Radio Croquet…New Forest Runs and The Cateys!

For the first time in Chewton Glen’s history we played host to a radio show and not just any radio show!!! Chris Evans’s ‘drivetime’ programme was broadcast live from the terrace of the Marryat Suite and the sun shone as Chris did the show which included interviews of the drivers of his magnificent seven which were all perfectly positioned on the Croquet Lawn.

  

There was actually a bit of a kafuffle getting the seven Ferraris on the Croquet Lawn as when they arrived they weren’t quite in the order that was expected. To correct the situation there was a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing on our croquet lawn and the only saving grace was the fact that the weather was dry and Darren Venables our Head Gardener had already gone home for the weekend.

 

Talking of the Croquet Lawn as part of the show we had a real live Croquet Professional explaining the rules on the game on Chris’s show and he commented that it was the ‘best hotel Croquet Lawn’ he had ever come across in his life. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been if we had ended up with tyre tracks all over it?!

 

Having waved Chris and his crew off on the Saturday morning I was lucky enough to catch up with them at the Mulberry Pub again that same evening. It has to be one of the best parties I’ve had for a long long time and we danced the night away to some of Chris’s tunes and a live performance from ‘Scouting for Girls’. We didn’t get home until 2am which was fine until the children woke us up at 7am the following day. It actually took us until beyond the Wimbledon Men’s final to recover and for once sitting down for four hours was no problem.

 

We were all glued to the TV for all five sets and as much as I like and respect Federer I was hoping that Roddick might just pip him at the post. As a Scot, Andy Murray would have been my preferred winner however I am not convinced he would have given Federer quite such a run around.

 

I had yet another late night at the Catey’s which was held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane. Known within the industry as the hotel Oscars this was a glittering occasion which highlighted a number of people and businesses that have done particularly well in the last twelve months. Angela Hartnett deservedly won the Chef Award; James Thompson won the Independent Restaurant of the Year Award for the Witchery in my home town of Edinburgh; The Goring won the Best Independent Hotel Award and Raymond Blanc of Le Manoir won the Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

Raymond Blanc – Lifetime Achievement Winner at the Hotel Oscars – The ‘Cateys’ 2009

My busy week ended with the New Forest 10 – a ten mile run through the heart of the New Forest along dirt tracks and country lanes. It was a surprisingly competitive event and all 800 runners were intent on completing the picturesque course in a good time. My time of 1 hour 14 was quite respectable although it felt like hard work and it made me realise how much training I need to do before the marathon in September, not helped by the fact that my running partner for the day, our Spa Operations Manager, Stuart Ward sprinted off beating me by a good 4 or 5 minutes…

More Fast Cars

Chris Evans

Fast cars are obviously a theme this month as we are just finalising plans at the hotel for the arrival of Chris Evans’ Children in Need event at Chewton Glen later this week. Almost half a million was raised for Children in Need when Chris auctioned a weekend extravaganza based on his Drivetime Dine and Disco event which was so successful last year.

 This year also included the ‘Drivetime Magnificent Seven’ In which seven successful bidders will go to Radio 2 this coming Friday and set off in a stunning convoy in seven of the finest sports cars and head down to the New Forest and to the idyllic setting of Chewton Glen. After afternoon tea there will be some time for pampering in the spa before enjoying an evening of fine wine and delicious food.

Although our car park is often full of amazing cars, never have we seen such a collection of Ferraris at Chewton Glen… these are a Ferrari Dino, Ferrari F40, Ferrari 275 GTB 4 cam, Ferrari Lusso, Ferrari 288 gto, Ferrari 250 SWB plus the world record breaking James Coburn California Spyder…

Vintage Ferrari

The following morning its back on the road again as they head for Goodwood to join the rest of the bidders and the drive time dine and disco event!

Chris’s Friday evening Drivetime show will be broadcasted live from Chewton Glen which will certainly add to the excitement of the day. Access to the hotel will be restricted to hotel guests only during the event however we do still have a couple of rooms left if you want to book to see these fabulous cars. For daily updates you can follow Chris Evans’ blog www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrisevans.

Enzo Ferrari

From fast cars to not so fast running, my Marathon training picked up this week with a gruelling ten-miler from Chewton Glen, down Chewton Bunny and along the Barton cliff tops to Milford-on-Sea. Although running the Solent coastline on a balmy summers evening is wonderful the absence of a sea breeze made this outing particularly arduous not helped by the fact that I am both unfit and overweight!

Once again I am running in aid of another good cause, the Wessex Cancer Trust and shortly I’ll be posting a web page in the hope that I can raise some funds to support their essential work.

