Thats it then!

All over, done and dusted for yet another year............. Hope you all had a great night celebrating the New Years arrival? We had a great time here at the Victoria Inn, fantastically full - I think we fed in excess of 50 and with the Old Gaffers and Alan Dark, Magician for entertainment. Eventually got to bed and asleep about 2.30 so not too bad really, but could have done with a longer lay in on New Years days:(   After a relatively poor run up to Christmas trade wise we were certainly surprised and delighted to see so many people descend on Salcombe from Boxing Day onwards - so many lovely old friends and new faces who became friends. The usual dramas on the day before NY eve of the blooming drains becoming blocked! What would my life be like without the drains in Salcombe to give me sleepless nights! Salcombe just can't cope with these old drains and sudden influxes of people and also all the rainwater........... but thanks to a lovely on call 'jetter' he found and sorted the problem really quickly. Then bless me if the lights didn't fuse on NY day for the ladies loo's - but again, thanks to the lovely Steve Doyle electrician the problem was soon sorted!

Lee and David

So then, 2012 and it's onwards and upwards and I'd like to introduce you to 2 of our newer full time permanent staff -  Lee Flynn and David Gravett (purple shirt). David has worked on and off with us for some time now, but November last year he joined us as a permanent full time front of house member of staff. He's already done some formal training with the St Austell brewery and because of exams he's passed he's now entitled to apply for his own personal license. A lovely young man with a great skill for serving customers and adapting his style to the very different types of customers we have, he's going to be a huge asset to the team. He also has a wickedly dry sense of humour and is well liked by all the team.

Lee Flynn is our new Assistant Manager and he will also be our live - in manager when we (eventually) move into our new little house. Lee has a well travelled background and is fluent in Spanish - which may come in handy as more and more overseas visitors seem to be coming to Salcombe. He has a great background in the hospitality trade and even better he is a local lad. Another one with a lively but dry sense of humour and he's proving to be great with customers, Lee has settled in fast and is already popular and a great part of our team.  We're delighted to have 2 such lovely young men working with us and we are both sure that the contributions they are making to our business will continue to enhance what we're trying to achieve.
We also had a couple of our summer staff come back at Christmas to work young Alex and Sam, and hopefully they will return at Easter and Summer as well.  Already we have one eye towards what we are sure will be a busy summer - Olympics and Royal celebrations - and how we can maximise our offering to the customer and go on to bigger and better things.

Personally I start this new year with a chest infection, but hopefully I've caught it in the early stages and it will pass as soon as possible - but for the time being I'm taking a few days off to get over it.

Road works have started in Salcombe with parts of the main street being closed off for up to 8 weeks - so we expect bedlam!!! I'm off to put my feet up now................see you all again soon.