Well howdy! It certainly seems ironic that the last time I was here I was complaining about cross country skiing vs. our prowess at downhill skiing….we may have converted the hubby to cross country skiing in the worst possible way….he broke his ankle downhill skiing this week. Yup. You know how you get your life organized in certain ways? You run your own business, perhaps with a partner and all the chores are divvied up in a way that works well for everyone? You don’t have to run a business to understand this – you run a family, or just a plain old life this way? Boy oh boy, when 50% of the team goes down for the count it’s a shock to the system. Add to that, the 50% is already stir-crazy 4 days into his 6-8 week recovery.

So, I haven’t got much time for blogging today but I wanted to say hello and, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, thank the wonderful, wonderful present and former staff of The Shoreham Inn for pitching in in extraordinary ways to get us through not only our busiest night of the year (St. Patrick’s Day – 48 hours after the accident) but the next 6 weeks as well. The ship may run a little slower than usual, and may be creaky at times, but we promise to do our absolute best to stay on course – and if last night is any indication at all, we’re going to be just fine. Best compliment of the night – ‘no disrespect to Dominic, but you can’t even tell he’s not in the kitchen’. If there were ever words to warm the heart at a time like this, those were the ones. The plan we have in place now will run much more smoothly than one of the plans that involved getting the Peter Pan flying apparatus moved over here to the Inn so that Steve Small could hoist and fly Dominic around the kitchen for a month. Or, in some of the kindest outpourings of offers of help, a kitchen manned by an eclectic crew of regular customers, though I would really love to have a photo of that assortment all in aprons and wielding kitchen implements!

I’ll close on a practical note: in order to coordinate this intensely organized schedule for April, we have made the decision to close the pub on Monday nights for the month. We will be open Thursday – Sunday evenings as usual, and plan on being back to full tilt come May. Wish us all luck!