Progress on lots of things . . . . .

Monday February 25th 2008

Longworth

We are now about 2 months away from the first week of the 2008 season. Bookings are beginning to come in every few days and we are working on the fine detail of our plans for the weeks. Our "to-do" list is about ten pages long and covers everything from kitchen items we think we need to take with us to the slightly ambitious plans we have to shoot a short "holiday movie" onto DVD as part of next year's marketing. We ask ourselves every day whether we have missed off something really important from the list. The pressure to get everything perfect is pretty high, but several weeks of watching old Gordon Ramsey series have focused us on the attention to detail that is required to do things well. We hope we are doing just that!

The main business matters relate to current advertising and whether to add more into the late April to June period (it probably doesn't make much sense to advertise after that date as there are so few weeks left of the summer season). Most days we get a phone call from someone who has seen one of our adverts and wants to sell us advertising in some other publication.

I haven't often commented in this blog about my current reading material but I have been recently preparing a "resources" page for the website including all sorts of books that I thought might be of interest to people who might be interested in out breaks. My current reading is Richard Sennett's "The Craftsman", a really fascinating look at why people take pride in their work. It is a deeply philosophical look at practical activity of all kinds, ranging from obvious crafts like carpentry, to activities like cooking and child care. The basic defining feature is that little of the learning required to become skilled can be written down. Instead, craft is something that must be learned by doing. In its widest context, the book suggests that many of our working practices strip us of our self-esteem, but that everyone can be a craftsman. Highly recommended.

And current listening, which I also haven't mentioned for a while, is mainly the newest cd by Valet, "Naked Acid", which I read about in the current issue of The Wire and is available from http://www.emusic.com/, and a live recording from last week of Sonic Youth playing the wonderful "Pink Stream" (a track from the recent album "Rather Ripped")