Visitors from another time

Cath Smibert and daughter Dianne have arrived from Canada with assorted aunts. Cath and husband Charlie owned the Spread between 1956 and 1964 and Dianne grew up here, leaving when she was 8. They're here for 3 days and it's going to be interesting hearing how the place has changed since they were here. There were customers then for one thing. We're working on that.

By a curious coincidence, another ex-Spread inhabitant has come to light through a mutual friend. Mary Walker also grew up here, leaving in 1949. She's in Edinburgh and intends to come down next month.

Faces in the crowd

Every Saturday: Biff, Donald, Doddie, Jake, Stewart, Roy, John, Violet and Jim, Johnny

Every other day: John, Gordon, Peggy, Ryan, Brian, Graham Bell

Occasional: James, Brenda, John Clarke, Dawna, Carol, Wullie, Alan, Roberta, Graham

Saturday night: Robert and the rest of the Jedforest second team, lots of spotty boys and scantily clad girlies who claim to be 18, at least until we ask them for ID.

Let's look at this list again in 5 years time and see what's happened.

Another evening off?

Yes, well after wailing plaintively that running your own business means not having any time off, I went to an organ recital in Hexham Cathedral; part of the Hexham festival which L**** spotted on line. The pieces being played were Widor's 5th and 6th "symphonies" and since we got married to the strains of the 6th, it was required listening.

I stayed in the Hexham Royal Hotel, an early Victorian brick edifice which, like the Spread Eagle, needs a bit of renovation. Unlike the Spread, it's already received some upgrading - the rooms are big, reasonably well decorated and the bathrooms are enormous!

And the recital was good. Hexham abbey has a good acoustic, a good organ and, on this occasion two good organists.

Owowowowow!

Opposable thumbs: a great invention, and at present I've only got one. I had a hack on my right thumb and didn't cover it up properly. It's infected and sore now and I've got a week of antibiotics. Cooking breakfast without a working right hand is difficult, though not impossible.

Time

We've been reading Julie Morgenstern's book "time management from the inside out" which, funnily enough is all about how to manage your time. We need this. Our office is overflowing with malignant forms and bits of paper. The routine stuff, paying bills, ordering stuff gets done, but we need a way to plan our strategy for a longer term than til the end of next week.

Part of the problem is our different ways of working. L**** is a self confessed control freak. I apparently are happiest when in crisis management. I'd always thought that this was a bad thing, but Morgenstern says it's just a different way of working. It may be due to my previous employment, or just inbuilt. I like to be busy, but there's a danger that you may be so busy "being busy" that you don't get anything done. It's a good book and I recommend it even if you're not involved in running a business.

Evening off

We don't usually get evenings off together, so it was nice to spend the evening listening to a local choir singing Vivaldi and Handel. Singing it very nicely too.

It's quiet today, but then it is Monday and the weather's grim (my A board has blown over twice). Five guests and some folk in the bar. Staff from 6 til 10. There will be many more days like this before the year's out!

Seasons in the sun

The tourist board thinks that the season is over. It's winter now apparently. While the weather seems to agree, we were full again last night. Mostly English visitors now, the Dutch, German and Scandinavians seem to only appear in July and August.

There are some noises off from the project management team, so maybe it's time to check out the renovations blog which hasn't been posted to since the end of June because there haven't been any renovations (apart from R** with his roll of wallpaper and glue patching where the old radiators were removed)

Rugby

I went to my first rugby match at Riverside on Saturday. Pretty good match even with my limited understanding of the rules of the game. Jedforest beat GHA 37 - 14 with Jed scoring 4 tries. Almost as entertaining as the match was the GHA coach who became increasingly disgruntled as the points stacked up against his team. Jed Thistle (the junior team) also won their match, and a fair number of them spent the evening in the Spread bar celebrating.

We, meanwhile, went out for dinner.

bins might fly

"Have you lost a waste paper basket?" asked Mrs D**** our neighbour at around 10 last night. They had been sitting in their living room and the basket had come flying down depositing its contents over a wide area.
The occupants of room 4 didn't seem the types to be hurling bins out of the window, so we thought about it for a bit.

A couple of months ago, the window in room 4 jammed and the only way to free it was to cut the rope. This means that the window won't stay open. So what we guess happened is that the guests propped the window open with a fairly flimsy plastic bin, which worked - for a while.

Full again last night - 10 breakfasts this morning

Oh, and its my birthday. Happy birthday to me:-)