What I Love about Running a B&B

I  have just said goodbye to my latest guests.  They have been a complete larf and generally brilliant, and I am going to miss them. I am smiling warmly to myself now, just thinking about how funny they were!

In fact this weekend is going to be my first weekend without guests since July! Time for a lie-in! Except we get those anyway sometimes.  Last weekend I served 'my doctor' breakfast at 5pm! It suited us both very well.

I have been amazed at guests' reactions when I ask them what time they'd like breakfast in the morning.  They nearly always say, "When would suit you?"  I mean WHAT???!!! I am here to serve! That is my job! Breakfast, anywhere, any place, any time, whatever you can think of, except kedgeree because it makes the whole place smell.

Sometimes I almost have to force guests to say what will suit them, everybody is so astonishingly nice and obliging.  Inside my head I am often trying to convey what I really want to say by telepathy.  I concentrate hard, focussing on their brain, saying "Say 10 o'clock, say 10 o'clock!!" and usually they pause before replying with "Would 8.30am be too late?"

Well now I am sad that my latest couple have left because I have had to go around the house turning off all the radiators and the wall lights (which I only use on special occasions because they are very expensive on bulbs), and I wont have any more fresh flowers now until my next guests arrive.  Horrid cheap croissants, nasty spreadable lurpac, grotty bland orange juice and plastic bread for the next four days.

Before I started the B&B business my house was becoming a tatty old mess, to such an extent I felt like moving rather than attempting to get it all together.  The very idea of porcelain tea cups, scatter cushions and throws in each bedroom did my head in.  Getting everything immaculate with not a single 'curly' anywhere to be seen (a disgusting word I have learned through my recent addiction to 'Four In a Bed')  no flaking paint, and no dust even on top of a 7' wardrobe, filled me with utter horror and dread.

But nine months later, I wander around my establishment with its cut grass, swept gutters, filled tubs, clean patio's and (almost) everything working, including the mended glass pane in the dining room window that had clearly once had a bullet shot through it.  I'm feeling good.

And also cold, until my next guests arrive and I have an excuse to heat the whole house at 20C all over again.  Roll on Monday!!