Friday morning was spent closing up the apartments before my trip back to London for a week. It is always quite a sad event - closing up the shutters and turning off all the water heaters and other electrical items.
In fact one of the shutter support arms broke this week - in the very high winds that accompanied the sudden drop in temperature. The previous weekend I was in shirt sleeves and would have gone out for a drive on Sunday afternoon in the sunshine, if the car had started, and by Tuesday it was back down to freezing point, dumping a metre of snow on the mountains and the wind was howling. The wind resulted in our first bit of structural damage - a support arm on one the shutters in the end apartment clearly couldn't take the strain, was initially bent and finally snapped in two. It was a replacement arm and not one of the original really heavy metal ones - they obviously don't make them as well as they did.
It was a week of firsts. I had my first breakage by a guest - who managed to break the top off the lid of a china coffee pot. Fortunately, it was a clean break and after judicious use of some superglue you can't see the join. I found my first piece of left behind clothing by a guest - nothing embarrassing, just a polo shirt, which I bought back to the UK and will send on from here.
I also had my first journalist visit which went very well and hopefully will result in an article sometime in the press. I also had my first enquiry from a Norwegian, as a result of a new listing on a travel website that Debrah found.
I flew back to London on Friday - a slow journey at every stage - the flight took over two hours because of a very different route from usual - the train took over an hour and was certainly not an express and then North London traffic was all snarled up on a Friday evening, not helped by some idiot who had fired a gun at police up near Manor House - welcome back to the big city.
We had a quiet night in and were up early on Saturday (not with Debrah's approval) to visit Brent Cross shopping centre (sooo many people!) and then watched wall to wall English sport all afternoon (a luxury) before going out for dinner with friends (expensive - by Carcassonne, not London, standards). In fact it has been really lovely to be with Debrah and I am really enjoying being back here - so far - I have to go into the office tomorrow, though.
I visited the Apple store whilst in Brent Cross. My old laptop is three years old and displaying all the characteristics of shutting down permanently any day now - battery doesn't charge any more, CD stuck in the drive etc etc - but it has done sterling work back and forth on a plane every other week for three years. So I bought a new base level MacBook which I can't really afford, but then I can't afford to be without a computer either when I am running a business and managing another business via the internet. Whilst I was buying my new computer, Debrah was wandering about the store calmly bringing up our website on every computer - I believe that is our first bit of underground viral marketing.
It has been a pretty good weekend for the Apartments too, even though I am not there - I have taken four bookings over the last two days, one of which is for the two nights immediately after I return to France on Saturday next - it will be straight back into it when I get back.
Showing posts with label bookings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bookings. Show all posts
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Monday, 4 February 2008
Getting there
Debrah's weekend visit disappeared in a flurry of socialising/networking and sorting/box clearing. The poor thing never seems to get a break at the moment and, of course, the weather turned a bit changeable just as she arrived and looks to be settling back down again just as she's returned to rainy London.
On Friday evening we finally got out to Simon and Juliet's place at Mailhac and were introduced to their friends Peter and Sally, who have run a hotel barge for several years but are now embarking on a new venture in a similar field to us. All useful contacts and business exchange opportunities a plenty, but more importantly, just really good to meet interesting people down here with whom we can have a really good dinner party - how terribly seventies does that sound? - have finally turned into my parents.
Today we met Jamie and Greca, who run the Languedoc Roussillon version of the French Entree website. They came for lunch but we subsequently realised that Debrah's flight was an hour and a quarter earlier than we thought when we made the arrangement, so it was all a bit rushed. Still, good business contacts and nice people too who could well become more socialising type chums who know lots of other interesting people here and in the region.
In between times we managed to empty or move every single last one of the boxes that were still in the dining room to be, which is now thankfully very nearly empty, after 18 months of operating as a builders yard and general storeroom - mind you the walls have taken a bit of a bashing and a final paint touch-up is needed. It would all be a lot less frustrating if the furniture order from Ikea would just arrive, but that is proving as difficult to arrange as it ever was and looks like it may be another last minute, skin of the teeth situation just before the first guests arrive.
Yes, we have guests arriving in two weeks time and we have a whole load of others following on behind them. Today has seen no less than two bookings and four further enquiries including our first potential honeymooners and the latest enquiry just moments ago as I was typing this very paragraph.
All of which makes the fact that the kitchen sink is blocked up very very very frustrating. It showed signs of backing up this morning, after working perfectly well last night. This afternoon I tried the plunger - I tried opening up the U-bend under the sink and I tried some caustic soda crystals designed for the task. The result is that while, this morning, the water drained away but slower than it should, it now won't drain away at all!! It seems that my attempts to clear the problem have made it worse, which shows what a genius I am at DIY - Chris, where are you when I need you?
I guess I need to be able to cope with the unexpected - so I am not going to panic. In fact I am going to go to bed and look at it afresh in the morning when I'm sure a solution will present itself.
On Friday evening we finally got out to Simon and Juliet's place at Mailhac and were introduced to their friends Peter and Sally, who have run a hotel barge for several years but are now embarking on a new venture in a similar field to us. All useful contacts and business exchange opportunities a plenty, but more importantly, just really good to meet interesting people down here with whom we can have a really good dinner party - how terribly seventies does that sound? - have finally turned into my parents.
Today we met Jamie and Greca, who run the Languedoc Roussillon version of the French Entree website. They came for lunch but we subsequently realised that Debrah's flight was an hour and a quarter earlier than we thought when we made the arrangement, so it was all a bit rushed. Still, good business contacts and nice people too who could well become more socialising type chums who know lots of other interesting people here and in the region.
In between times we managed to empty or move every single last one of the boxes that were still in the dining room to be, which is now thankfully very nearly empty, after 18 months of operating as a builders yard and general storeroom - mind you the walls have taken a bit of a bashing and a final paint touch-up is needed. It would all be a lot less frustrating if the furniture order from Ikea would just arrive, but that is proving as difficult to arrange as it ever was and looks like it may be another last minute, skin of the teeth situation just before the first guests arrive.
Yes, we have guests arriving in two weeks time and we have a whole load of others following on behind them. Today has seen no less than two bookings and four further enquiries including our first potential honeymooners and the latest enquiry just moments ago as I was typing this very paragraph.
All of which makes the fact that the kitchen sink is blocked up very very very frustrating. It showed signs of backing up this morning, after working perfectly well last night. This afternoon I tried the plunger - I tried opening up the U-bend under the sink and I tried some caustic soda crystals designed for the task. The result is that while, this morning, the water drained away but slower than it should, it now won't drain away at all!! It seems that my attempts to clear the problem have made it worse, which shows what a genius I am at DIY - Chris, where are you when I need you?
I guess I need to be able to cope with the unexpected - so I am not going to panic. In fact I am going to go to bed and look at it afresh in the morning when I'm sure a solution will present itself.
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