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The twins told everyone they spoke to over the weekend about the “special” scheme at school and wanted their views on whether they would be in the top group. Grandma said, “Of course.” Grandpa said, “You will have to wait and see.” Uncle Nigel said, “I hear the teachers are very tough.” George told them they were not clever enough to be in the “top group”, saying he had heard that Miss Manson had been teaching them Spanish because they were behind the rest of the class. Willie was about to bite when Millie said, “That’s stupid, we are miles ahead of everyone else except Archie, and he has a Spanish granny.”
It was with some trepidation that the twins stepped out of Jinnie’s car and trudged across the playground and into the school’s main entrance. Jinnie pulled out into the traffic, thinking, “They are going to learn something today.” Jinnie pulled into her slot in the Maple House car park, next to Brian’s Aston Martin, and saw Rick’s black Range Rover HSE and thought, “I wonder if he wants to talk to me. Has my getting Nigel to make a ‘futures’ spreadsheet stirred him up?”
Jinnie took the lift to the executive floor and headed for her office and a cup of Janet’s excellent coffee. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rick was in deep conversation with Brian, and they appeared to be studying a spreadsheet on Brian’s desktop computer’s large screen. “So, it’s money,” thought Jinnie. “I wonder what he is planning. I bet it’s in California. Well, that’s OK, but I think he might be surprised if he comes to see me and I talk Poland.”
Jinnie was well into her second cup of coffee when the expected visit from Rick and Brian occurred. Rick said, “Good morning, Jinnie, have you got time to talk about expanding the Ennios Hotels in California?” “Of course,” said Jinnie, “I wanted a word with you about expansion, so you being here this morning is handy. Tell me your ideas, and I will give you my opinion. Brian has probably already told you I have been expecting a big push by different divisions now we have a foothold in California. But if we are talking about additional West Coast hotels, I think we should ask Sir Nigel to join us. He is Development Director, and he has been doing some work for me looking at divisional financial plans.”
Sir Nigel wasted no time in joining them, bringing his top-of-the-range HP ZBook Fury laptop with him. Jinnie knew that he had his spreadsheet on it so that he could take it home and work on it in the evenings. He and Jinnie sat on one side of her meeting table, while Brian and Rick sat opposite them. Rick said, “OK, I’ll come straight to the point, I have been looking at where the Ennios chain goes from here. As you know, we now have 15 hotels in the chain, a mixture of business and leisure, and have dipped our toes into the franchise market with York.”
“Well, I feel we have now reached the tipping point,” continued Rick, “where we no longer need to borrow from group funds to grow the division. With 15 profitable hotels, we can grow organically. My plan is to open more hotels in the States. I was split between Florida and California. We already have all the group infrastructure in Florida, warehouses, storage, distribution, and central services, and I was favouring there until I spoke to Brian. He explained that you talked to him about expanding the group into California, and he had been looking at how that affected group funds, building things like core offices and a computer centre.”
“I have decided that I want to grow the division in California first, with a hotel in San Diego, then probably Santa Barbara and San Francisco,” said Rick. “But it’s a huge state, and we could open loads of hotels in California, let alone the rest of the US.” “Interesting,” said Jinnie, “and you propose self-funding this expansion in the States?” “Well, after a chat with Brian, we have come to the conclusion that, if we don’t exceed a new hotel a quarter, we can do it out of divisional funds,” replied Rick.
“That’s excellent, because it matches with part of my plans,” said Jinnie. “Only part?” asked Rick. “That’s right,” answered Jinnie, “I fully expect several divisions to push for expansion into California, and I have been talking to several main board directors about putting in the core infrastructure to support it. Now you happen to be the first, and I am delighted that you propose using divisional funding. Unless Sir Nigel, who has been digging into divisional and group proposed expenditure over the next five years, has come up with something against the project, I propose advancing it to the next stage, where you firm up your proposal with hard costs and actual hotels.”
