Not long now.............

Till it's all over that is! What?? Oh sorry, the 'Season'!!  What a weird one its been as well........ You can see that many of the visitors are watching their pennies - here at the Victoria we can gauge it by a few things:

NO amount of the bottles of Champagne being sold as there was in our first year
Nowhere near the amount of 'doubles' being asked for
Nowhere near the amounts of Cokes/J20's etc being sold for the children - but lots and lots of jugs of tap water................. 
Our St Austell ales are going well though as are the more reasonable wines etc, but very few customers are having 3 courses - lots of 2 courses or sharing desserts. I'm really glad that I won the battle with Chef to keep our food prices at a reasonable level - although having said that the Lobster and dressed Crab, both a good price have been selling really well! The next challenge will be to get the Autumn/Winter menu's right, both in content and price - so if you have Victoria Inn favourites you'd like to see on the menu PLEASE tell me!   

The Hobbitt House has been fully booked all of August and looks set to do the same for September, and yet no takers for our November special deal of £50 a nt for a minimum 2 night break. Having said all of that we are almost booked out for NEXT July already.............

On another note Archie and Rosie become firm favourites of our Hobbit guests and just recently 2 delightful ladies who stayed with us for a week took them out for very long walks on a couple of occasions - look at the pictures of 2 very happy dogs and enjoy the enjoyment on their faces after a fantastic afternoon on the beach............. !  

Miss Betsy Smart

Here she is - the latest addition to our household - Miss Betsy Smart! At around about 8ft 8ins long and nowhere near as wide, she's just under 3 years old and has only done 22,000 miles. She's a gorgeous jet black polished exterior and inside she's a fabulous orange / red. Of course - 'she's' a car, and she's all mine!!!!! When we went to Mercedes Benz showroom in Exeter last week we met with the Manager - Jo. A lovely young man and very enthusiastic about his job and getting the right car for the person concerned - namely me!

I was drawn between Betsy and a bright yellow Smart (oh and a metallic blue one as well) - but the yellow one had peculiar chevron things as adornments and I thought that while I'm bright and bubbly, the yellow was a bridge too far. As soon as I sat on Betsy's seat and felt her warmth envelop me - I was truly in love............! Just have to pass the test now - well actually, have to do a few more lessons now as well........ but only one more proper manoeuvre to learn and then out on the dual carriageway - eek!!! Then it'll be a case of practice, practice and more practice - but I've been learning about visualisation and positive thought with a good friend and I think that's really helped. How about this for a saying (amongst others): If you think you can - you will........................ not bad eh! Works for me!!

Then this other photo is of my gorgeous son at our wedding in March - he only sent me it a little while ago - and I just wanted to share it with you! Handsome bloke don't you think......???

What else - well the workouts continue at a pace, in fact a singularly splendid session yesterday surprised me for just what I have achieved and what I can do now. The weight loss has come to a bit of a standstill, so I'm having a break for a week or two and then crack back on with it.

Talking about having a break - we're all of on our hols on Saturday - to Wales for a week and lo! What is that I can hear on the forecast? Rain! Surely not in Wales................laughing aloud as I type!!! Of course it'll bloody rain - not that I give a hoot! We've hired a cottage in deepest darkest proper Wales - where Welsh is spoken first, last and at all times I think (looking at the websites) where we look as though we're in the middle of fields with no neighbours, no phone signal and only a stream and grass to keep us company - BLISS!!!!! We've both bought lots of books - I have a self help book from my trainer (to help my head - AND my body), a 'Put Heads on your Beds' book (to increase profits) and a couple of girly books (to send me to sleep). Lots of DVD's, a bottle of Gin (purely night cap stuff!) a list of things to take for the dogs and hey hey - we're off............Well almost - there's walking boots, trainers, posh shoes, ordinary boots - then there's wet weather gear, dry weather gear, linen trousers just in case, thick dressing gown and thin dressing gown, one set of 'posh' clothes just in case and lots of sloppies for the more obvous Welsh delights! Mmmnnn - and thats just me - SOH will probably just have the usual one small holdall................

So on Saturday morning as we head off into the sunrise on only our second proper holiday TOGETHER since we met, I'll leave all thoughts of Salcombe and Modbury and everywhere else behind, all in the capable hands of our Chef, James and the rest of our wonderful staff safe in the knowledge it'll all be looked after and here to come home to, too start all over again.

Canfod 'ch mewn wythnosau amsera x

Here is Archie..........

And ain't he blooming gorgeous!!!!!!!!!! Archie is the latest edition to our family - he's an 8 week old cockerpoo, the same breed as our darling Rosie (but from different parents). You must know what I'm like by now.... if I want something, I want it now. So we (sorry, I) went from talking about another puppy to looking on the Internet to getting Archie from a lovely couple in Lostwithiel, Cornwall in about 5 days flat!! Tim was wearing the air of a man who knew he was beat, but he is the one who now can't stop playing with Archie and cuddling him.

Its been a fantastic few days as Rosie and Archie get to know each other - you can almost see the conversations in their heads,

From this on the first day:

Rosie: WTF is this.................??

Archie: OMG I'm scared - I want my Mummy....what is this huge black thing panting and slobbering all over me???

To this on the second day:

Rosie: Will you stop trying to hang off my ears and for Gods sake boy - I'm not your Mother so move away from my belly!

Archie: I'm not scared of you, you big bully - now, where does the milk come from you??

Its been sooooo funny to watch them having power struggles over the toys and also trying to get affection in equal measures, but what is just breathtakingly fabulous is Archie was crying and yapping today, because he was stuck halfway up the stairs and Rosie was straight there to see what the matter was..... ohhhhhhhhhhhh!! AND, they curl up asleep together on the settee's!!! Double ohhhhh...

So life in the Hore household is far from normal right now - in fact so NOT normal is it, I was up at just gone 6 this morning and witnessed the most beautiful sunrise!! Consequently, I was half asleep this afternoon......

Business wise, the Victoria Inn has had a great 3 weeks trading over this prolonged Easter break and we look forward now to the May holidays. The garden has been very well used this weekend as the weather has been glorious, and we have had very favourable comments on our re-styling of the garden - the awning, the new steps and now some new garden furniture. You might notice a few problems with the web site over the next couple of weeks, but I'm taking this opportunity to get it re-vamped when the White Hart Hotel website is developed!

We had a'celeb' in our garden this week - and it was really quite funny because I wouldn't have recognised him had he not been pointed out to me..... it was Ben Shepherd from GMTV with his family. I was talking to his wife and children mostly - getting lollipops and feeding the chickens with them (as I do with all children!!) and it was only afterwards that my giggling, swooning girls told me who he was! It's just as well these celebs don't like a lot of fuss isn't it......!! I have to recognise them first!!

Back to business, our latest venture the White Hart Hotel is moving ahead at a brisk pace - the builders are on site tomorrow and last week SOH and I ran 2 evening courses. I did one on customer service and SOH did legislation, serving drinks in general and the 'perfect serve' - that's the way to present a perfect drink - proper branded glasses, ice, fresh cut fruit etc etc etc! Seems like we have a great team, they were very interested and enthusiastic, and we are all very excited to be opening in 2 weeks.......... yes, that's right, 2 weeks!! Goodness knows how we're ever going to be ready, but we will.

Right now though, I have to go - Archie is terorrising Rosie behind my chair as I sit typing and the yapping and barking is giving me an 'eadache..........................