8th March 2010

  Dear Customers,

                              Well it's Monday morning again and we have survived another week. In actual fact it was a rather good one so lets hope this one follows in the same vein.

                                The week started sadly on Wednesday with the after funeral get together of family and friends of the late Kay Dinkele. On Wednesday evening Rachel Breheny celebrated her 17th birthday with friends and family.                 

                               On Saturday night Natasha Benham celebrated her 21st birthday with a large party of friends and family. It was good to see a lively night in the function room with young and old all having a great time. On Sunday Miss Knight was celebrating her 28th birthday and Mr. Cross celebrated in advance his 76th birthday on the 8th.

                                On the staff front we have gained a few new faces over the last few weeks. Vicki and Trang have joined us in the kitchen as relief chefs and Sue has joined the front of house team on the bar. Trang has worked for us in the past but Vicki and Sue are both new to us but we wish them all well.

                          I have a request to make to any of you who read this letter on the website and not in the paper. Will you tell any of your family and friends who previosly read it in the paper that as from today it will only appearing on the Flying Fortress website and they wil hopefully be able to access it there  or if you were realy feeling kind you could copy it for them each week so they do not miss these pearls of wisdom herein contained.   

                       The Red Lion at  Thetford continues to make progress and with the reported likelehood of the closure of another pub in the town it may well be the last pub left trading soon. I am of course  joking but it is a sign of the times that this is even conceivable. The food is  proving popular and it is hoped to introduce a snack menu in the very near future.

                        I have heard that there was a good turn out for the Meeting to discuss the new Moreton Hall housing projects . It seems that we are still not allowed to know where they are to be built but if I had £100 to spare I would bet on it being on Taylor Wimpey's land. I some times wonder who in the Bury area have shares in Taylor Wimpey becausr they always seem to get on very well in the local building allocations.  I t would be interesting to know.

                     I also understand  that having already been thrown out of Great Barton some years ago we now stand the chance of being similarly treated by Rougham. I could develop a complex about not being wanted.

                       Well enough about my hang ups  now it is time for a few details of events coming up at the Fortress. The monthly Quiz is on the 18th of March and on the 28th there is a Country and Western evening planned in the Function Room . But even more important is this Sunday when you should all be out with your Mums celebrating their big day. We still have places available but please book as we are always full on this day until the evening when you may just sneak in without a booking. We have Beef, Pork ,Turkey, Salmon, Chicken and Gnochi all on the menu so there should be something for everyone.                                                                                                                   

                 I haven't counted the lines but it feels like I have written enough so I will be signing off now wishing you all a good week and please spend some of your time and hard won cash up here at  the Flying Fortress.

                      Yours faithfully and sincerely 

 

                       All at the Flying Fortress            

 

 

1st March 2010

                Dear Customers,

                          What a lovely day. In like a lamb for the first day of March. Let's hope that it's a sign of things to come. 

                           Once again a reasonable if not exciting week both here at the Fortress and at the Red Lion. On Monday  the local Scouts held a meeting and on Tuesday Marakesh a practice. On Wednesday the Royal Naval Association held a get together with a Carvery dinner and NHBC held a meeting with lunch in the Conservatory. On Thursday CIBSE held a meeting and Big Girls Blues a band practice. The weekend although reasonably busy had no major parties in but over the weekend several families celebrated their own special occasions including Andrew Perry's birthday,  Cameron Walker-Hebborn's 18th birthday and Les Blair celebrated a birthday and other members of the family had an early Mother's Day party.

                          This brings me neatly on to the next big         occasion which I am sure you will have remembered is Mother's Day the 14th of March. What would you do if you didn't have me here to remind you? This year as always we are only open to parties who have booked their tables in advance. Every year people ring up on the Sunday morning hoping for a table. We always do our best to oblige but sometimes it is just impossible to fit in any more people until the evening. Please for your own sake and of course Mum's, plan ahead and book your table. Once again we will be offerng a two course meal with choice of main, desert and coffee for a fixed price. there will of course be a separate choice for children. So don't delay. As soon as you see this letter pick up the phone and make your booking. Don't take the chance that dear old Mum gets left out in the cold.

