Right, so where do we go from here?

Well, it has finally happened. We have sold the pub to an extremely nice couple called Tim and Mandy; but, as is usually the case, it wasn't really that simple. We had a phone call from Tim a few weeks ago to say everything was going to plan and could they be in the pub in a fortnight. We didn't feel this would be a problem - but how wrong can you be!

Between them, the solicitors took a further 10 days to finalise the contracts and so it was only on the Thursday before moving out on the Monday that we exchanged contracts. Before this we had been reluctant to put a deposit on a rented property, or to tell any of our customers, who were totally in the dark, that we were moving. So we had just four days to find accommodation, pack, move, throw a leaving party… oh, and run a busy pub for a weekend.

Fortunately, my mother and father offered to come and help. However, they had to bring with them not only their two dogs, but also my brother's two dogs that they had said they would look after on that particular weekend, and grandmother, who had just left hospital after a fall.

All was, therefore, set for a weekend of potentially comic proportions. As it happened, everything went remarkably well. I stayed in my kitchen for most of the time; mother and father travelled back and forth to a house we had found in Leyburn; granny was kept in an unbearably warm room, sometimes being moved; and Helen filled in doing things the rest of us might forget.

We had an exceptional leaving party on the Sunday night. The staff, in a very short time, had managed to plan a number of surprises, and the turnout of the local population made us realise why we had enjoyed Hunton so much.

The big question now is what to do next. The priority is to continue to live in the area close to all our friends, if this is possible. I would favour a return to hotel management and have begun to talk to a few people to ascertain whether the seven years running my own business is an obstacle to this.

We have rented a house for six months, which gives us breathing space, and I have been asked if I will help Tim in the kitchen at the New Inn in the short term, which would make the transition easier for customers and staff. It could also feel liberating - cooking and then going home!

IAN VIPOND is chef-patron of the New Inn, a free house pub in Hunton on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales Next diary from Ian Vipond: 13 September