Our 4th summer season in the B&B has flown by once again. The weather has been fantastic until the last few days of August when the storms arrived. We did struggle a bit with the 40-degree heatwaves which continued into August, but the house stayed relatively cool and the aircon that we had installed in May was brilliant. The rest of the house will be done later this month so next summer we will be truly ready for the heatwaves.
We have learned so much since we opened in May 2022. I think our biggest lesson has been to carefully close off rooms / days from time to time to give ourselves a break and to stay just about sane during the busiest weeks. Also, over time we each seem to have settled into the roles that suit us best and we’ve become much more efficient as a result. Tom is much happier in the kitchen than serving breakfasts to guests for example, and I certainly couldn’t turn out the perfect poached eggs or the great daily breakfast specials that he does. Tom takes pride in cleaning the bedrooms while I take care of the bathrooms with all the delightful things that involves.
In 2022 the B&B was pretty much our life, now we have a much better balance (although we are both looking forward to our winter downtime again this year!) Because we are more experienced, we are more relaxed. The routines of check-in/out, breakfast, cleaning, laundry etc mesh nicely with our daily life most of the time.
I’m also so much more at ease with our French speaking guests now, to the extent that I can chat with them in French to pass the time or to deal with whatever questions they may have. When we arrived in France I could just about ‘get by’ in French, but before appointments, phone calls etc I had to spend time looking at the vocab and role playing the conversations in my head. Somewhere along the way I developed the confidence and vocabulary to deal with daily life here and new situations as and when they arrive. I still have a long way to go with my French, especially when speaking as I know I make loads of mistakes and forget the vocab that I really should remember, but I’m proud of where I am and I’m determined to keep improving.
A year or so after moving over, once the novelty had worn off a bit I guess, I did start to crave for ‘stuff’ which is either hard to find here or is ridiculously expensive compared to buying it in the UK. As time has gone on, I find the list of cravings is much shorter as we have grown to enjoy local alternatives. One example still on my reducing list is a proper British country pub, with a wide choice of excellent real ales, to wash down a local pork pie or scotch egg, in front of an open fire or in the beer garden…mmm… but I guess I’ll just have to manage with a glass or two of local wine with a charcuterie board sitting in the sunshine watching the world go by outside one of our local bars until our next visit to England…it’s a hard life.
As we’re approaching the end of the busy season, I’ll make this my last update for a few months. One final push for us this month until we get some proper downtime as well as a chance to work through the list of jobs for the winter.
