How does a prisoner feel as his release date approaches? Excited, and maybe a little apprehensive at the change from certainty to uncertainty. I find myself slightly affected that way by the coming release from ‘lockdown.’ There are changes afoot, and we have yet to see how they play out.
At a meeting of our craftspeople in the Ferrers Centre this morning the talk was of harnessing digital means to encourage more people to visit. I kept quiet, but wondered if we might be faced with the opposite problem; so many new people found us when other venues were closed last year. Long queues at the tearooms, a crush in the workshops and gallery – this was our experience thirty years ago when the Sue Ryder hospice in the hall next door hosted craft fairs. Jacqueline was running the Ferrers Gallery and I was posted on the door- letting so many in as others left. It is not conducive to sales or to an enjoyable experience. Please let me be proved wrong.
We are going into the holiday letting business, something daughter Caroline has been doing for a number of years. ‘The Brewhouse’ is a one bed flat available straight away through Cottages.com; ‘Saddlers Loft’, which has a garden, is still being worked on. This is new territory for Jacqueline and our team.
Litter problems have been widely reported, but have not so far been a serious issue at Staunton. We practice zero tolerance. Dog -waste bags keep appearing in the car park area and, a new phenomenon, discarded face masks. Let’s hope that at least will be over. A year of looking like bank robbers is quite long enough.