My goal is the New Forest Marathon on Sunday 27^th September, which starts literally just down the road in New Milton. Although undoubtedly the most picturesque off all marathons it is a horribly undulating course which suffers from a lack of support due to the heavily restricted number of runners. Granted there are wild New Forest ponies on every corner however they are certainly not renowned for their cheers of moral support! You can find out or more or even join in www.nfma.org.uk

Grandprix preview

Porsche Experience Centre

As predicted keeping up with my Blog has been somewhat sporadic and I am determined not to give up on keeping the world or at least a few people a brief insight into my World.

This week’s highlight (so far) has to be a visit to the Porsche Experience centre at Silverstone www.porsche.co.uk/experience. I met James Taylor the Centre’s Founder and Director in London earlier this year at an event called Hotelopoly which is organised by GP Associates. GP Associated promote Chewton Glen to the corporate market and represent other great hotels such as the Mandarin Oriental London, Mar Hall in Glasgow, The Merrion in Dublin, Beau Rivage Palace in Lausanne, The Dolder Grand in Zurich, Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo, Esprit Saint Germain in Paris, The Regent Bordeaux and Berlin, Trump International Hotel & Tower New York, Finca Cortesin in Marbella, Cap Juluca in Anguilla and the Isles de France in St Barths. 

The main purpose of my visit was to meet James again and see if there were opportunities for us to work together. Working with partners has always proved to be successful method of exposing ourselves to new customers and there are certainly thousands of Porsche owners who are already Chewton Glen guests. The centre itself is very impressive and with the Grand Prix this weekend the whole of Silverstone was a hive of activity. The space is very cleverly designed and is therefore very flexible however all I could think about what the enormous roof terrace which will be jam packed this weekend with people enjoying the output of a seriously good kitchen and some of the best views of the Silverstone track.

So from a business perspective it was a worthwhile trip and we have already started to plot a package which would involve the use of a swanky new Porsche, a two hour zoom south to the New Forest and an overnight chill-out at Chewton Glen available for all members of the Porsche Owners Club. Chewton Glen is also the perfect backdrop for car launches and with the prospect of some new models on the horizon such as the new Panamera I have hopefully secured some future business for the hotel.

The highlight of the day was being handed the keys of a 911 Carrera S and taken round the various tracks for a blast. In a short space of time you get to understand about the car’s capabilities and also how to improve your driving technique a lot. It was truly fantastic to be able to put your foot to the floor without having to worry about other traffic or speed traps and to learn how to drive such a capable high performance car. There are four main tracks; the handling track, the low friction circuit, ice hill and the kick plate. The last three all simulate a variety of extreme driving conditions and after a couple of serious 360 degree spins I was quite pleased with how quickly my control improved with some expert guidance of course. The kick plate randomly spins you out of control without any notice and this reminded me of the winter I spent in Vail, Colorado although then I was driving a battered old Nissan Sunny with only two studded tyres which were already in the boot when I bought it.

A fellow Edinburger called Barry was my tutor on the various tracks and he drove for the last two laps. Initially I was slightly bemused about why he hadn’t driven first – then it all came clear! I’ve never been driven so fast in my life and afterwards I was embarrassed by how slow I had been driving although at the time I felt I was pushing the car to its limits. Before heading back down the A43 I was taken round the off road track in a Porsche Cayenne. This was the biggest surprise as I had never realised this 4×4 was a serious off-roader. This time I was kept well away from the driver’s seat as I was escorted up the climbing wall, along a 45 degree slope, through a meter deep ditch and down a one in ten slope.

The journey home was undoubtedly speedier than usual in my XC90 however it was incredibly dull in comparison to my afternoon. Perhaps when the children are (much) older we’ll be able to swap our seven seats for something a little sportier!

Daddy, you’re wearing a skirt!

Most people I meet find it hard to believe I am Scottish although after a few glasses of wine my accent is apparently slightly more obvious. There was no doubting my heritage last weekend at our 11th Burn’s Supper which happened to be the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns himself. I appropriately donned my kilt for this grand occasion although Harry my son is still a little concerned that daddy went out with mummy and they were both wearing skirts!

 

As always we shipped Martin Treacher down from Skibo Castle in Dornoch for this special event and once again he entertained our guests for the evening in an impressive manner. Martin sings, plays the piano, accordion, fiddle and of course he pipes in the Haggis as well. He always co-opts a couple of staff to assist in this part of the proceedings and this year our French Sous Chef, Jerome was delegated responsibility for parading the Haggis, imported all the way from Macsween’s in Edinburgh, around the room before being publicly slain by Martin. Jerome’s partner in crime was Craig our Scottish Sommelier who appeared a little too comfortable spinning a couple of bottles of Talisker around his head a few steps behind Martin with his pipes and Jerome and the Haggis.

