Hello,

So the last email was a pretty major bummer, clearly. Weirdly, I think this one might not be much better even though the actual things that have happened are a dramatic improvement. I’m struggling a lot with my own mental state and sometimes - like this evening - that’s fully disconnected to what’s happened or is happening or is likely to happen in the future.

What has happened in the interim between emails is we were homeless for a bit (although fortunately housed thanks to the kindness of Sean) and during that time I speedran getting a new pub. Which we’re in now - in fact, have been for six weeks or so.

Where is the new pub? It’s in Stratford, so much closer into London - the one with the Olympic park, not the one upon Avon. It’s called the Queen’s Head and it’s a lovely, much smaller (but tbf I think there are few pubs bigger than the old one) boozer with its own laundry list of complications, mostly related to having a license about the same thickness as a bible with all the restriction annexes.

I got picked out for it because I’m a fixer. So I’m fixing it. It’s going to be a long project.

It’s going well in the sense we’re very much still here, things all seem to be going in the right direction. I am working insane hours but it is paying off. We’re very close to being in a good place, I think. If only my head was.

My Lagerbier Hell

There is, as I’m gonna guess is likely to be the case every time I take a new pub on, no cask ale here. Yet. I’m working on it.

In the meantime trying to work out what I can do between being tied to a PubCo and my own creative endeavours has led to a range of activities from drinking lots of lovely beer at Hackney Church Brew Co a few weeks back as part of market research for expanding ranges to, err. Well, there’s no better way of putting it than breaking and entering a different pub (with permission) which, if I get my way, might be a route to a small and highly localised bar empire.

So like, I’m not doing nothing. In fact I’m doing fifteen different types of too much. I think I’m going to run for the board of the local Business Improvement District since there’s no hospitality representation. I’m helping other people organise their pubs. I’m trying to get my pub’s license reviewed. I’m dealing with a complicated and very demanding pub. I feel like I’m not doing enough.

Which, y’know. Wasn’t hugged enough as a child or whatever so that is my default mental space.

Seasonal depression

I kind of assumed, moving to a pub so much further into London and in a huge transport hub, I would stop being so isolated. If anything, it feels worse. Some of it is a particularly gruelling few weeks that weren’t anyone’s fault just a lot of grind to get through that meant not getting very much time away from the bar, which in turn meant not getting any time at all to do anything other than work.

Some of it’s just the isolation of being nearly 40 so I have to actually plan things ahead if I want to see any of my friends and this being really hard if I don’t know if I’ll need to be doing something else at the last minute. People visiting when I’m working isn’t quite the same, since I’m at work and I want to ideally not be at work and instead socialise so in a way it makes it feel worse.

I know this isn’t exactly a new problem in the industry - I haven’t seen any BII or MA or whatever research but I bet isolation is an increasing problem for publicans. Pressed by costs to short-staff, you’re left with not a lot of option except to over-use yourself. And then there’s all the management stuff to do when the bar’s shut.

I semi-ironically picked up some romance novels from The Works when I first got here. Now I’m reading like four a week as an alternative to human connection. I don’t really know when I last hung out with my housemate. I know that all of these are depression symptoms.

I know it’ll get better. In the last place I eventually built up my little social things I did for myself locally - CAMRA meetings and a regular haunt at the Bird & Barrel - and I just haven’t worked out what that looks like from E15. I am a pretty terrible friend, given my habit of working all the time, so have to accept that I need to build my own social life that fits in around my stupid job that’s also how we have a roof over our heads and so has to take priority at all times.

Going into the hectic dark of December, knowing it will come out the other side more gruelling, is quite difficult to muster the enthusiasm for sometimes though. I’m meant to currently be drawing the Christmas decorations on the windows because we didn’t really have a lot of budget to spend so I’m having to be creative but well. I’m writing a newsletter at last instead, so.

Losing the old pub still hurts. I don’t know how much I love this one yet - a bit, definitely. I’m glad I have it. I think there’s a lot of potential. Objectively speaking, I know there is some of that already being unlocked, that I’m making a significant difference and that the rest will come. I also recognise my own depression symptoms and that I’m taking a lot out on myself when actually I am doing fairly well.

Probably. I don’t know. It’s been a difficult few weeks. It’s hard to tell if you’re doing well at something that feels kind of awful all the time.

But also: it’s one of the evenings where I’ve let the isolation and the dark thoughts get to my head. I won’t think like this by tomorrow.

Anyway, hopefully the next one will be cheerier and more about breaking and entering a grade II listed building than me having Bad Syndrome.

Until then,

Hazel