bugger!
Thursday A photographer came to take pictures of the place so we had done pre prep stuff for that and were also doing pre prep stuff for the hotel inspector coming on Friday which was still going on. Jill started the day going round with the photographer moving stuff around to get the best shots but quickly got bored so deputised me to that task. I stuck it for a while before also getting bored and leaving him to it to gradually move things next door from Orchard View where we have been staying to Russet where we are now as guests arrive on Friday for Orchard View. The moving out and the ensuring it was ‘guest ready’ took ever longer as we scratched the surface of what needed doing and started moving pictures about, checking inventory and deep cleaning the cottage.
We popped to Morrisons in the evening to get food supplies for the final few days and then came back to settle in properly to Russet. It’s loads bigger than Orchard View, over two floors, with an extra bedroom (although D&S have chosen to stay in a twin room anyway depsite the option of a room each), far bigger kitchen and lounge and a bath! 🙂 I had a very unsucessful bath eventually having worked out that the immersion heater needed to be put on and needed a shower to warm back up again afterwards but have since had two baths to make up for it!
Friday today was all about the hotel inspector coming. I spent the whole day resisting the urge to act out great swathes of the Fawlty Towers episode 😆 which involved lots of dashing about infront of him with bedding, teapots, salt cellars to refill etc. The visit went well aparently although with Jill only having been here 3 weeks as I had already said to her this was her starting benchmark to work from and improve on rather than any judgement on her anyway. There was a real comedy moment when having inspected our cottage while we were eating our lunch and wishing us a ‘nice rest of your holiday’ I then showed some potential guests round about half an hour later, crossing paths with Jill and the inspector who said to Jill ‘I thought she was one of your guests?!?’ 😆 😆
The weather has been glorious again today and at 6pm we declared it wine o’clock and congregated on the front lawn for nibbles and champagne. This has been an amazing place to spend time and fab people to spend time with – we’re ready to move on and re-commence our adventure proper but it’s been a great interlude and sitting with iconic views of Wells catherdral and Glastonbury Tor, as the sun shone, sipping champagne and chatting with our hosts definitely goes down in our list of memorable moments of the year :).
We moved from sitting chatting and drinking to deciding we should all eat together so we gathered food and moved across to Jill & Jonathan’s for a barbecue 🙂
Back to Russet to the kids to go to bed, us to have another bath and as we have more to do tomorrow it really should be bedtime o’clock. I am very worried that for the last two days my face has been very itchy and we are heading towards the anniversary of my face flaring up last year which suggests it is either sun related or something with flowers / pollen at this time of year causing the allergic reaction. So far it is itching alone but no swelling but I am very alert for indications of it going further and keeping fingers firmly crossed that no more comes of it.
I didn’t realise that she’d had the cottages for so little time. I knew she was new to it, but must have missed that snippet.
Hope you’re all enjoying the fab weather, but really hoping the rash doesn’t come back. Fingers crossed.
I’d start taking the antihistamines now if I were you.