - I know I can do it, just need the better weather really!

The following week my little Betsy is going to have to go to Smart for a bit of a once over - a most peculiar burning rubber smell from her engine every now and then (which is at the back of the car!) so as I'm off to Portsmouth again at the beginning of March I thought I should get her looked at in good time! I'm already at the stage of wondering how on earth I ever managed with out being able to drive and have a car, it already feels so natural to be able to zip here there and everywhere! I do hope they look after her............................

Till next time lovelies x

What an exciting January

What an exciting January it's been! Following on from our big staff party was my first solo drive to Portsmouth to see my son.....(one of the really good reasons for learning to drive!) I'm not going to lie and say it was a total breeze because it wasn't - especially at the beginning!!!

I pulled in to the first available bus stop out of Salcombe and gave myself a right good talking to. The nerves of steel that propelled me through the lessons and the test deserted me at the last minute as the realisation of driving that distance alone and new to driving suddenly belted me across the head! My plan was to drive to Totnes and then round to Dartington and join the dual carriage way as far away as possible so I could be on it the least possible time! Then stay in the left lane all the way there never moving from that position for love nor money..........Mmm wonder why on earth I thought that!

So after the severe mental thrashing I gave myself, I set off proper..... and guess what? Just like on loads of other occasions the nerves disappeared and I drove like I'd been born to do it. The plan of sticking to the left lane didn't last long as I actually wanted to overtake, couldn't be sitting behind someone poodling along at 50mph...... and it was ok! I could do it. The more I did it the easier I realised it was.......... well, almost - until a very large Jaguar car that wasn't there was there as I started to move out! Oops...... but a good natured smile from the driver indicated he didn't think I was a complete moron!! I thought I was, but he didn't!! I also didn't like the heavy and dense fog patches I entered near Dorset way nor did I like the gusts of wind that I thought threatened to send me and my Betsy flying and resulted in very sweaty palms and a few words in His ear to please stop these extra tests on my nerves!

Then there was the slip road turning to a loo that didn't appear to be anywhere near where it should have been that resulted in a couple of miles detour - oh and lets not forget the fiasco that was the M & S at Exeter services which I completely missed and went round the roundabout in a complete circle!!!

But apart from that, it gave me a huge sense of achievement to be able to drive that distance, and then to also drive around my hometown - not only a sense of achievement, but also one of sadness at may be if I could have driven sooner doors would have opened to me in my career, I could have taken my darling Mum out and about, etc etc........ But I've done it now, so the next time can only be easier still. Since then, I've been out and about loads in Betsy - taking the dogs to the local beaches, using any excuse to do friends favours and generally just enjoying my new found freedom. Not tooooooo keen on driving with SOH though..................!

So a lovely short break with my boy and his wife, and also a delightful catch up at Brasserie Blanc at Gunwharf with an old friend of mine Pam. The first real catch up since our wedding last year and lots of 'do you remembers' and memories I'd completely forgotten. Pam and I shared a couple of great holidays together so there were lots of good times to recall.

But the most exciting news of all has to be our latest award - we won Wine House of the Year from the St Austell Tribute awards evening last week - and I'll blog again soon with photo's and details! I've aslo got my pre-summer break sorted - Greece!!

Till then good blog readers, keep smiling - the month of January is nearly gone!!