Monday 8 April 2019

Unexpected guests at the cottage

A couple of weeks ago, we had a bit of a panic when a guest SMS messaged me saying they'd be arriving in an hour's time and how do they get the keys to the cottage. Unfortunately our holiday rental company Sykes had made a rare mistake and not told us about this guest's booking in advance. So, we were not expecting them to arrive. Having a week's gap in bookings, we'd removed the covers from the furniture and the cottage was not "made up" ready for the guests.  Indeed, I had been planning to start stripping paint at the cottage in preparation for some redecorations.

A couple of urgent calls to Sykes established the booking had been made, but not paid for by the guest. Sykes couldn't get the guest to answer their phone. However I, by SMS message, I was able to contact the guest and establish he had in fact paid in advance and had a booking number. I forwarded this information to Sykes who were able to sort out their problem and release the booking to me. At this point the guests were on public transport just 30 minutes from the cottage. I really didn't want to ruin their holiday.
Cleaning the cottage and making it up, normally takes a couple of hours work for my wife and me.  Unfortunately my wife was away from our home, at a charity committee meeting. I had to start the process of getting the cottage ready for the guests, and we live 20 minutes drive from the cottage. My wife understandably was not answering her mobile phone at the time, so I had to hurriedly gather clean bedding, linen, towels and chair covers, then head off to the cottage.  I could at least let the guests into the cottage when they got off their bus, but there'd be a delay while I prepared the cottage for them.

The couple duly arrived when planned, about five minutes after I'd arrived. After greeting them, I carried on preparing the cottage while they went and did some food shopping.  Not long after my wife materialised, having seen my messages and leaving her committee meeting. We set the cottage up in record time, including recovering the lounge furniture.


1 comment:

  1. Really enjoy reading your blog, those unexpected guests were myself and my girlfriend. We still chuckle about that to this day from when the panic set in when we were on the bus thinking the holiday was ruined but you pulled through very professionally.

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