Well another month has passed and what a month it has been. The weather improved in York although temperatures were never above 20 degrees. You will notice from the title that three things of note happened this month and taking each in turn I'll deal with the winners one first.
No we were not lucky punters during the Ebor Race Festival (that's another story) but won something of far greater value to our Guests.
During the month we had our annual Quality in Tourism grading. The Assessor (it sounds much nicer than Inspector) booked in anonymously and after spending the night and sampling Elaine's breakfast let us know who she was as she paid. As you can imagine you run through all that you have said and done hope and pray that you haven't made any Basil or Manuel gaffs.
She, as is usual, asked to see all the rooms and then we settled down in the Lounge for her verdict.
Well we received Very Good on everything (bedrooms, bathrooms, linen, toiletries etc., that's a score of over 80%). However for our Dining Room, and the quality and range of choice of our Breakfasts we scored Excellent. We also scored Excellent for Hospitality. Both of these scores are over 90%.
More importantly we not only retained our 4 Stars but WON A SILVER AWARD.
This is achieved by less than 5% of Guest Houses in the UK.
For those of you who have stayed with us we wish to assure you we will not rest on our laurels and we intend to lift the bar ever higher during the next year.
I mentioned earlier the Races. August is always one of the busiest months in York and this year it has been manic. Not only did we have the Ebor Racing Festival but it was followed by a Bank Holiday Week end.
Consequently we were almost full every night of the month and last night climbed into bed at 21.00. An unusally early time for us but we felt we deserved some extra sleep. It's amazing how a good night's sleep regenerates one and this morning we rose bright and early and "rarin to go".
Finally "WET".
Some months ago we decided that the whole family would book for the Castle Howard proms. These were on the 18th and after much planning we had our pinic supper organised, the "bubbly on ice" and the chairs and table booked. All we needed was the weather to play ball. It didn't.
Tim, our son-in-law, and I went early to stake our claim to a prime spot and to set up everything. We then waited for the ladies to arrive - in what was a fine drizzle. Sadly it didn't let up all night - in fact it got progressively worse. One of the highlights, the Spitfire fly past was cancelled and we eventually sat huddled under our umbrellas.
The real surprise was that despite the weather we had a great evening listening to some super music. The finale was a fireworks display by the team that did the Millenium display in London. It can only be described as AWESOME.
We can really recommend the Proms (even if you are no clasical music lover) and for those of you looking for a truly unique evening, why not check the dates and come up to York next year.
As usual we conclude with "WHAT'S ON IN YORK" next month.
WED 5 Sept. York Races at the Knavemire.
FRI 7 Sept. Haunted Horror Maze. Grimston Bar
Sun 8 Sept. Canine Capers. York Maze, Grimston Bar
Sun 9 Sept. York Races at the Knavemire
9th 15th Sept. British Association Festival of Science. Programme on www.the-ba.net/festivalofscience
15/16th Sept. National Book Fair. Knavemire Suite, York Racecourse
20/31st Sept. York Festival of Food and Drink A GREAT EVENT. Programme on www.yorkfestivaloffoodanddrink.com
That's it for now. Take care.
David.
P.S. Just some information for those of you who have not visited YORK previously or have not been in YORK for a while.
YORK has been voted EUROPEAN CITY OF THE YEAR for 2007/8. In winning this accolade YORK beat off strong competition from the other finalists Valencia and Gothenburg.