And we’re off...

Here it is.
Day one of full opening for 2019.
Sunny and bright.
Just what we ordered.
Over the last three days we’ve washed everything, swept everywhere, wiped everything, mopped everywhere. We’ve also served a healthy number of customers who’ve taken advantage of the late March sunshine.
The best thing to happen yesterday was the upgrade of the old, slow dishwasher. A different cable and a few tweaks inside and it’s gone from 13amp to 30amp and, more importantly from a 9-minute cycle to a 3-minute cycle. This makes me ridiculously happy.
Lee, the electrician, also hardwired in the second, new dishwasher.
The old, dead, scrap one was still in the kitchen when Dave arrived with a drinks and crisps delivery.
“What’s happening with that old dishwasher?” Lee asked me.
I told him I had to move it outside to go to the tip.
“Need any help?” asked Lee, and he nodded towards Dave’s sack trolley thing, a bit like this one:

Lee manhandled the dishwasher onto Dave’s trolley and Dave pushed it outside, up the path and round the back to the broken chair graveyard.
“That was good timing,” said Lee.
“Not for me, it wasn’t,” said Dave.

In hot water. Or not.

A bright and warm day to usher in the new season.
I hadn’t slept well, mithering over a crisp order and whether the milk would arrive in time and when I should start offering hot cross buns.
We decided to open with just tea, coffee, cakes and tea cakes on offer. We’ll be starting lunches on Saturday but there’s so much to do before then.
We had planned to put finishing touches to the place today but plans went awry with the arrival of our first customers at 1045 (cappuccinos and a shared teacake).
Then Val and Alec arrived to show us the surprise winter addition to their family - cockerpoo Teddy.  Very, very lovely eyes.
Geoff and Maureen were the first to sit on the newly-painted chairs. I fear I need to do two more.
Then the water boiler decided to stop working.
There’s always something. Usually it’s quite a costly something .
Customers of the day were the new parents of ten-week old Sebastian. They were exhausted, they said, just about staying awake in the garden by propping each other up and eating teacakes.
I wish them a long, unbroken night.
I wish the same for myself.

Opening debits.

Chairs are all painted. Sort of. I stopped at 25.
Dishwasher bought (not yet arrived). It was £1,757. When I told Lee, my electrician, he said he’d do the washing up for that. I bet he wouldn’t.
During my research I was asked how many times a week the dishwashing cycle would run.
“A week?” I said, “that’s tricky.”
How many times a day, then?
I made a rough guess at 30 on a busy day. The sales person nearly choked.
Now he knows why I need two.
I also have hope that the other dishwasher I bought two years ago might work better this season. It’s always been a little on the slow side. I’ll know if we’ve quickened the pace by the end of this week.
This morning we’ve taken all the outside tables, which had been hibernating in the conservatory, back outside. They need a good clean before use.
I’ve just ordered three new outdoor coffee tables which should arrive on Wednesday.
I’ve ordered locally made fudge and cheese. The coffee beans and tea have already arrived.
The sun is shining and I am making the most of my last proper Sunday of freedom for a good while.
I am excited for reopening.
That’s a good sign.
It hasn’t happened for a while.

Bloody disappointed

Last week on Radio 5live I heard a mother ask people to give blood. Her daughter had had 144 transfusions during treatment for leukaemia and she was reminding people how important blood donation is to the NHS.

I hadn’t given for years and years. I couldn’t remember why I stopped, I’d always rather enjoyed giving blood and not just for the biscuits you’re given afterwards. I registered and got an appointment for this afternoon.
I sat in the waiting area, drank water and filled out a form.
My name was called and I went to join a man at a computer terminal to complete registration.
He put in my details.
“Ah,” he said, “apparently we can’t accept you.”
Computer said no.
He told me it looked like it had something to do with the last time I gave blood.
And then it all came back to me. Very odd. A sudden part of my memory I hadn’t accessed for years. I was on a waiting list for a simple, dull procedure the last time I was called to donate and when I told them they sent me home and said I couldn’t give until after it was all done.
In the end I didn’t need the mini-op at all.
That was about fifteen years ago.
Since then I’ve moved house a couple of times, changed jobs, changed lives and as I’ve never been back the data hadn’t had a chance to be updated
Still, that was fine. I could now give.
Except I couldn’t. They pricked my finger, squeezed out a blood blob and tested my haemoglobin. It needed to be 125. It was 123. I left without a biscuit and can’t go back for another 3 months.
Not as bad as when I tried to give blood as a student in London. The blood drive came to the campus and I  didn’t get further than the desk that time either.
The blood blob floated at the top of the test tube.
It’s supposed to sink.
The nurse looked at me and shook her head, “do you eat lots of red meat?” she asked, “No,” my 19 year old self answered, “I’m a vegetarian.”
“Do you eat lots of green vegetables?” she asked.
“No,” came my weak, teenage reply, “I don’t like vegetables.”
She told me there was not much in my blood they really wanted and I should go to my GP. I got the train home to Worcestershire. My mother gave me a plate of cooked liver and told me that should be the end of “this vegetarian nonsense”.
I should add that for most of my first year I survived on a diet of tinned potatoes and tinned sweetcorn. And now I’m in the catering business.
I found out today that out of thirteen attempts at giving blood I have failed three times.
Next time I can’t fail.

Moving the goalposts.

If you are planning to come to the tearooms when we reopen at the end of this month, please do not look too carefully at the chairs I’ve been painting.
I have just finished chair 17 of 28.
The process has taught me a lot about myself, none of it good.

My original plan was to rub down and paint 35.
I finished 8 and decided to switch to a darker paint.
I didn’t love the lighter paint so I came up with a theory (to convince myself) that it would be good to have a mixture of light and dark grey and that dark grey would be harder wearing.
Then I discovered that the dark grey paint needs two coats so takes a lot longer, plus the chairs don’t seem properly painted even after two coats. So after just five chairs I’ve given that up and changed back to dove grey which I have decided I do love now. Mainly because it doesn’t take hours to finish just one.
I’ve also come up with another theory (I’m good at theories which lessen my workload) that I only need 28 chairs for the main tearoom so I’ll use them there instead of the 35 needed for the conservatory.
In a nutshell: I am lazy. I can’t paint. I hate rubbing down chairs. I wish I’d never started.

Out of 28 chairs 5 of them will be a different colour.
Eventually I shall come up with a valid reason for this.

Unfinished business

Further to last post.
The cake signs are complete. That was the easiest and quickest job so clearly I did that first.
The wooden spoons are painted but not numbered and not varnished.
I have painted just eight chairs.
Finger needs to be pulled out.
We are now in March and by the end of this month we’ll be open again. I also need to buy a new dishwasher before then and do the dreaded deep clean.
In better news, the staff rota is looking healthy as almost everyone is returning.