“But as I said earlier,” continued Jinnie, “the West Coast is only part of my vision. It will probably surprise you, but I have been looking to Poland. There is a huge potential market there for a company like ours. At the moment, there are no American companies there, no Hilton, Marriott or Hyatt chains, and it’s the same for other divisions. No McDonald’s, no KFC, no Subway, no Krispy Kreme, no Starbucks. The market is wide open.”
“But Rick, let’s look at hotels,” said Jinnie. “I can’t go into how, but take it that I have personally seen some of the existing hotels. The Germans weren’t interested in investing in Polish hotels, they wanted Polish coal, copper, timber and wine. Most of the existing hotels are big and old and were built to house Germans travelling on business. They could be easily refurbished to be excellent, Western-style business and leisure hotels, they have the size, the locations and the trained staff.
Now, I personally know the new President, and I have been in contact with him during the last couple of weeks. He was in exile in the U.K., and we basically trained his forces; he sees the UK in an excellent light and wants to develop trade with us. If we move now, before the Americans, we will be well received by the Poles, and we will be in a great position to offer accommodation to the Americans, French, Italians and British coming to rebuild Poland.”
“But what makes you think that Poland is going to have the money to rebuild?” asked Rick. Sir Nigel looked at Jinnie and said, “Let me answer that one. I am in the privileged position of knowing three quarters of the current cabinet as friends and talk with the PM nearly every day. I know what Jinnie says is true. We are about to pour billions in aid into Poland, as are nearly every other free country in the world. Poland is going to be awash with money for those projects needed to bring it up to the levels of ‘Free Europe’. Don’t you remember the initial rush to rebuild the UK when it shook off the Nazis? That was mainly done with American money and heralded the way for all sorts of American companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and KFC on our high streets, but behind them there were American manufacturers building factories to flood the country with the consumer goods we had been starved of.”
“We lost the shoddy German products we had been forced to accept,” Sir Nigel said. “We replaced them with superior American products. Do you not remember when biros were replaced by ink pens, and the rush to acquire the first iPads and iPhones? How we built enormous power stations, both coal and nuclear-powered, and the country boomed. Then we discovered oil under the North Sea and Irish Sea, and gas under our feet, first in Lancashire and then in greater volumes in East Anglia and south-eastern England.”
“Then my government used it, and is still using the income from it and the coal we always had, to set up a sovereign wealth fund,” continued Sir Nigel. “We invested in British companies, and in a few short years we had our booming industries, power stations built by UK companies, British steelmakers, British shipbuilders, British car and truck makers. British people had secure jobs and money in their pockets, people like Jinnie came along and built up British companies to rival the American ones. If you look at the British town centre today, you still see those American chains selling burgers, hot dogs and coffee, but today we also have our own domestic rivals.”
“This is the basic plan for Poland, to seed the country with our money, set up our chains, make the workers prosperous and invest in domestic production. The Poles haven’t yet found oil and gas, but I expect they will find it when they really start exploration, but they do currently have coal, hundreds of years’ worth of coal, huge forests, fertile land, even salt mines and vineyards. I retired from government when my vision for Britain had been achieved. I wanted to sit back and enjoy it, and I did for a couple of years. But Jinnie invited me to join her growing company, and I went along for the ride. Now I see Poland starting out on that same path as I guided the U.K. down, and I am excited to do it over again, but this time not as the head of government, but as a company investing in Poland.”
Jinnie looked at Rick and saw he had realised the potential of Poland. “Can we really get into Poland before the Americans?” asked Rick. “I am certain we can,” said Jinnie, “we have a couple of huge advantages. We have the blessing of the British government; Sir Nigel has cleared the way with the PM. And I know both the Polish PM and his son, who is a British admiral. I am assured we will not have any obstacles put in our path. Now I have a couple of important little things to tell you, Rick. Your new hire, Simone, who I sort of pressed on you, was done so with a double-edged plan. Not only is she perfect for finding you those French hotels you want to invest in, but she is fluent in Polish.”