                            The next date after Mother's Day to remember is the 18th of March which is the date of our next Quiz Night . These have been going from strength to strength and we are seriously considering holding them more often. We would like to know your views on this so please let us know if you would support this idea.

                            And yet another date to put into your Diary is Sunay 28th of March when a Country and Western evening is being held. This will include  the playing of all your favourite tunes and a Karaoke evening. This it is hoped will become a regular event so please give it your support. 

                            Another new attraction up at the Fortress is Table Tennis. Someone has donated a table complete with net, balls and bats and already the challenge has been thrown out to find the best player in the pub. I have an idea that bets are even being made on the outcome.

                           At the Red Lion the food offering has been gratefully accepted and it is good to walk in at lunchtime and to see customers tucking in to a fresh Roast dinner cut straight from the joint and served with fresh vegetables . I am sure that once people know it is available it will prove a great success. Unfortunately the Real Ale Evening was not as popular as we would have hoped but we have noticed that more people are coming in to try the Real Ales and we are hoping that Greene King will be doing a promotion where the second pint will be for the fantastic price of £1.00. To re-inforce our commitment  to Real Ales we even have one beer on the counter being served straight from the Barrel. This week the chosen beer is Brendan's Iceni brew Fen Tiger. It would be worth a visit to the pub just for this so let's see you in there. Prove to me that some of you read the Citizen and act on it. 

                            Talking of action I had better get into gear and get moving. I have places to go and faces to see so once again I will end with my request for you to support your local Pub and especially those that I am associated with. It is the least you can do after I have taken all this trouble to write to you.

                         Yours faithfully and  sincerely

 

                           All at  the Flying Fortress an Red Lion.

 

22nd Feb 2010

     Dear Customers,

                                 Just when you think it's all over, back it comes back with a vengeance. It is the snow of course I am talking about and it is Monday morning as I am writing. Please make it go away. I don't think I can take much more of this.

                                    But of course we can. We're British and we thrive on adversity and just to put matters into  perspective we had a good week here at the Fortress and a better week at the Red Lion with the introduction of the Carvery. Although we did not serve too many meals on the Friday  I was pleased by the look and the quality of the offering and at an introductory price of  £5.95  nobody should have any problem with that. My only worry is that there will not be enough room in the top bars to accomodate both diners and drinkers so we had better get the bottom room  up and running to make room for the Carvery.     

                                  Back at the Fortress, like I said, we had a good week with the Farm Machinery Club meeting on Tuesday. During the week we had several celebrations including Deborah Bowles' 52nd  birthday, Audrey Wales' birthday, Joanna Robinson's 21st, Peter Boreham's 52nd and the Clarke family celebrated 3 birthdays and a visit of Hungarian relations. The Baker family also celebrated a visit of a brother from America.

                                 Thursday however was the night to remember. This was our Quiz night and we had a record 34 contestants taking part. The winners were a team from the Parkinson Support Club but the second and third teams only got one less point respectively and another team might have won had they not gambled on the wipe out round. Well done everyone and thank you for supporting the Quiz night.

                                    And of course the next big day for your Diary is Mother's Day which I am sure you all know is on the 14th of March. This is always the biggest day of the year for us and I expect this year will be no exception.  I must ask you all to book in advance as we we are unable to allow any walk in bookings as every table is allocated. We are open for meals all day from noon till about 8pm and we will be serving a two course meal with coffee. You could go on to our website to get more information about the menu etc.                                     

                                 Access to the Flying Fortress is now much better with the new gravel and the filling of the pot holes and to help stop the problem recuring we have put up  a notice asking HGVs not to turn round on the gravel. Most have obliged but one or two seem to have trouble reading the sign. I will if course persevere and hope common sense prevails.

                               A small problem with the air conditioning last week gave us no heat in the main bar. It is amazing how much heat these machines throw out and we were freezing without it. So much so we had to revert to the radiators but  thankfully  Mark Hinchcliffe managed to sort it out .

                              Well once again the bright lights of Thetford are calling and who could resist that, so I had better be winding up with the hope that we all have a good week,  the weather picks up a little and that white stuff does not hang around. So it's Goodbye for now and hope to see you soon. I have just had a problem with the computer who obviously doesn't like Mondays either.         

Yours sincerely and faithfully

 

          All at The Flying Fortress and The Red Lion