Soul Diva

Good grief! - it has been a whole week since I last got around to writing a blog - how very slack of me.

It is well into the heart of the summer season now and the last seven days seem to have been a blur of activity. I am chuffed to bits that we are pretty much fully booked for the month - although that means a lot of cleaning and room changing and ironing. Must get help.

The July music festival has started and it definitely feels like holiday season and summer - suddenly everyone has windows open rather than shutters closed and as a result there is a lot more noise on top of the usual street bustle, which itself is louder than normal because of people returning from concerts - you can listen to the neighbours music or what they are watching on TV or just listen to them having an argument and throwing things at each other - sometimes you think there is a big row and then realise it's on the TV!

The Festival kicked off on Saturday with some opera and then on Sunday we went to watch the soul diva herself - Diana Ross. She didn't disappoint at all and still has a fantastic voice that is uniquely hers, sounding just as she has done for 40 years. Of course the gay crowd were out in force to see the array of sequinned frocks and sing along to the classic anthems of the last four decades. I am still humming 'Touch me in the Morning' even now - and I'm not even slightly gay!

Guests have come and gone and the current lot all leave tomorrow, so it's all change once more in the rooms. The lovely Les and Morag have returned three months after their first visit (our first returning visitors) and they have out-concerted us by taking in both Diana Ross and ZZ Top in successive nights - what a contrast! In the other room we have our first honeymooners - last minute decision to get married after being together for 16 years - good luck to them.

I had been moaning a bit recently that the bookings seemed to have dried up and that we still had a lot of gaps in July and August - we had probably gone a week without a booking and paranoia had set in. Well the last few days have seen a flurry of activity for both the Summer months and the Autumn so I am feeling a lot better about things now. In due deference to the power of the internet, I have taken a booking from each of Australia, Ireland, The USA and Spain in the last 48 hours. we have done no marketing in any of those territories yet people still find us thanks to the wonder of the web and the fabulous reviews that guests have left on sites such as 'tripadvisor'.

I'm a bit nervous about the Spanish booking - they will be talking Spanish French which will no doubt be very different from my English French and neither will actually be French as the French know it, but I am sure with a bit of arm waving, pointing, shoulder shrugging and eye rolling we will manage to understand each other - what is there to understand anyway - key, what time do you want breakfast?, goodbye - that should do it.

Adios