Guests

I waited around all afternoon for my new clients and then two lots turned up when I was only expecting the one.

The clients I was expecting had said they would be arriving by car between 3-5pm. At five I sent them a text asking what time they thought they might arrive and at 6.30pm they turned up, having been on the beach all day and still oblivious to my text or that they had compromised my afternoon.

I guess it goes with the territory and at least I gave the kitchen a much needed thorough clean - so there was a silver lining.

At 7.30pm the doorbell rang again. It was my Australian client - the one supposed to arrive tomorrow - just the twenty four hours early then. To say that I was taken a little bit off guard would be an understatement, especially as I was in the final throws of dinner preparation for yesterday's arrivals who would be coming through the door for their four course gourmet dinner with wines in less than 30 minutes.

Fortunately for him, his suite was a) empty - the only night in June that it was - and b) mostly prepped - I had changed the bed but hadn't cleaned or hoovered but thankfully the previous guests had only been in for one night and had been very tidy. Anyway, he was in no position to complain because I know he was a day early and he was lucky to have a room at all.

So I brushed over the confusion for the time being and gave him some clean towels and settled him into the suite. I couldn't really spend much time with him with dinner guests due and I knew that somehow his itinerary was different from the booking I had taken from his travel agent back in Australia - we could sort it out in the morning. When he said that the car hire company weren't expecting him either - well, there you go. Maybe he went the long way round across the international date line or maybe he's just not with it - who knows.

Being the professional that I am (Debrah would say OCD) the dinner was all ready to go and his arrival was but a mere blip on the proceedings. My dinner guests were unaware of the drama and I even remembered to put the candle on the top of his hot chocolate fondant to mark his 30th birthday, which it was.

In some ways, they reminded me of Debrah and I when we first got together - young affluent couple, high pressured jobs, grabbing a weekend away, constantly bickering ...
She's a cushion buyer - she's bound to have a futility attack at some point.

So dinner went well and all the washing up is done. I was up at 6.30am this morning for guests that had an early start so it feels like a long day. I think if I didn't have to get up early I would probably wake up anyway - I don't think I have been in bed beyond 7.30am any day for the past 20 days since I came back from London, which means I just can't do late nights out at all - I ducked out early from La Fête de la Musique last night for that very reason.

It may be the early mornings or the busy schedule or the years catching up or that going out just isn't really fun without Debrah here. It's 20 days since I last saw her and it will be another 10 before I do - that's just too long and I'm feeling every day of it.

I am so looking forward to our week away at the beginning of July.

Missing my wife

I have just finished another client dinner, loaded the dishwasher and washed up the stuff that wouldn't fit - all except the glasses that is.

I was feeling a bit lonely this morning and really missing Debrah not being here - I couldn't get myself going on anything despite having a million things that I could do. I went to the market for the stuff for tonight's dinner and then mooched about a bit before finally shaking off the lethargy - in fact I suddenly went into overdrive.

Not sure where the energy or drive appeared from but I made a rapid supermarket trip and finished the email listing of previous enquirees and then went into baketastic cooking mode interspersed with an hours ironing and finally dinner preparation for this evening - phew!

So there is now a lemon cake and some biscuits for guests and me to nibble on and most of the ironing is up to date and the mailing list is ready for the relaunch of the website and the current guests have gone to bed replete after supper.

The supermarket trip was a bit disappointing though - the annual 'Foire des Vins' or wine fair had been taking place at Leclerc and they had some excellent wines on offer at excellent prices. Debrah and I tried some a couple of weeks ago and earmarked the ones that we would like to have again and again. Sadly, when I visited today the whole promotion was over and virtually all the wines that we had earmarked had sold out - bugger - oh well, there will always be next year and the wine festival is just around the corner next week - I don't suppose that we will go without the water of life.

I had emails this morning from both Amy and Isabel - amazing immediate responses to my email last evening - both are settled into their university years at Lancaster and Leicester - and with Christian now into his first week at Ravensbourne Art College, we have quite the grown up family. Good luck to them all on their first steps towards the scariness and responsibility that is adulthood and don't you dare mess up.