Last Blog for a little while!

Fear not, I'm not giving up on you darlings but I have a celebratory milestone birthday coming up and after much deliberation (party, slap up meal, hibernation, face lift!) we have decided to take ourselves off to India and see sights and hear sounds I've only every dreamt of!

Very excited I am too............the jabs have been had (flip me no one said the Typhoid jab would be SOOOO painful!)

Boots the Chemist have been emptied of hand wipes, bum wipes, immodium, rehydrate, paracetamol, savlon, packets of tissues, rennies, anti bite etc etc!! Every time I go over to Boots in Fore Street Salcombe I'm sure they think I've turned into some sort of paranoid neurotic with a very bad stomach!

The camera is fired up with a spare battery, visas have been sought and granted, the spare room slightly resembles a small section of a department store! Paperwork has been checked, re-checked and checked just once more for good luck!

In the meantime the team at the Vic will be ever so slightly (!) received when we finally go as there is a limit to how many times they will patiently listen to me checking with them the 'things to do', 'where to find.........', who to 'phone if..........', 'what to do if...............'!!

SOH has even been seen to be writing his own 'things to do' list - but thats a list no where near as big as my what to pack list! It seems like it's going to be between 32 in Delhi to 19 in the hills of Shimla - so a mix of clothes and shoes and oh my, what shall I be able to leave out so that I'm not over the weight limit??

I'll be back in a few weeks (Older!) with a whole load of photo's, memories and stories, in the meantime our lovely girls and boys at the Vic will be there to look after you and probably give you an update if t'internet is readily available over there.......................

Lots of love


Liz xxx 

Happy Birthday to Us!!!

So today 1st October is the first birthday of Tim & I being at the Victoria Inn........ and what a fantastic year it's been.

Firstly - we want to say a big thank you to St Austell for believing that we were the right people for this lovely pub....... St Austell brew really great ales, and we have no trouble selling them.

The people who make up the St Austell brewery itself are great - Jim our Area Manager has been a huge support to us, a helping hand for when we first came in and everything was so new - to now - supporting us with our ideas and plans, reigning us (me) in where needed and offering thoughts and suggestions of his own.

The tele sales people who take our twice weekly orders, and never even seem to mind when they get me fumbling over an order rather than SOH who reels it off (!). The dray men who deliver the goods in all sorts of weathers, (and sometimes it must be back breaking work ) and make sure that all is left in good order in the cellar - again - particularly on the rare occasions when it's me that see's the dray in! Big thanks to the maintenance department for their input into the maintenance jobs involved in keeping a pub the size of the Victoria going, and a huge thank you to all the other staff we'll often hardly meet - but we know go in to making the St Austell Brewery a great place.

Secondly, massive big thanks must go to the people of Salcombe who have from day 1 made us so very welcome, so many of those who were strangers in our first few weeks but who are now regular customers and indeed friends - far too many to name individually - but between you, you've made SOH and I feel like we've lived here for years. To all the holidaymakers we've met once or twice to those who now come in on a very regular basis throughout the year - when it's like meeting old friends!

Thirdly and almost lastly, thanks go to our oldest closest friends and our families who we see so little of nowadays, but who continue to keep in touch one way or another - phone calls are often long and visits are cherished. For me personally - it's been a strange old year - a few trauma's one way and another, not the best of health sometimes, a couple of hard bouts of 'home' sickness - particularly in the early days when I missed not being able to just walk a short distance and see my son, and then the whole change of routine from a local government day job with normal hours, routine and a way of life I'd known for so very long...........to being a PUB LANDLADY!

But lastly and really importantly, I'd like to say thank you to my SOH - Tim...... he's looked after me through this life changing event, he's held my hand, laughed me through it and handed me the tissues on the days it all got too much. I love you my scrumptious other half............

So - if you're around tonight any time after 7'ish - pop in and say hello, we're putting on a small bash just to say Happy Birthday and thank you to everyone for what has been for both of us the most fantastic year in our most fantastic home - the VICTORIA INN.