12/09/2026
🍻 26 YEARS. THREE PUBS. AND ONE FINAL TURN OF THE KEY 🍻
This evening, I closed the doors of The Globe for the final time.
And with that, I closed the door on 26 years in the hospitality industry.
It’s quite difficult to know where to start when something has been such a huge part of your life.
At 18 years old, fresh out of college in 2000, I started at The Chestnut Horse, Easton. I had actually wanted to become a social worker, but life clearly had other plans for me!
John🤍 and Jocelyn Holland took me under their wing and became my mentors. I owe an enormous amount to them both and to this day I will always be grateful for everything they taught me.
In 2006, I purchased the tenancy of The Chestnut Horse and spent another 10 years there, building & creating one of the first ‘village shops’ incorporated into the pub, with my Mum 🩷
Sarah and Cathy worked alongside me at The Chestnut all those years ago — and this evening, incredibly, they were there alongside me again as we closed the doors of The Globe for the final time. I think that probably says more about the friendships this industry creates than I ever could ❤️
Over 26 years, the teams that have worked for me have been colourful, to say the least.
An eclectic bunch of misfits who found their calling in the industry.
“Care in the community” sprung to mind on more occasions than I care to remember but I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. A huge THANK YOU to each & everyone of you, too many to mention but you know who you all are!!
And although I never did become a qualified social worker, I’m pretty sure I’ve spent a large proportion of the last 26 years doing the job anyway.
Landlady. Social worker. Counsellor. Cleaner. Plumber. Electrician. Gardener. Builder. Mediator. Taxi driver. Marriage counsellor. Referee. Mother. Debt collector. DJ. Therapist…the list is endless
…and occasionally I even managed to run a pub. 🤣
It has made for one hell of a colourful and exciting career — and despite everything, I honestly wouldn’t change it for the world.
In 2013, I took on the lease of The Globe.
Then in 2016, The Cricketers made it a hat-trick.
Three pubs very nearly killed me off!
My time at The Chestnut Horse came to an abrupt end in 2016 when the brewery increased the rent to a staggering £120,000.
Then, in 2019, history repeated itself when Enterprise Inns doubled the rent at The Cricketers from £32,000 to £64,000. They were swiftly handed my surrender letter.
Fortunate timing, some might say, because just six months later the entire hospitality industry came grinding to a halt overnight.
Covid.
By then, I knew my days in the industry were probably numbered. The pressure was reaching an all-time high and the industry I had fallen in love with at 18 was becoming almost unrecognisable.
But there was absolutely no way I was letting Covid beat me.
If I was going, I was jumping before I was pushed.
So we survived it.
And then I carried on.
Over those 26 years there has been recessions, Covid, burglaries, assaults, fires, floods, building collapses, unbearable loss, huge heartache, and more dramas than I could possibly fit into a single post.
There have been days when I genuinely wondered what on earth I was doing.
There have been days when this industry nearly broke me.
And there have also been some of the best days of my life.
If I ever wrote a book, I swear it would be a bestseller. 🤣
Then, in 2025, everything changed.
💙 Otto arrived 💙
And suddenly my priorities became very, very clear.
After 26 years of giving hospitality everything I had, there was someone who deserved my time more.
So I made the decision to surrender the lease at The Globe.
I walk away without a pot of gold at the end of it — quite the opposite!
But I walk away with something far more important.
My sanity (just about 😂), a lifetime of stories, some incredible friendships and memories that money could never buy.
I have met thousands of people over the years. I’ve watched customers become friends, staff become family, children grow up, couples meet, marry and have families of their own. We have partied hard through the years & sometimes through the tears.
We NEED our pubs.
They’re not just somewhere you go for a pint.
They are where people celebrate, grieve, fall in love, fall out of love, laugh, cry, put the world to rights and sometimes just come because they need someone to talk to.
And I feel incredibly lucky that for 26 years, I got to be a part of that.
To every single person who has worked alongside me, drunk in one of my pubs, eaten with us, celebrated with us, supported us, driven me completely insane or simply been part of the madness — THANK YOU.
I will cherish the memories and the people I have met along the way FOREVER.
A final THANK YOU to my long suffering friends, family & partner Oli, you guys have stood by me through EVERYTHING, all the invitations I had to turn down, the calls for help, the glass collecting, the endless cleaning & painting, flower planting, paperwork and most lately the Otto watching - you all know who you are and you are still standing by me today - THANK YOU 🙏🏻
Hospitality today is almost unrecognisable from the industry I walked into as an 18 year-old girl in 2000.
And perhaps that makes it a little easier to walk away.
Because I know one thing for certain:
I had the best years of it.
I’ve worked bloody hard.
I’ve given it everything.
I survived 26 years.
And now I have my long-awaited, utterly gorgeous little boy to keep me busier than any pub ever could 💙
So, for the final time…
Time at the bar.
This landlady is signing out 🍻🍾🍻
P.s…….If you didn’t already know I’m crazy……I’m running a marathon tomorrow having done no training 🫣 Please follow the link in the BIO to sponsor……I’m doing it for you ‘H’🤍
Pps……The Globe is re-opening under new ownership on Thursday 17th September, THE TEAM are sticking around so please continue to support them 💙