“More importantly,” continued Jinnie, “Simone’s husband, Jan, is a Pole and has been working with the Free Polish Forces for the last few years. He is very close to the Polish PM, General Dobiecki, and will be our conduit straight to the top of the Polish government. Brian and Sir Nigel haven’t quite finished the job I have given them, to look in detail at our company finances, but I have seen enough to know that we have sufficient group funds to set out on this journey, particularly if we go down the 90% franchising route we are currently using in new Aunty JoJo’s and SuperBurger.”
***
Jinnie was late home from work that evening, as she had been busy organising the start of the TT SuperBurger assault on Poland. She and Rick had agreed that he should fly to Gdańsk, where Simone would meet him and they would look for the first Polish hotels to join the Ennios chain. She and Sir Nigel had spent hours talking to the heads of various company divisions, organising a special meeting in the boardroom for that Thursday morning to explain the company’s two-pronged expansion plan. She talked to Travel about organising hotel accommodation near Potters Bar for the visiting directors.
Travel had met Jinnie’s request to book a dozen four- or five-star hotel rooms in the Potters Bar area with a groan. They explained that there just wasn’t a four- or five-star hotel in Potters Bar. The nearest cluster of hotels was at South Mimms, serving the motorway service station, but they were all the basic type, like Travelodge or Premier Inn. Rick, who was still in the meeting, said, “I’m staying a bit further away, at the West Lodge Park Hotel. It’s between Hadley Wood and Cockfosters. It’s not huge, really a country house hotel, but it is four-star and rather nice, with acres of grounds. But it is a decent standard, why not see if we can get a block booking there?” Jinnie looked the hotel up on the internet and said, “Well, it reads rather well, and the photos look good, and it’s not that far away from Maple House, let’s see if they can accommodate us. They only have 59 rooms, so it might be a problem.”
For the first time in ages, Paolo was home before Jinnie and talking to the twins when she came into the kitchen. Izzy said, “You are just in time, I’m dishing up dinner.” “Hurry up, Mummy,” said Millie, “it’s honey-glazed gammon with carrots, peas and tiny new potatoes, then treacle sponge and custard, and it is yummy.”
Jinnie was back very quickly and took her regular place opposite the twins and next to Izzy. Larry was in his feeding-bowl corner and appeared to be tucking into a chopped-up slice of gammon. Jinnie poured some thin gravy on her dinner, added Coleman’s mustard to her plate, and cut a bite-sized piece of meat, savouring the mouthful before saying to Izzy, “Why is your cooking so much better than mine?” Between shovelling new potatoes covered in butter into his mouth, Willie said, “Izzy is a brilliant cook, this is lush.”
While Izzy was turning out the treacle sponge so that the golden syrup in the bottom of the bowl flowed down the sponge’s side, Paolo said to the twins, “You haven’t told Mummy about your day yet.” Willie said, “That’s because we mustn’t talk with our mouths full.” “So how did your day go?” asked Jinnie. “Brilliant,” said Millie, and Willie nodded in agreement.
Millie said, “Our first class was English, and a man called Professor Jenkins took James, Elle and us at the back of the class, and he was interesting. He had special books for us to read from, a really old story by someone called Charles Dickens. It was really good. Then he had us write about the story. He told us it was written as a weekly serial in a newspaper nearly 200 years ago, so we would read it in weekly parts. His lesson was good.”
Willie took over the tale, saying, “After playtime, it was maths, and it was the man who talked to us in class, and we did algebra. He showed us some hard things and said they were Key Stage 4, and we were officially Key Stage 2. Then he said he will have us doing the Stage 4 sums by the summer, and that is for 14-year-olds. We enjoyed the maths lesson.”
Izzy interrupted the story by plonking the steaming sponge pudding on the table and asking the twins to fetch the big jug of custard and the tin of golden syrup for anyone who wanted extra. Izzy cut a wedge of the pudding for Millie and one for Willie, and they helped themselves to the custard. Izzy cut two wedges for Jinnie, Paolo and herself and waited for the custard while Paolo added extra golden syrup.
