What's in a name? Quite a lot, actually.

One of the things we really try to do when you come to stay here at St Cuthbert’s House is to learn your name. Seems simple, I can almost hear you thinking. So you might be surprised at how hard it is to learn the names of twelve guests who are constantly changing, on alternating days… anyway, we think it really matters. We like to remember your name, and to use it when we talk with you. There are some little tricks I’ve learned to help me learn names, but I have no intention of sharing them with you, just in case you don’t approve of them.

I know how I feel when someone remembers my name. I feel like I matter to them, and that they somehow value me as an individual. And that’s how we’d want you to feel.

Two things happened today to make me think about how important using our name is. In another context, outside our work here at St Cuthbert’s House, I’m a member of a small team of professional people, which meets regularly - and exchanges email every week. Today I received a reply to an email I’d sent to one of the members. So let’s picture the scene; the email is in his inbox with my name clearly displayed; he clicks ‘Reply’ and the original message detail is shown; and he types “Dear Geoff”. So by now I don’t really care what he’s writing to tell me because I’m so cross that he can’t take the trouble to spell my name correctly.

Perhaps I’m the victim of some carefully-constructed joke amongst the team, because then the postman arrived. He brought a document from another member of the team. We are the longest-standing members of this team, and have worked together in this context for over 12 years. He must have received more than 500 emails from me, every one of which carries my full name. We countersign documents regularly, which bear both of our names side by side. Like the one he had just signed and sent on to me. So why would he address the envelope to 'Jeff Sutherland'? Did he pause for a moment, uncertainly? Did he wonder, after he’d written it, whether that was entirely accurate? Or did he think ‘that’s near enough’? Well it wasn’t, and to misquote Churchill, this kind of sloppy inaccuracy is something up with which we will not put.

So if you are here for just a night or two, I can promise only to try to remember your name when we chat. But by the time you've sent me hundreds of emails and visited for 12 years or more, I think I can promise I’d have it by then.

Pour me a beer. Any beer…

Recently, we managed to put the pieces of the jigsaw in place to become licensed to sell alcohol at St Cuthbert’s House. This was neither easy nor inexpensive, but we see it as an important investment.
Being a real-ale enthusiast, I thought it would be good to see if we could offer some locally brewed beer – and there began a journey of discovery which has been a delight.
Here’s the thing; when we began to do a little research, we found that there are loads of craft breweries springing up in and around Northumberland - and even more if we extend our range to the whole of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.
I called several of them, and was struck by the passion which was always evident amongst those mixing these magical ingredients to create something wonderful. They all really seemed to care passionately about what they were making, and all its little nuances – and they wanted me to care too. I like that.
So, alongside our very swishy wine list we now have our very own ‘beer menu’, with 17 or so locally brewed real ales. I’m working my way through them all – purely in the interests of quality control and customer service research, I’m sure you’ll understand.
One of those local breweries, based in Durham, (which I concede is not in Northumberland – but it was in Northumbria) uses the fact that St Cuthbert’s resting place is Durham in their ‘branding’. I was delighted to find that one of their beers is called ‘St Cuthbert’, and so it has naturally found a favoured place as our house beer. Want one?

You never know who you might meet

One morning after breakfast last week, one of our guests told me that she had a confession to make. It’s amazing how many possible answers to the ‘what’s coming next?’ question passed through my mind, in the pregnant pause which followed. But then it came: she was a hotel inspector. And in the next few milliseconds I was reliving every encounter we’d shared with this guest in the previous 18-or-so hours she’d been here. I didn’t remember any disasters, and so was able to smile in a ‘well, it’s lovely to have you here’ kind of way.

We may be relatively new to the game, but even we had wondered why this particular guest had felt the need to request facilities and services at unusual hours of the day (and night) and so we were a bit suspicious by bedtime. Now we could see that these unusual requests were part of the ‘test’. I found myself hoping I hadn’t seemed irritable to be setting up an ironing board so very late into the night.

Anyway, to the good news, and the purpose of the ‘mystery guest’ visit; we learned that we have been shortlisted as one of three finalists for the North-East England B&B/Guest Accommodation of the Year 2009 award. How cool is that. She said that it was a really great achievement to get into the final, given that there had been more entrants than ever this year, and the standard was very high. Even if we don’t win, she said, (was that a clue? I wonder…) we can still make much of the fact that we were selected as one of the three best B&B’s in the North-East.

Apparently we will be invited to some swanky Oscars-style dinner in October, when a celebrity will open the envelope to reveal the name of the winner. I don’t think we get to make an acceptance speech if we win though, so that should avoid any embarrassing tearful episodes. The winner goes on to represent the North-East in the national competition, when the prize-giving dinner will presumably be even swankier. I’ll let you know if we make it there.

We serve intimate dinners for two. But only if you bring someone.

