Key staff ill and of course we've a flood

That's it, then. Christmas over and done with for another year. I hope all has passed without incident, the lights still come on, water still flows and we have reopened for business on Monday full of optimism.

Our Christmas trade held up extremely well and we finished December at least 5% up on the previous year, with Scunthorpe, where we have been suffering a little, more than 8% up.

We are having a few people problems in Scunthorpe, though. Our assistant manager was off for virtually the whole of December with a shoulder injury, and then the manager was taken into hospital two weeks before Christmas with pneumonia. When you've got only five regular team members, losing two of them causes a bit of a problem.

Fortunately, we had re-engaged Kerrie (who had left her assistant manager's job to have a baby) on a part-time basis and she, with Denise, Shirley and the Saturday team, did an absolutely fabulous job.

Some years ago we decided to use automatic machines to produce hot chocolate, cappuccino and milky coffee, as well as hot water for tea. We have refused steadfastly to move from Pour and Serves from Taylors for our regular coffee production, as that would have put all our eggs in one basket.

The call came at 4.50pm on Monday - a plastic part on the automatic machine had fractured and the restaurant was slowly filling with water. At 4.55pm I called the supplier, who invited me to leave a message, send a fax, send an e-mail or visit his Web site. But all I really wanted was an engineer.

I felt that 4.55pm was a bit early to shut the office, but the supplier didn't see it that way, and on Christmas Eve he wrote to tell me that he would no longer provide either goods or services to our businesses. I was hoping we didn't have another breakdown before the world awoke on 4 January.

Throughout the run-up to Christmas I was working to pull all the various strands of our refurb together. We plan to close one restaurant each week starting on 29 January and, since I am due to go on the boys' skiing trip on 15 January, everything needs to be ready by that date.

So far it's looking pretty good, with all the necessary orders placed. The imponderable rests with me - will I return unscathed from St Anton or be plastered?

JOHN DOWNS is managing director of Lincoln-based Jay-Dees Family Restaurants

Next diary from John Downs: 17 February