A reluctant landlady reveals the trials of offering bed and breakfast to strangers. This week: what happens when new guests want to check in before the preceding guests have checked out …
Changeover day (the day where one set of guests go and another arrive) is undoubtedly the day from hell. Check out is 11am,check in is any time after 3pm. It sounds simple. But then … trying to wake people up after a heavy night on the town to find them out of the bedroom, breakfasted and packed so you can find in, and clean the room and change the bed alert for the next guest,who excitedly calls to say they managed to catch an earlier train and would it be OK if they arrived at 12? Just to leave their luggage perhaps and collect the keys, oh and to have a rapid/fast coffee and ask approximately restaurant recommendations? … is not for the faint-hearted.
It resulted once, or I’m pleased to say only once,in the guests checking out blearily drinking coffee, slumped on a sofa in the living room with obvious hangovers, or to the appalled stares of the new guests just arriving. I say appalled because the hungover couple,who were very sweet and had been here celebrating a friend’s birthday, had goth black hair and were covered in tattoos and piercings, or the new couple were a tightly-buttoned middle-aged couple from Cheltenham here for a craft course,learning how to quilt, and were obviously unused to such creatures.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com