You may already have heard by other means that we’re serving dinner here at St Cuthbert’s House now. Lots of guests seemed to be posing the same question: ‘can we eat dinner here?’ – so we decided to make the answer ‘Yes!’

And so it was that we stumbled into the restaurant business. I use that term specifically, (that's 'restaurant' not 'stumbled') because we’re not just serving dinner to resident guests, but also to non-residents. We only have 12 seats, and so to make it viable we need to fill as many of them as often as possible – and so if we have an open table, we’ll take a booking from ‘outside’.

Providing high-quality food to non-residents is of course a very different proposition to simply offering a simple supper to our B&B guests. We had some lessons to learn very quickly, and we’ve found the help and advice of a business coach very useful. Time for an aside; I confess to being very sceptical about ‘consultants’ generally. You ask them the time, and they ask to look at your watch… The highest paid job I ever had was as a ‘consultant’, and I was making it up as I went along – which of course only served to reinforce my perception of consultants. But this prejudice all changed when our Regional Development Agency offered us several hours free consultancy for our B&B business, with a ‘business coach’. And really, John was excellent - notably because he knew what he was talking about regarding all things hospitality-industry. So when we decided to open a restaurant, there was only one person we were going to call. Anyway, I digress. We’ve learned and adapted pretty quickly, and whilst we’re not complacent we think we’ve got our act together, and our figures sorted out, and have created something pretty unique here.

This is how it works: we invite you to arrive at 7.15pm, and when you do we offer you a glass of sherry, and show you to one of our sumptuous sofas. We give you one of our attractive folders containing our dinner menu, the wine list, and our beer menu (I think I’ll save elaboration on this particular item for a future blog post. Can you wait?) Other dinner guests arrive, and inevitably conversations begin. Usually we then have to kindly ‘prompt’ you to give attention to the menu so we can have your order, because the conversation takes over! When your first course is ready, we take you to your own intimate, candle-lit table… After dinner, we invite you to return to the sofas for coffee and mints, when those conversations resume, and continue into the late evening…

Almost everyone who has eaten here has made a point of saying really kind things – most often about the lovely food, which is top quality, locally produced and sourced, and cooked and presented beautifully by Oli – but also about that opportunity to meet other guests and holidaymakers (or even locals) and learn from each other’s itineraries. Someone wrote on tripadvisor that ‘it was like being invited to your best friends’ house for dinner, only better’. (Not sure whether her best friend charges her £22.50 for dinner…) But it does seem that the special ambience of this ancient building does help to create something you won’t find anywhere else around here - and we're delighted that dinner at The Open Door is more than just a meal for you. This has been a place of 'meeting and sharing' for 200 years, and it's lovely that it's continuing. Now, I wonder if I can set up a consultancy peddling this philosophy…

Green is the new Gold

I'm sure you will probably have been enduring sleepless nights recently, as the tension has mounted over the result of our not-so-recent Green Tourism Business Scheme audit. They have apologised that it has taken so long, and explained why, but I told them this was no comfort for you in your sleeplessness...

Well, I'm just checking in here briefly to announce the great news that we have achieved a resounding GOLD award - not just scraping through, but getting well and truly into the comfortable midriff of that golden zone. Fantastic.

It's not that we need accolades simply for doing the right thing, but it is good that there's a scheme which can help all of us make informed choices about responsible tourism, and the places we choose to stay, which help to save the world. And we're jolly pleased to be up there with the best.

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity...

We’ve had a strange weekend here at St Cuthbert’s House. Spirits are low and confidence has been knocked, and it feels like we’re keeping low and licking our wounds. I understand, in my head at least, that we ‘shouldn’t take it personally’ – but in our hearts the whole family are finding it difficult not to.

The thing is, we recently hosted a travel writer from the Guardian newspaper, and her article appeared yesterday. We feel it is unfair, unkind, overly critical and contains more than a hint of cynicism - even sarcasm.

She came and stayed for free – this is the norm for these visits – and when we discussed dinner on the phone, she said that our usual time of 7.30pm was a little late for her liking. I agreed to move it to 7pm, and duly informed all our other dining guests of the time-change. She eventually arrived for dinner, without any acknowledgement that she was very late, at 7.50pm. This caused some awkwardness for us, because we try hard to create a 'dinner party' ambience in the dining room. Even though everyone is seated at their own intimate table, we serve each course to all diners simultaneously, and it just works... We didn't say anything of course, and I think we coped well, but she complains in her article that her soup was ‘lukewarm’. Oli clearly remembers keeping that soup pan simmering, because it was something he had to work around on the stove, when it should have been out of the way… She also complains about her local salmon being overcooked and too dry, yet she told us during the check-back that it was delicious, and she finished the lot!

