Well its now the end of another season here at our beautiful riverside retreat at Le Grand Saule in Moncontour, Vienne. We have welcomed visitors from all over the world from America in the West, to Israel in the East, from Denmark in the north to Australia in the south - very cosmopolitan this year especially. Most of our guests have been fabulous and many have kept in touch since they left here - sending messages of good wishes and photographs taken both here in France and back at their homes, so often we get to know their families - if only by photograph. It hardly seems like a year since we opened let alone this being the finish of our fourth summer. But suddenly I am beginning to see what Basil Fawlty of Fawlty Towers was all about with his strange temperament. Towards the end of a busy season following many early morning breakfasts and late evening meals combined with a little room cleaning, maintenance of grounds, shopping, website directing, answer emails and writing up the accounts and all the other small jobs that are involved in running a Bed and Breakfast, we are now feeling extremely tired. When you just think you have a quiet moment and you want to relax and put your feet up. Guests have gone for quiet meal out at a local restaurant and all is quiet on the Grand Saule front. Then in walk the guests during the middle of our meal and expect to hold a conversation until 10.30 pm - bang goes your meal, bang goes your quiet night. I hear Basil Fawlty shouting 'You have only paid for Bed and Breakfast' throws a wobbly or his waiter and says 'I am not available 24/7 - go away...' But you don't - you politely sit with them and discuss how they want to put the world to rights. One of our guests got it right this week. Tandy Cassidy co-owner of Les Chuquets or Ski-hike-bike.com in the Auvergne took time out from her busy schedule to stay with us for most of the week and visited a glass workshop closeby. In the evenings she tucked herself away in her guest room and no amount of cajoling to come out would work - she had come for a rest, time to give her brain a rest. I knew the feeling having done the same last year giving myself a weeks break in Ireland. Well its time now for a break. We have just a few more weeks of guests, then holing ourselves up in front of the log burner in time for Christmas. Basil Fawlty here I come.... |
 |
|||||||||||||
 
CategoriesActivities in VienneGUEST PHOTOS GUESTS AT LE GRAND SAULE HOLIDAYS LIVING IN FRANCE Moncontour Weather Week in a Bed and Breakfast in France |
|
 |
|||||||||||
    |
|||||||||||||
