Well that's a bit of a shock - we've got guests again.
We haven't had any guests here since the end of October and I have to admit to being a bit out of practice. We have a Spanish couple who drove here last night from Barcelona. They arrived in Carcassonne at about 11.00pm and asked where they could get something to eat - er, Barcelona probably - this is a small rural French town - what is it about the Spanish and eating at midnight?
So we put together a tray of charcuterie and cheese and baguette and couple of glasses of wine and delivered it to their room - in-between having to apologise for the electricity going off - how very embarrassing.
I was so out of practice that I didn't have everything I needed for their breakfast tray, but fortunately we had enough time to make a market trip before we had to put it all together for them.
In fact we made three trips to the market this morning - the last one to collect our Christmas tree, which Christian and I carried back up the hill together. It isn't quite as impressive as last years tree but now that it is proudly standing in the corner of the main living room with all its lights and decorations in place (black and white this year) it looks very much the part.
Showing posts with label guests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guests. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 December 2008
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
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
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
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Shock to the system
Christian is back in town after a weekend in London lying on his bed. He tried to avoid any work yesterday afternoon after his arrival but I finally got him upstairs to remove a load of rubbish which was in the way in Denis' apartment.
The next job at the bar was removing all the stuff that had been dumped in the basement and Christian said he wasn't doing it because of his fear of spiders and bugs - don't know where that came from? The problem for Christian was overcome the irrational fear or lose the job - he chose to overcome the fear - a good decision - I'm proud of him because it must have taken a lot of willpower to force himself down into that basement.
He said it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be - as always our imagination builds these things up beyond the reality.
Mind you he seems to have adopted French working practices very quickly - he started at 8.00am this morning and he knocked off at 4.00pm on the dot this afternoon. "I've done a full day", he said, before falling asleep on his bed for the next 4 hours - the same next 4 hours that saw Chris and I doing a 'full day' with an 8.30pm finish. I guess after years of sitting around on his arse, 8 hours manual labour must seem like a full day - but when you are being paid by the hour and are going travelling soon, well, personally I'd have put in a couple more hours for the money and to hell with computer games and myspace until two in the morning.
I don't mean to sound harsh on the boy - he's worked hard and he is being very good company and it's good to have him here. Oh you should see what we've got in store for him the rest of the week!
We are coming to crunch time on Denis' apartment - he arrives in a week's time and we haven't started painting yet! Bugger - there goes this weekend then - somehow, working around the four new guests who arrive on Friday, we need to lay the new floor, paint the whole apartment, build and install the bookshelves, clean and generally make good. I'm not feeling 100% confident of success but as ever we will give it our best shot - it was the same when we finished the apartment and the same when we finished the studio. Timing plans - load of rubbish.
The guests went up to the Cité today but generally had another relaxing day ahead of the family wedding they are attending at the weekend. They took the bikes out this afternoon and unfortunately suffered a puncture. Before I knew anything about it they had the wheel off and the inner tube out and were asking for a puncture repair kit, which I didn't have, so they have promised to take it up to the Peugeot cycle repair shop in the morning and get it fixed - aren't they lovely?
In fact all our guests continue to be lovely and continue to write fabulous reviews on tripadvisor and i-escape which drives even more people to our website - thank you all for your kindnesses. It has been a pleasure to meet each and every one of you - please don't stop coming!
The next job at the bar was removing all the stuff that had been dumped in the basement and Christian said he wasn't doing it because of his fear of spiders and bugs - don't know where that came from? The problem for Christian was overcome the irrational fear or lose the job - he chose to overcome the fear - a good decision - I'm proud of him because it must have taken a lot of willpower to force himself down into that basement.
He said it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be - as always our imagination builds these things up beyond the reality.
Mind you he seems to have adopted French working practices very quickly - he started at 8.00am this morning and he knocked off at 4.00pm on the dot this afternoon. "I've done a full day", he said, before falling asleep on his bed for the next 4 hours - the same next 4 hours that saw Chris and I doing a 'full day' with an 8.30pm finish. I guess after years of sitting around on his arse, 8 hours manual labour must seem like a full day - but when you are being paid by the hour and are going travelling soon, well, personally I'd have put in a couple more hours for the money and to hell with computer games and myspace until two in the morning.
I don't mean to sound harsh on the boy - he's worked hard and he is being very good company and it's good to have him here. Oh you should see what we've got in store for him the rest of the week!
