Dear guest,
With the festive season all but upon us, we write to you with our Winter newsletter for 21/22 and include details of our spring offers and gap fillers for next season.
We would like to start with reinforcing our heartfelt thanks to all of you for continuing to visit and support all of us here at the Castle in 2021. Despite having another late start to the season, we have enjoyed an exceptionally busy season and again have been relatively fortunate to be able to operate fairly close to normal. The islands did have some issues during August that lead to “ping-demic” related, brief restaurant and pub closures but we were fortunate, particularly being a hotel, to avoid those. We are all confident that despite the recent excitement, the operation will be even closer to normality in 2022.
Again, we are very fortunate that bookings for 2022 are exceptionally strong so we only really have space for offers tailored to gap filling and early March at this stage. It’s a real relief to have so many returning visitors.
Sadly, we have to report that the family have suffered some losses during December. Robert’s mother Jean, who some of you would have met over the years, passed away peacefully on the 4th December following Theresa’s mother Mary who beat her to it by three days. Both will be very much missed by all who knew them, they were both very fortunate to have long and happy lives making it to 98 and 99 years respectively and were both spared any prolonged illness or discomfort, for that we are all very grateful.
Twins, Whales and a Walrus
On a more positive note, Rafe, our new ‘Tim’, and his wife Anna welcomed two twin boys into the world recently, mum and babies are doing really well. The timing couldn’t be better as Rafe has now got plenty of scope at this time of year for ‘tending on’ before the seasons boating starts! We are all looking forward to him pushing on with the wildlife trips as it’s been exceptional for marine life again this year. We’ve added some amazing photos of Humpback and Fin whales and also our friend ‘Wally’ for you to enjoy.
Scillonian IV
Other good news is that the Islands have secured funding with the DFT for a new boat, Scillonian IV. The initial artists impressions look really exciting as you can see from the images. Hopefully work will start this year so watch this space!
We look forward to welcoming you all back in 2022 and wish you all health and happiness, particularly in these challenging times, for the festive season.
A very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
The Francis family and all at the Star Castle.
