I know I can set it all up beautifully to give it a real wow factor for new arrivals but of course, I’m not there and have to rely on my housekeeper. She’s brilliant, works very hard but the bottom line is, she’s not me and I suspect I’m a bit of a control freak.
We ran out of water one year. Yes really, the well ran dry. We never really got to the bottom of why but we assumed that the widowed farmer’s wife who lived there before us may not have hammered the shower, the dishwasher and the washing machine in quite the same way as we do. Not least because she didn’t have a dishwasher or a washing machine.
With three small children in tow and a husband in the UK, I had to track down a bowser (no I’d never heard of one either) and persuade the owner of a hole ridden, rusty old tank to dump several tonnes of water down the well for us. The trouble was I bribed him with so many glasses of wine (and I think he may have also stopped for a game of boules too if memory serves me right), that the bowser was practically empty when he finally made it to the well, the water having seeped out of the many peppercorn holes in it on the way.
I worry if it’s too hot and guests spend all day in the shower and the well runs dry; I worry if it rains, in case they don’t enjoy their holiday...
We have at least managed to fix the drains but that meant digging up what we call our lawn (and you might laughingly call a field) so now I’m anxious the next guests won’t like the temporary landscaping. I worry that they’ll email me with a complaint or that they won’t email me so I won’t be able to fix any problems that may arise. Once I’ve got through the angst of the first few days I often start worrying about whether the guests will behave themselves or trash the place and upset the neighbours (though that's quite hard as the neighbours are some distance away).