We’re neither pretending nor aspiring to be a Michelin-starred restaurant. But we know what we are, and we’ve worked hard at it. We’re a well-run family business providing a warm and genuine welcome, and very good quality, locally distinctive food, beautifully served in a unique and enchanting ‘dinner party’ setting. We now have hundreds of really kind reviews and comments from people who have loved these aspects of our business. We’ve even set up a separate Tripadvisor listing for the restaurant, because so many guests are saying wonderful things about the food, having struggled to find somewhere ‘special’ to eat locally. Yet she missed all this; I just don’t think she ‘got it’, perhaps because she arrived late and approached us as just another restaurant. What hurts us most is the way she seems (to us, at least!) to sneer at the fact that her waitress, Hannah, was ‘one of the family, of course’.

We spent much of the following morning with her, and her travelling companion, telling them lots about Northumberland as she furiously scribbled notes, and even discussed some quite personal aspects of life – hers and ours. Yet this personal contact is barely even hinted at in her article. It’s almost as if she has decided to avoid mentioning anything of her welcome, of the local information which enriched her visit, or the time we spent talking. These are things which I would have thought most of her readers would consider valuable – they are the very essence of our hospitality, and the ambience which St Cuthbert’s House creates.

After they left, we found some library books she’d left behind in her room (in a very strange location!) and we went to some lengths to get them back to her before she left the area.

She seemed to dislike the Cuthbert Room, describing it as a ‘vast yellow hall’. I find it odd that she makes space to comment on how difficult it must be to change a light bulb. She criticises the size of the pictures on the wall - but I would have hoped that the most notable thing about those pictures is that they are of local scenes, created by local artists, and we’re providing both a showcase and an outlet for them.

She describes her bedroom as ‘nice’ - my old English teacher forbade that adjective - but doesn’t give many enticing clues. Breakfast is dismissed as ‘good quality’. That’s it. Well, indeed it is good quality, but it is so much more, according to almost every other guest who's ever stayed here.

Anyway, we know that the success of our business does not depend on any single review or encounter, but rather on the consistently good experiences of our guests who stay here - and that’s what we’re focussed on. We’re certainly not complacent, but the signals we’re receiving indicate that we’re doing pretty well. It’s a pity that the only guest we can remember who has been so ambivalent or critical is one who has the inclination and the means to come in to our home and then say unkind things to millions of people about her visit. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

But tomorrow’s another day…

I guess I should tell you that the article is online here.

The answer is blowin' in the wind...

There's a great deal of huffing and puffing around these parts just now, on the issue of wind turbines. I can’t pretend to be an expert in this issue by any stretch of the imagination – and anyway, the ‘expert opinion’ of every expert seems to be directly contradicted by the ‘expert opinion’ of several others. So I’m not convinced one way or the other about the technical merits, or arguments about efficiency and all that stuff. But I am able to look at pictures – like the one showing the view from my good friends’ gorgeous home, as it will be if several proposals are approved – and decide for myself whether developments like these can be deemed a step forward.

The issue has come sharply into focus for us in Northumberland, because as well as having more castles than any other English County (that’s true!) we also seem to have more Windfarm applications too (that’s just my impression).

As with all the biggest decisions, there is a balance to the argument. You may remember that we’re hoping to get a cracking good result for our ‘green business’ assessment any day now (it’s been many weeks since the assessment; the tension is mounting) so you might expect us to be much in favour of renewable energy schemes. And indeed we are in principle, of course. But here’s the thing – most of our visitors are attracted to Northumberland because of its wild, vast unspoilt landscapes. The peace and tranquillity, the big skies, the open country – these things do something in your heart and soul when you become still for a while, and make time simply to ‘be’ rather than ‘do’. There are relatively few places in England where this is really possible, and Northumberland is top of the list.

So then – shall we fill up the hills and plains in north Northumberland with hundreds of wind turbines standing 125m tall, and turn it into an enormous industrial landscape? What do we think that might do for a tourist industry (that’s us) which promotes that wild, unspoilt landscape, and all it does for the human condition?

I can’t help wondering if these things are being proposed here because this is the best possible spot in which to harness the power of the wind – or because there is likely to be less opposition from a relatively small population. It does seem rather counter-intuitive to me, to propose these things 'in the middle of nowhere'. Why don't we site them in urban landscapes, on hillsides close to where millions of people already live? No-one goes there to get away from it all, so we wouldn't be spoiling anything. Is this just a daft idea?

This issue seems to be able to divide reasonable people like no other. Of course, there are a lot of people who see wind power as the best alternative in the conundrum of how we should power our future. And plenty of others who will seem somehow impatient, slightly cross even, if they suspect a nimby approach on our part. And lots of others who just love to see those graceful sweeping blades catching ‘something for nothing’.

So, the public inquiry rumbles on, in the Arts Centre not far from here. They’re hearing the appeal of the power companies who have had three applications turned down by local planning authorities. I guess if they succeed, then north Northumberland will be regarded as a ‘wind turbine landscape’ and so the rest of it will get filled up with other applications, which can hardly fail. I can’t help feeling that’s not ‘something for nothing’, but rather a very high price to pay.