Thursday 20th June Birthdays have been and gone, Bruce Springsteen at Hampden has been and gone and there has been no newspage for over two weeks. Aged 48, time is advancing too quickly to feel guilt and make excuses so none will be forthcoming. Tuesday saw by elder brother Alex, his wife Siobhan and Angela and myself head up to Glasgow, leaving before 5pm and catching some heavy traffic on the way north to see “The Boss” in what may be his final ever gig in Scotland; well that was the feeling that hung heavy in the air as he played his 3 hour plus set with seldom a break. The sun shone brightly over Scotland’s national stadium and up in the stands the view on the big screens was good and the crowd were in a happy smiley frame of mind as he plucked from his 4 decade repertoire, “Hunger Road”, “Dancing in the dark” when a couple of audience members were invited up on stage to their total delight to dance in front of 50,000 dancing and jigging Scottish punters of ages 10 to 80. “Waiting on a Sunny Day” “Badlands” and the crowd rousing “Born to Run”, a great night was had by all. A little tired and having been stuck in traffic, we made it back to Moffat gone 2am, sparing a thought for Alex who was up and 8am to head back down to work in Lancashire. Out and About Hoatching; one of my favourite words and one which describes well relief work which continues to pile into our offices here in Moffat unabated. Occasionally, we have to say NO, we cannot undertake to supply any more relief jobs. As of today though, Johanna Watson, relief chef manageress is knocking out the jobs and getting confirmations sent out to relief chefs well known to us and mainly to jobs well known to us also. 17 and counting so far at the half way point of Thursday. Excellent reference in for Frank McDonald who headed up to Tongue Hotel to work with Mark Wildman, only there a short time as they have filled the seasonal sous chef position, reference was excellent. Phil Smith spoke very highly about Mark’s cooking ability also “certainly rosette standard” well done Mark….you wouldn’t have enjoyed the gig at Hampden… Pawel Haliki has finished his time at Isle Ornsay hotel on his favourite island of Skye and references all back excellent. Many thanks Pawel and I hope that you enjoy your time in Nairn. Billy Gibson got an excellent reference back from the Burnside Hotel in South Glasgow, his 2nd outing of the summer after a stint back up at Ballachulish Hotel. Seems to be a more mature and sensible Billy Gibson this year and all the better for it. Come late October we can have a couple of beers once the hard work of the season is done, there is plenty work available. Billy is now up on Shetland. A couple of fallers on relief including some well-known names in Scotland Hospitality. Our success rate is above 90% which I think is good. Ed Stankaitas is a new name this year, over to Scotland via Spain and originally from Lithuania and with two excellent outings under his belt is now getting a couple of interviews for head chef jobs, looking like being a good signing for someone as a permanent head chef. Number 1 himself, Paul Waters, is coming to the end of a month stint at Loch Melfort Hotel, feedback as usual was excellent Paul. Many thanks again and hope the rest of the summer is good to you and your family. Peter Norrie visited Moffat last Thursday to discuss relief work in general and have a meeting, having been on our books some five years plus and not actually met. We had a simple meal at the local Balmoral, a couple of pints then a business meeting re our new website at 8pm with our project manager. Back out to the Local Proudfoot Institute at 9pm for a couple more beers and ended up a late and messy night from which I failed to recover on Friday; again no guilt or apologies. Good to finally meet up with Peter who has held a grade 1 on relief for many years now and is invariably asked to stay on longer or forever… Golf No not going to dribble on about the golf for the season as there does remain work to do in the offices. Head chef jobs, new website, vat returns a large inn-tray full of work. Scott and Johanna are mainly dealing with the answering of phones whilst I work on directing the business a little bit behind the scenes. We are being helped over the summer by Lizzie Carsewell who works week-ends to catch up on accounts and admin. Right, I will get this up on Facebook, our newspage on our website and move on. Many thanks for continued support and patience Michael in Moffat
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 12:33:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015