Halloween photos

As promised! Photos from our Halloween staff party. Photos of the 'Sparkled' pub to follow!

Chat soon,
Del

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Sparkle

OK, so I've been a little quiet lately. The reason, as usual, is work.

Last week the pub was shut for three and a half days while we did a quick refurb. Of course, being really tight, the company doesn't pay for a project manager, so I had to do that job. Which meant starting work anytime between 6.30am and 8am and finishing between 7pm and 8pm.

It also meant dealing with the laziest, most laid-back foreman in the world! Hand-over was supposed to be at midday last Thursday. By 5.30pm (we were supposed to be opening at 6pm), there was no sign of the job being finished. My boss had turned up and he was fuming! If he could have, I'm sure he would have grabbed him by the throat and flushed his head in the (newly redecorated) urinals!

Needless to say, we eventually opened at 6.45pm. The 250 invitations that had gone out drew in a massive crowd and the evening was a magnificent success! I had a couple of glasses of wine with the boss and when he left, I started to drink with my friends. Even my staff starting buying me drinks - my fav too, Sambuca! By 1am and 2 bottles of French Champagne later, I crawled into bed with the world spinning around me.

Friday was a very long day at work. And I was surrounded by builders who were still trying to catch up!

Chat soon,
Del

PS: Monday night we held a staff party at The Marlborough Head off Oxford Street. As it was Halloween, we all dressed up. The beer, vodka and Sambuca flowed freely! And the cab drivers were pleasantly surprised when they had to take home the ghost of Davey Jones. Photos to follow...

DelBoy on...

OK, so it's been a while since my last post (about 2 weeks!). Time for a little catch-up!

DelBoy on work: I'll start with the boring stuff. Work has been really busy since coming back from my holidays. I'm running two pubs at the moment. The second pub is a gastro pub in Holland Park - very posh! It's fun, 'cos its something very different. They do double the sales that my other pub does and they do as much food in a day as what my pub sells in a week! It's only short-term until they find another manager, but apparently I'm there for at least another 4 weeks!

DelBoy on Carnival: I had a great Carnival this year. Not the working bit or the money we made, but the after-party I had with my staff. We drank steins (1 litre) of Margarita and shots of vodka until 3am. The neighbours were having a wicked party on their balcony which we joined. The next morning I felt it though!

DelBoy on Josh: The weekend before Notting Hill Carnival, we had an incident with Josh. We rushed him to hospital, but he is 100% now. As a matter of fact, they found nothing wrong with him at all!! They can only guess at what happened, but I tell you what, IT WAS F#$£!^G SCARY!! He is great now except that he went for his injections this week which he was not too keen on.

DelBoy on holidays: Malta is great! If any of you get the chance, just do it! Its quite cheap too (well if you come from London it is). The weather was magnificent all week - minimum temperature around 26 degrees C! The food on the island is delicious and very cheap - 3 course meal for 2 people plus bottle of wine for around GBP£15. Not only are there some fantastic beaches, but there is also a lot of history on the isalnds (5 of them) if you are interested in that kind of thing. I managed to do 6 scuba dives whilst there too, including a night dive.

DelBoy on diving: Although the water temperature averaged around 26 degrees C, I was a little disappointed in what I saw under the water. The fishlife wasn't very colourful - a bit like diving in Cape Town. The plantlife was a little better. The night dive was magnificent though 'cos there were loads more fish about. The 2 wreck dives were great too 'cos the wrecks have only been down there since 23 August 2006 and they are still very intact. I would love to go back next year just to see how things have changed! The dive in Comino Caves was also beautiful if only for the magnificent colours!

That's me for now. I will post some holiday snaps soon.

Chat soon,
DelBoy

PS: DelBoy on rugby: Despite getting the wooden spoon in this year's Tri-Nations, I would just like to re-iterate my favourite saying, "You're only as good as your last game". And yes, we beat the Kiwis by one point and then the Aussies by 24 - 16!