Willie pushed his dessert bowl away and said, “I’m stuffed.” Jinnie laughed and said, “Yes, it is rather good.” “I do like traditional British puddings,” said Paolo. “That’s one of the reasons I like P&O cruises, a different traditional pudding every night.” Millie giggled and said, “And you like their curry.” Izzy said, “That reminds me, we haven’t had curry for dinner for ages, what do you kids like best, chicken or beef?” The twins looked at each other and chorused, “Hard-boiled egg with loads of fried onions and boiled rice.” “Now that sounds good,” said Paolo.
The twins were now regularly having a mug of tea after their dinner while their parents had coffee. After loading the dishwasher, the twins carried their mugs into the living room and continued their tale about their new lessons. They had been delighted when they were told they could skip country dancing, and Professor Dirk only talked to them in German, and after afternoon playtime they had a history lesson, and it was about 1830s England. The twins said it was interesting how it fitted in with their Oliver Twist story and asked Jinnie what a workhouse was.
When they had gone to bed, Izzy said, “They were so happy when they came out of school. They were in the top group for every subject, and that really pleased them. Tomorrow they have PE in the morning, and Mr Excell told them there is no special teacher for that, but they have more English and maths, and he told them that Professor Sanchez was coming to give the ‘expert’ Spanish lessons, and they had told Archie how he was a brilliant teacher.”
***
On Thursday morning, over breakfast, Jinnie was worrying about how her presentation to the divisional directors was going to go down, while the twins were buzzing, excited to be going to school. While they rushed upstairs to brush their teeth, Jinnie said to Izzy, “I don’t think I have ever seen the twins so excited about going to school.” “It’s amazing,” replied Izzy, “they seem to actually enjoy being pushed to learn. I suspect that previously they were finding it too easy and were bored. Now they are being stretched. They were talking Spanish last night, and I was having trouble keeping up. I thought I was doing well with my Spanish lessons, when Professor Sanchez was here I had no problem talking to him, but they were speaking so fast I found it hard to follow.”
Jinnie said, “I know exactly what you mean, and this is after only a few days of the new scheme. They seem to be loving it. I really must ring Dirk and see what he has to say.” Before Izzy could reply, the twins burst into the room, asking who was driving them to school that day. “Izzy is,” said Jinnie. “I need to pop down to the garden office and print off some documents for work before I go to the office. Now have a lovely day, you two.” “We will,” replied Willie, “we have maths and French this morning, and it’s games this afternoon and try-outs for the school football team.”
As Jinnie parked the Lexus in her slot at Maple House, her mobile rang, and with it linked to the car’s infotainment system she simply touched a button on the steering wheel and said, “Hello.” Rick’s voice came out of half a dozen speakers, saying, “Good morning, Jinnie, I just wanted to give you an update on my trip to Poland. I have just agreed first refusal on a 200-bed hotel in the centre of Gdańsk, but there are several others I could have agreed on. This one is a quite magnificent old building but seems to be in decent shape. I really need Belinda out here urgently to confirm my view on what work needs doing. I think we will need to overhaul quite a few of the systems, but they are asking a ridiculously low price for it. But it also has an enormous ballroom, and I really don’t know what to do with that.”
Jinnie replied, “I’m in my car now, but I’ll be seeing Belinda shortly, at the divisional directors’ briefing, so I’ll brief her and get her to ring you. I think she may be spending a lot of time in Poland.” “Thanks,” said Rick. “Oh, I thought you should know Simone has been brilliant, not only has she been my translator, but she knows the hotel business inside out.” “Good,” said Jinnie, “I really must go, I am running a little late this morning.”
***
Brian, Belinda and Sir Nigel were waiting for Jinnie and had already been given coffee by the ever-reliable Janet. Jinnie asked, “What have I done to merit this powerful delegation?” Brian chuckled and replied, “We just wanted to update you on a couple of things. Firstly, I am happy to report I have acquired a 20-year lease on the third floor. I was also offered the ground floor, but it is a lot smaller than the other floors, as it has a lot of the core services there, like the reception and the building’s post room, so I said no. The third floor is half occupied and will be empty by the end of the month. We can start preparing the office space as of Monday, and the half free is sufficient for us to move in.”