 

The real star of the show was Lucy, Martin’s daughter who has the most amazing voice and stole the hearts of the entire audience. This was not her debut appearance at Chewton Glen as she has previously entertained us with some pretty nifty sword dances. Talking of Sword dances, there is apparently footage of me dancing on Hogmanay at Chewton Glen. It all sounds quite impressive however actually I was jigging around two stainless steel knives placed in aptly named Glens, which is our staff dining room at Chewton Glen. We always pipe in the New Year for our house-party guests and after Auld Lang Sign our piper does a few pieces especially for the staff. This tradition started as a bit of a joke and knowing there were little or no fellow Scots in my midst, when one year I thought I could get away with flailing my arms around for a few minutes. This year there was an official announcement to the staff at the restaurant briefing that “Mr Stembridge would be performing at about 12.05 – don’t be late.” 

 

Back at the Burn’ s Supper Lucy didn’t dance this year, although Martin did arrange amongst others a Gay Gordon and a few other Scottish Reels at the end of the evening which enticed almost the entire gathering onto our improvised dance floor in the middle of The Lake Suite. Needless to say everyone had an enjoyable evening and there were more than a few bleary eyes at breakfast on the Monday morning. Indirectly I was saved by Martin who at the eleventh hour asked me to do the ‘immortal memory’ which is the last toast of the evening and signifies the end of the formal proceedings. Conscious that I had to appear compos mentis at the end of the evening I nursed one glass for the most of the evening. This particular speech is supposed to be the serious one which focuses on Burns’ life and works. Considering that it was a very special anniversary I am not convinced that I really did this honour justice however my words were ‘to the point’ and no one heckled me off the stage. Alison (my wife) who co-hosted our table was unusually restrained with her feedback although she did comment that I needed to lose the ‘ums’.

Santa’s Challenge!

 

I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions however I have been told that I ought to be writing a regular blog, so here goes. 

A quick synopsis of Christmas at Chewton Glen would be a good place to start however in all honesty other than a hotel completely full of happy guests, I don’t have a great deal to share. The fantastic weather undoubtedly helped the proceedings and everyone was able to stretch their legs and enjoy the beautiful Dorset coast and magical New Forest after seriously overindulging in Christmas Fayre. 

The Hotel at New Year

The majority of our guests coming to enjoy Christmas have been doing so for many years and they are like old friends. They are eternally grateful that like many of the team at the hotel I abandon my long suffering family to spend the majority of Christmas with them rather than being at home. 

Most of the charm of Christmas is the fact that nothing ever changes and we have a tried and tested formula that kicks of with a festive afternoon tea with mulled wine in the lounge followed by carols sung in an angelic fashion by the award-winning Highcliffe Junior Choir. A few new surprises always go down well and we decided that Christmas stockings would go down well for all of our guests. The stockings themselves were to be discovered inside the Christmas Eve crackers and if hung on the door these would be magically filled overnight by John the night porter AKA Father Christmas. 

Santa by the pool!At the bar!

 What I haven’t shared with you yet is the fact that the stocking project was only conceived literally days before Christmas and hence the stockings themselves were ordered on-line and had to be shipped straight to our wonderful friend Patricia, who has been hand making all of our crackers at Chewton Glen for decades. According the web site the crackers were 25cm long, which was ideal for the fun and mostly edible contents we had planned.

After tea, mulled wine, carols and a sumptuous dinner the stockings gradually began to appear on each and every bedroom door and to our horror we realised that our stockings were elf like in their proportions. Out came the ruler and if you measure from hook to toe and stretch the fabric you could perhaps get 25cm however there certainly wasn’t enough stretch to accommodate the oversized Brazil nuts, juicy Clementine’s, golden coins, home-made Florentines and some new ila products from the Spa. 

Santa had never been set such a difficult task and what began as a generous gesture turned into a logistical nightmare for the night team. Needless to say John, as always rose to the challenge and our guests awoke to find most of the goodies we had planned hanging on their doors. Two of our most regular Christmas couples wrote the following letter which brought a smile to all of our faces. 

Dear Father Christmas, 

We the undersigned, write on behalf of all the guests at Chewton Glen to thank you for the delightful stockings you left us on our doors on Christmas Eve. 

Being now well advanced into our second childhood’s, we can appreciate (as we did not the first time round) the mammoth task you undertake each Christmas in delivering presents to every house in the land, and now to every room at Chewton Glen. 

Furthermore we, having struggled to extract the biscuits from the stockings and totally failed to re-insert them subsequently, can picture the scene on the packing line as the hords of elves packing them turned the air a deeper and deeper share of blue as the task progressed. It is greatly to your credit that they finished in time for you to make the delivery.

So we thank you again, wish you a happy new year and hope you will return on Christmas Eve 2009.

Yours nostalgically

Rooms 10 and 71 (Names witheld)