There are no two ways about it, computers are amazing things and help run a small business like ours. From acting as a simple word processor or calculator to the amazing things like websites, electronic mailings and booking systems, computers have become an almost indispensable tool.  Then they crash. Have you got a backup? How will you print the menus. Oh s**t, how will you pay the wages. You can’t collect the e-mail bookings or respond to customer queries.

Fortunately we have a few computers which we use to perform different functions, so if one goes down, it is not a complete disaster. It still takes a bit of sorting out and can use up an awful lot of time. Every time disaster strikes I swear I will be better prepared next time, but the only thing I seem to better at is the swearing!

The August Bank Holiday was great fun and very popular. The weather was such that almost everyone ate outside and joined in, either as spectator or participant, the games that we had put out. Croquet, Coits, Dominoes, Boules, Jenga and our very own homemade Cochonnet in the Pupitre, which turned out to be the most difficult and the most popular. The evening turned out to be busy too, which was a bit embarrassing as we were getting a little bit low on food!  It is really strange how one week we are massively busy and the next, relatively quiet. We call it the communal physche and trust me, it is very difficult to understand, I should have read Physchology at University instead of Agriculture. However, would I then have known how to keep and breed pigs? Hmm, the great imponderables of life!

We also had an interesting wine tasting at the weekend. Interesting because we had mostly Australian wines with one Portuguese and a couple of Chilean and I would say that the Portuguese – Niepoort Vertente 2005 – came out on top. The Ridgeback Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 came a close second and then t was hard to say which was third. All good wines though and a fun evening.

It feels like it is downhill to Christmas now with only about 100 shopping days to go. Frightening really and I am sure there will be plenty happening before the carols and Turkey appear. As you know, we don’t serve Roast Turkey anyway but have great seasonal dishes as we do all year round, but let’s not think about it yet eh?

The Inn is having a little wash and scrub up courtesy of whistling Mark. Well, I say courtesy, we are paying him to do it otherwise I suspect the job might lose a bit of interest for him! However, that is why the pictures are up and down like, er, well pictures I suppose and there is a distinct smell of Dulux, or is it something a bit smarter than that? Judging from the bills that keep coming in, I think he’s using liquid gold!

Talking of liquid gold, we are undergoing a rent negotiation which we have managed to turn into a question of whether we are able to buy the freehold. The trouble is, the owners think that their property is the most valuable asset on their books and we think that it is, well, just a pub. They appear not to have heard about the economic climate and property values and we, well we have! Suffice to say that fairly soon we will either be in hock to the bank for a small fortune or getting on with a tedious rent review.

Whatever it is, we shall retain our sense of humour and continue serving lunch and dinner, plenty of wine and always with Pride!

Cheers

Gerry, Ann and all the gang at The Inn @ West End