We are coming to crunch time on Denis' apartment - he arrives in a week's time and we haven't started painting yet! Bugger - there goes this weekend then - somehow, working around the four new guests who arrive on Friday, we need to lay the new floor, paint the whole apartment, build and install the bookshelves, clean and generally make good. I'm not feeling 100% confident of success but as ever we will give it our best shot - it was the same when we finished the apartment and the same when we finished the studio. Timing plans - load of rubbish.
The guests went up to the Cité today but generally had another relaxing day ahead of the family wedding they are attending at the weekend. They took the bikes out this afternoon and unfortunately suffered a puncture. Before I knew anything about it they had the wheel off and the inner tube out and were asking for a puncture repair kit, which I didn't have, so they have promised to take it up to the Peugeot cycle repair shop in the morning and get it fixed - aren't they lovely?
In fact all our guests continue to be lovely and continue to write fabulous reviews on tripadvisor and i-escape which drives even more people to our website - thank you all for your kindnesses. It has been a pleasure to meet each and every one of you - please don't stop coming!
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Guests
When the announcement came over the tannoy I started to worry a little bit. It was Saturday morning and I had guests arriving that evening - I had been in London for a week and their suite wasn't yet ready for them. The announcement informed the waiting passengers that the inbound plane for our flight was due to land at the time it was due to take off - an impossibility without the aid of time transport. We were going to be late.
My guests were clients of Lesa and would be spending the day looking at property in the region - I hoped they might take longer than expected to give me some extra time to get things ready for them and get down to the shops for some provisions. As it turned out that is exactly what happened and by late afternoon, after a mad dash around town and a rapid cleaning/bed making hustle, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Very impressively, he managed to reverse his Mercedes Coupe straight through the archway with no hesitation - they had been in the car all day and he probably just wanted to park up and get out. This was to be our first family staying here - our suites are really designed for couples so this meant some furniture moving and re-arranging to fit an extra bed into the Studio. We wouldn't normally accept reservations from families but the the weekend was free and it was a favour for Lesa, who has been unrelenting in her promotion of our suites.
What has been really interesting for me so far is the real diversity of our guests, their backgrounds and why they are here with us in Carcassonne. I guess I expected a lot of the same sort of, perhaps, London based people enjoying a carefree weekend break but that is probably a failing of my own imagination - why should it be so? Indeed the opposite seems to be the case, with a real diversity of people (albeit only a few so far) visiting and booking for the next few months. I am really looking forward to meeting them all.
This weekend's guests already live in France but are now looking for a change of place and pace. They have two young girls who are fast growing up and they think that the Charente will be a bit rural for them as they turn into teenagers - Carcassonne is hardly London or Paris, but the town and the region does have a lot to offer so I will be very interested to see if they make the move down here.
I have breakfast to do in the morning and new guests arriving tomorrow afternoon - so I better get myself off to bed. I'm very enjoying this whole new experience though.
My guests were clients of Lesa and would be spending the day looking at property in the region - I hoped they might take longer than expected to give me some extra time to get things ready for them and get down to the shops for some provisions. As it turned out that is exactly what happened and by late afternoon, after a mad dash around town and a rapid cleaning/bed making hustle, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Very impressively, he managed to reverse his Mercedes Coupe straight through the archway with no hesitation - they had been in the car all day and he probably just wanted to park up and get out. This was to be our first family staying here - our suites are really designed for couples so this meant some furniture moving and re-arranging to fit an extra bed into the Studio. We wouldn't normally accept reservations from families but the the weekend was free and it was a favour for Lesa, who has been unrelenting in her promotion of our suites.
What has been really interesting for me so far is the real diversity of our guests, their backgrounds and why they are here with us in Carcassonne. I guess I expected a lot of the same sort of, perhaps, London based people enjoying a carefree weekend break but that is probably a failing of my own imagination - why should it be so? Indeed the opposite seems to be the case, with a real diversity of people (albeit only a few so far) visiting and booking for the next few months. I am really looking forward to meeting them all.
This weekend's guests already live in France but are now looking for a change of place and pace. They have two young girls who are fast growing up and they think that the Charente will be a bit rural for them as they turn into teenagers - Carcassonne is hardly London or Paris, but the town and the region does have a lot to offer so I will be very interested to see if they make the move down here.
I have breakfast to do in the morning and new guests arriving tomorrow afternoon - so I better get myself off to bed. I'm very enjoying this whole new experience though.
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