Belinda took over the tale, saying, “We must decide how plush we want the offices to be. I understand we can relocate most of the boardroom equipment, but we really need to decide if it is to be the same size or bigger.”
Sir Nigel said, “Before you think about that, we have a bit of a problem this morning that reflects on the answer. It seems we have a lot more people for today’s meeting than expected. Everyone seems to have brought over a deputy or assistant or both. We have far too many for the boardroom, so I have spent the last half hour trying to find an alternative venue. I have managed to book the West Lodge Park Hotel conference room, and the meeting is relocating there. Nigel is over there right now sorting out the AV and seating.”
***
Jinnie filled her Lexus with Brian, Belinda, Sir Nigel and Alberto and drove over to the lodge. Jinnie had a good idea where the hotel was and headed off down Stag Hill towards Cockfosters. She turned off at the sign pointing to the turning for the hotel and followed the road through Trent Park until she came to the building. “I didn’t know this was here,” said Jinnie. “And it looks like it has an upmarket restaurant,” said Alberto.
Jinnie parked with several other cars outside the conference centre and all but Alberto headed to the entrance. Alberto split off and headed over to look at the restaurant’s menu in a glass-fronted display outside its main entrance. The uniformed receptionist checked their names off a list, handed them name badges and pointed them to a table laden with tea, coffee and croissants, where a pair of waitresses were serving a sea of familiar faces. Jinnie was served a cup of coffee and an almond croissant, both of which were well up to standard. Turning to Sir Nigel, she said, “Well, so far I am impressed, you have done well finding this space.” Sir Nigel grinned and said, “I hope you still think so when it comes to paying the bill.”
Alberto appeared by Jinnie’s side and said, “I have been looking at the restaurant menu, and it reads wonderfully, I really must try it. You know I love a good restaurant. I understand it serves breakfast for the hotel guests and stays open until 11 pm. It doesn’t seem to have any stars or rosettes, I wonder why.” Jinnie replied, “Do they do afternoon tea? The twins adored the one they had when we were staying at the Ennios Worthing, and I promised them I would take them out for one again, and they have been moaning that I am making them wait until our Christmas cruise.”
Alberto said, “Jinnie, I have been thinking, with this huge gathering of senior people, I think it would be a good time to tell the troops I am retiring. I wonder if you would mind announcing it to the crowd as part of your preparation. You can tell them I will be tendering my resignation to the board at the December board meeting and leaving on my birthday in February. I don’t think you should mention Sir Nigel being lined up for the job. They might smell a stitch-up.”
Monica was the next to speak to Jinnie. “I presume you have some important announcements to make,” she said. “I hope it’s not going to change things too much, we have got things working like clockwork in the States. I hope you don’t mind, but I brought Ro over with me. She hasn’t been back to Britain in over a year, and this is a bit of a reward for all her hard work. I was lucky, I got her a room here, one of the last. I understand it is full, and people are staying as far away as the Ennios Heathrow.” “We never expected such a crowd,” said Jinnie, “everyone seems to have brought several people with them, that’s why we switched to here at the last minute.”
“Well, you found a wonderful venue,” said Monica. “The rooms are magnificent, Ro and I ate in the restaurant last night, and it was one of the best meals I have had anywhere, nearly as good as the Continental, and breakfast this morning was wonderful. At first I thought it was one of our hotels, but I understand it is an independent. If I were Rick, I would be bending over backwards to add it to the portfolio.” “I think it’s a bit small by Ennios standards,” replied Jinnie, “Rick says he has two sorts of hotel, business and leisure. This one is neither, it falls in a different category. It’s a country house hotel, luxury rooms, long weekend breaks, weddings, conferences and a classy restaurant. I doubt Rick has ever considered a step in that direction.” “Well, he should,” said Monica. “I can see the strapline, ‘Country House Hotels by Ennios, a TT SuperBurger Group company.’ All this one needs is a pool and a spa, and it would be perfect.”
Chapter 30, The management briefing
© WorthingGooner 2026
