Anyway back to our Monday evening there we are sat down, feeling smug whilst watching the catalogue of disasters played out in front of us when all the time unbeknown to us we had our very own Hotel Inspector sleeping under our roof that night! So you see it really does happen. Although we are visited and inspected by Visit Britain every year we only have an anonymous inspector every 3 years and without fail every time we have never spotted them until they revealed their identity after breakfast. Apparently she had been trying to stay for some time but we had been too busy and it has taken her several months to get a vacant room, we should have guessed when she booked and said she would take any room we had free!
By the time you find out who they are it is too late you have already been judged on everything from your standard of cleanliness to customer service, from the breakfast to the quality of your rooms. Fortunately we performed very well and retained our 4 Star rating, she commented that her breakfast had been cooked to perfection which pleased John no end.
Although I can't believe anybody likes the experience of being inspected for us it is important that we are assessed externally by an independent body, so we can be judged and to some extent bench marked against other accommodation providers. Personally we feel the rating system provides a clearer indication to potential customers as to what they can expect to find.
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Well Sunday night was a quiet evening, just catching up and thinking about sitting down to watch some TV with a glass of wine when a knock at the door and it is the Fire Service, not just one or two but four firemen and one firewoman (if that is correct term) plus fire engine, calling to carry out our inspection. There have been times when opening my door to burly firemen would be a good thing but on a quiet Sunday evening? Anouncing that they had called on a Sunday night because they thought we would be quieter, well we were but don't we get any time off? Anyway it didn't actually take too long, just a look at our Fire Log book and a quick discussion but you will understand that when I say it is 24/7 business I do mean it. We are now responsible for our own Fire Risk Assessments but still receive regular visits from the Fire Service to check on us. There has been much debate in the B&B world about the new Fire Regulations which came into force in 2006. We already held a Fire Certificate under the old legislation so were already familiar with what was required but for some of the smaller B&B's it has been a real headache, there is a lot of red tape and not always a lot of common sense.
We still had some guests to arrive and after settling them in it was time for bed ourselves that was until 3.30am when the phone rang, somebody wanting to book a room! I know that everyone hates the telephone ringing in the night and even after 11 years you still always think the worst and never that it will just be someone wanting a room. We do get calls in the night but thankfully only occasionally. So Monday morning we were not as bright and cheerful as usual but our guests that morning made us feel a lot better particularly after hearing about Paul's successful kidney transplant, a truly inspiring story, as far as we know you are our first guest with 3 kidneys! (told you I would give you a mention). Seizing the opportunity of a quieter morning we had booked the Carpet cleaners who arrived promptly at 9am and proceeded to make quick but excellent work of cleaning the carpets in all the rooms. In between we waved our final guests off wishing then happy holidays off to board their canal boat at the local marina at Etruria. As the carpets dried it took usthe rest of the day for us to put all the rooms back together, I had just time to admire how nice everywhere was looking when our first guests of the day arrived.
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Today I had a go at making oatcakes from scratch for the first time, this may come as a surprise to those of you who know how much I love cooking but I have always relied on the plentiful supply of local Oatcake shops for fresh oatcakes. For anyone who doesn't know what an oatcake is it is our local delicacy, unique to North Staffordshire, like a pancake but made with oatmeal and yeast. Traditionally they are eaten with a cooked breakfast - bacon, sausage, beans and especially cheese but they just as good with jam, maple syrup, goats cheese etc.
Every oatcake shop has their own secret recipe which they don't want to reveal so I took to researching on the internet for a suitable recipe. Making oatcakes is very similar to making pancakes but it is especially important for the mix to stand to allow the yeast to work. I was very pleased with the results and so were the rest of my family who acted as tasters. Now the real test to try them on our guests. I also experimented with a ready made oatcake mix from the Staffordshire Oatcake Shop in Dresden, this was also very successful and a great way for anyone who has moved away from the area to ensure they have access to a plentiful supply of oatcakes. It is amazing the number of Oatcake shops that now offer to mail order your oatcakes to anywhere in the UK!
Whilst reseraching for recipes I discoverd that The Hairy Bikers have recently visited Newcastle under Lyme and Stoke sampling some of Staffordshires finest foods including oatcakes for a programme in their next series. For a preview of what they thought listen to their interview on BBC Radio Stoke
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Today has been busy, a typical Friday morning. It is all hands to the deck on a Friday as this is usually the busiest morning of the week. As soon as breakfast is cleared away and that can take until 10 o'clock we all get on with servicing the rooms in preparation for our next guests. Most of our weekly guests leave on Friday and we look forward to welcoming our weekend guests, its pretty much the only way we have of distinguishing a weekday from the weekend, that and of course we do a get an extra hour in bed at weekends as breakfast is served later. With all the beds to strip and remake, the resultant washing to get on with and then all the rooms have a really good clean, it is much easier to do this when guests are not staying in the room. The laundry room looks like a great white mountain with all the towels and sheets piled high. We do some of the washing ourselves, towels mainly because we like them to be nice and fluffy but we now use a professional laundry for the sheets and duvet covers. It is hard to believe that at one time we did used to wash everything and John ironed it all. In theory we should now have more time but you never do something else always creeps into fill the space you have created. Now it is off to stock up on supplies for the weekend, a quick trip to the oatcake shop in Burslem to stock up on oatcakes (I will tell you more about oatcakes in a future blog) and then off into town to visit our butchers and bacon shop. Then back home in time to greet our guests arriving for the weekend.
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Busy weekend with lots of people visiting the Potteries for different events including guests taking part in the Trentham Triathlon I can't believe what people do in the name of sport and fun, I take my hat off to them I really do and swimming 1.2 miles in Trentham Lake, its amazing what some people will do to avoid paying the new admission charge (sorry that is an in joke for local readers).
We also had guests visiting the first Penkhull Jazz and Blues Festival www.penkhulljazz.co.uk which appears to have got off to a very good start so much so there is now talk of making it much bigger next year but according to the discussion at breakfast the next day much of its success was due to the local community feel about the event so hope they don't spoil it. Big is not always necessarily better. Click on the link to hear some good music!
But the biggest event of the weekend as far as we were concerned was our second Graythwaite wedding in 2009, our guests Tara & Phil, how honoured we were that you chose to spend your wedding weekend here at Graythwaite. Whilst we often have lots of guests staying who are going to weddinggs we don't often have the bride and groom but when we do we like to make it something special. We really enjoyed playing a part in making it a day for you both to remember and look forward to welcoming you back to celebrate your first anniversary. All the best to you both.
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