Egyptian Cotton

I tell you what.  100% Egyptian cotton with a 200 thread count is a complete bummer. After washing, its creases resemble the complexion of an old woman, and it's impossible to iron.

But.  This B&B lark.  It's brilliant!  I am really loving it!  I still simply just can't believe that I ever possibly could!

I mean.  You actually get paid for doing your own hoovering and mowing, and making your house look like a show home! Well, you would, assuming you had some customers.  Which I'm sure I will eventually.

My freaky scary night with my first guests coinciding with the arrival of God of B&Bs was really great.  Esteemed Partner and I had dinner with God and his especially delightful wife, just after I got back from listening to Beloved Daughter singing 'Swing Low'' particularly wonderfully, in our local parish church.

I asked God whether it would be OK to serve my guests food from 'Cook' - a company in Kent that makes home-made food in bulk, freezes it, and gets it to you within 24 hrs of ordering.  Most courses cost £3.95 a serving, and taste exquisite - words can't really do it justice.  It's miles nicer than anything that I could ever make and completely reliable and consistent, unlike my cooking.

It seems that God is most comfortable with honesty and personality - two things that I rather pride myself on actually.  He said it would be fine to serve food from 'Cook' provided I were open about the fact.  He also commented on the hideous piles of timber piled sky high just outside my gate, which have been growing so fast over the past decade that my poor home is now drowning behind it all.  "It's real," he said.  "It's what the moor's all about these days.  What's really going on now that the hill farmers are forced to diversify."  He made me feel completely better about it.

All six of us sat around the polished dining room table for breakfast the next morning, and it was really like a jolly house party.  The freshly baked (from frozen) croissants and pain-au-chocolats that I had found the day before in Sainsbury's went down particularly well.

I joined God and his wife for lunch at the Rugglestone in Widecombe - the best pub on Dartmoor - after they had wandered down the River Swincombe, which winds down the valley from just outside our house to join the East Dart.  They were stunned by the beauty of the place.  I have recently discovered that people who have lived on Dartmoor for years choose this out-of-the-way very spot to celebrate their most special occasions.  It is so important not to take where I live for granted. There is truly nowhere else like it in the world.

I had spent the morning filling in God's B&B form, and rushing around tidying, clearing up dining room, bedrooms and kitchen, washing up, straightening flowers in vases and beds, wiping around bathrooms and hoovering.  Stuff that I have never really done in my life before - well at least not since the school holidays over thirty years ago.

For the price of an overnight stay - averaging £100 a room for one of my three rooms - I really can't complain about this.  All the books say that to run a B&B is such hard work.  Well, not compared with a proper job, in my probably not as humble as it should be opinion.  It just gives you an excuse to keep your house in good nick and hopefully, in the end, to entertain a steady stream of people staying the night, and to cook breakfast for them, and chat to them.  All of my favourite things.

Roll on that steady stream!

And in the meantime I'll gird my loins and get experimenting with the new steam press I picked up last week off Ebay for £52, from a very nice lady just down the road from the health club.  All the books agree that a decent B&B must offer Egyptian cotton.  I really can't see the problem with polyester, but there we are.