Glen Cafe @ St Marys Loch

This was the comment that one lady gave as she had walked through our closed door with the closed sign attached yesterday to be told by ourselves that we were actually closed. We we sitting at 4.15 having our lunch!, having not had a break since we arrived at the cafe at 8.30 having had a very busy day.

This is a common attitude of a lot of people. They think that the if they are there we should be open. They do not see that we have a further 1 1/2 hours to clear up and how long we have been there without a break. They do not see that the resources needed to open longer would not be financially viable.

We have put together a page on our website taking a nostalgic look at some of the events which we have given us special memories over the last 8 years running the Glen Cafe. To have a look Click Here or follow the links on the website.

Just had a phone call from a lady who had been given our number by the tourist board as the best people that could help them with their enquiry about boats on the loch. Read the outdoor access code guys but we are so please that you know we exist and considering that you persuaded us not to join a few years ago (too late now!!!! 74days 5 hours 40 minutes 30 seconds….)

At the time of writing this was the time left on the countdown which has been on the Glen Cafe website for the last couple of months. We have decided that it is now time to give a bit more detail of the “until”.

In April of this year we decided to give our notice on the lease of the Cafe to the Estate landlords for the end of this year. We decided that after 8 years of trading that the time was right for us to move on to the next stage of our journey, and bring to an end our contribution to the long history of the cafe.

To come back to the countdown this is the time left to the 4.00pm on Sunday 3rd October 2010 which will be our last day of trading.

We have had many great times in the cafe trying and succeeding with many new things for example winter opening, evening meals, music suppers (who remembers Scocha rocking the cafe? or the many faces of John Nichol?). In the next few days we will be putting together a page on our website showing a brief summery of our 8 years, keep checking back to the website.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers past and present & hope to see a few of you before we vacate the premises (Though not St Mary’s Loch)

… it says that you are closed!”

This is a funny comment from one of our customers last week. A funny comment as the comment was about the closed sign on the door & the time was approx 4.15pm – we close at 4.00pm. They acutally to the door, looked at the sign, and carried on into the cafe. They asked for a pot of tea & got served. Several minutes later they issued the above words to Barbara who was putting the cakes away. They were a bit shocked when they were told that we were actually closed.

This shows how much people acutally take notice of the notices, or consider that we do have to close sometime, usually on or shortly after our published times, but often if people are around later than this. Many probably do not realise how long we have been working that day & how much work there is to do once we close.

We mentioned in an earlier entry into this blog about someone asking “where does the walk start?” Well today this happened again. A lady walked into the cafe asking where the walk to Innerleithen started! Barbara asked if it was the Southern Upland Way that they were following and went on to describe how to cross the bridge in to “Tibbies” and follow the path by the loch. We worry about people coming to this area without maps, or knowledge of how to use them. It seems that we are in a finger post society where people want to follow different coloured marker posts. This does not happen in our bit of the Southen Uplands apart from the Southern Upland Way but it is still possible to get lost if the weather turns which it has a habit of doing.

The walking around St Mary’s Loch is stunning. The different perspectives of the area from the hill tops is totally different from what most people see of the area (especially with finger posts not spoiling the view!)

Boring title but I had a problem with the one for this post. The 2 possibilities were:

“Its Snow Joke” or “I’m Dreaming of a White Easter!”

Up till now we have had a great winter weather wise. Yes it has been cold, yes it has been snowy but amongst all of that it has been crisp, blue sky, no wind and very few dark dismal dreek days. The last couple of days though with the amount of snow has pushed things a little bit too far. It is Easter – the great awakening of people to the great out doors. It shouldn’t be snowing now, it should be warm spring sunshine bringing out the daffodils and putting a smile on peoples faces.

We are now on our summer hours at the Cafe.

• Sat & Sunday 10am to 5pm
• Weekdays 10am to 4pm
• Closed Tuesdays

Last week we saw the lights on in the fishing hut for the first time since we have lived in the area, which shows how far the St Mary’s Loch Fishing Club have come in the last year. Last summer was a hard summer for the club with a lot of changes but they have come through this stronger and more forward thinking that they were before.

Some of the initiatives they are pursuing are restocking the loch with Artic Char and developing the lochs as a good quality, self sustaining natural fishing loch.

To get the Artic Char established they are recommisioning an old hatchery in the hut, the generator will help iwth this and the work that they are doing on the boats.

One further thing worth mentioning is the donation that they made to the Cappercleuch Village Hall a few weeks ago. Thanks guys for this and your hard work around the lochs.

More information about the club can be found on their website http://stmarysloch.googlepages.com/

This was the question that greeted me this morning. The only response I could give was “Which Walk?” The couple in question had been sent up to St Marys Loch with a photocopy of a walk up the Wiss and along to Peniestone Knowe! This did not give me great confidence in their ability to navigate their way between these points. Although equipped with boots & good clothing they were without one vital piece of equipment – a map.

So many people come to the area and ask about walks. Few realise that the area does not have many way-marked walks which is a great shame but not a lot we can do about it but be better prepared to walk in these hills and enjoy their beauty

Still beautiful even when it is thawing

We spent all of Friday shovelling snow from the carpark so that we could open up again today.  What hapens overnight – the fastest thaw that we can remember.  The result is that all of our efforts were a waist of time as most of the remaining snow has now cleared from around the cafe!!!  We are both a bit fitter now (or will be when we recover)

We have managed to open but on a limited menu and times.  We are serving soup and a range of panini between 11 and 3pm  Sat & Sunday.