And here it is

Jameela, my very sweet and helpful rescuer at Airbnb has sent me a secure link to share online.

Please share if you wish; it’s https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/29265770

Now I have to construct some sort of information manual for the cottage. I’ve been warned already that no one reads the information provided online (I do! Especially the reviews people leave as to cleanliness, some of which I later find are less than accurate) but at least it will be written down for guests to ignore. I haven’t written a proper document since I retired. Sigh…..

And so…..

The cottage. We have decided to rent it out on Airbnb for the summer, opening the bookings calendar for three months ahead only, to allow for the possibility of a sale; we have to remain positive that a sale at some point is possible!

We estimate that a sale is likely to take at least 10-12 weeks, which allows us to accept holiday bookings this far in advance without fear of having to cancel them later. As time goes on, the calendar of available dates will expand accordingly. We chose Airbnb rather than the favoured option in these parts, a holiday cottage agency, as registering with an agency would have tied us in for a year, with no possibility of leaving it up for sale at the same time.

We start on May 31st.

I haven’t quite mastered how to put the cottage’s Airbnb link on here without its workings, ie the ability to edit the listing as though you were me, but if interested  and want to take a peek, you look for the UK site, and then Alcombe, Minehead. Our cottage is there. Name, photographs, everything.

Which brings me to another matter: that of identity. Some of you know me only as Rachel, the name I really prefer (it’s one of my real names, and was my grandmother’s), but in everyday life, and on Airbnb I’m Veronica. The Gardener is Rod, and the cottage is Tobias. There now – our flimsy cover blown.

The photos will change soon, as these are the ones taken for the sale brochure; once the beds are made up for holiday rental, they will take on that generic holiday rental look, ie crisp white bedding and towels courtesy of the local laundry, and the kitchen will look less unequipped. But I hope it will appeal to holidaymakers who want a rental with – er…. character.

Preparing and publishing the listing on Airbnb wasn’t easy, and a decision or an error made in one section led to unseen errors in another. Within a few minutes of pressing Publish, two bookings came flying in, and both were inadvertently set at a tremendous bargain price. Which we shall honour, but have since set our nightly rate at something much more realistic, guided by friends and the Airbnb helpline, who unlike me, know what they are doing!

It’s rather nerve-wracking, exposing one’s home and standards in such a public manner, and while we know and love Tobias Cottage as if it were an extremely elderly and treasured relative who, despite being kept clean, tidy and decently dressed, still shows the effects of many years of wear and tear. How could it be otherwise, when its history tells us that it was at various times in the last 400 years an inn, a malthouse, 3 dwellings and later 2, with every occupier knocking bits down, adding bits on, seemingly without much recourse to logic, plumb lines or accurate measurements?

Pre-loved. That’s the essence of the cottage. I resist the urge to paint its every square inch, to box in its exposed pipes and cables, and do something with the ancient lumpy plaster on the stairs that we suspect conceals ancient lumpy wattle and daub. Not necessary, and also not feasible at this late stage! The Gardener reminds me often that I must not take any adverse criticism or suggestions personally, should they come. Ok, I shall try. But as a (elderly/treasured) relative myself, kept clean, tidy and mostly decently dressed but definitely showing the signs of many years of wear and tear, I can be over-sensitive in these matters!

The adventure goes on.

 

So here we all are….

Firstly, the little squirrel. The day after I’d found evidence that something larger than a mouse or a bird had been despatched bloodily on the back doorstep, and which I now think was probably a squirrel, I was approached a good distance from the trees by a baby squirrel, a very insistent little creature who tried to climb up me.

I had no idea until later that squirrels would do this, but it appears that they do, often because they have been orphaned; I put it back in the grass under the trees where I knew there were dreys, hoping its mother would find it, but it ran after me . So, slightly panicked, I popped it into a container and looked online for advice, anxious that it wasn’t spotted by the cats meantime.

After having a syringe full of tepid water, which it took enthusiastically, the squirrel settled sleepily. By now, I was in love with it…. A neighbour and I were about to set off for the nearest wildlife rescue centre, some distance away, but thankfully The Gardener came home from work at that point, and we all set off together, with the little creature sleeping peacefully in its shoebox on my knee.

The Secret World staff identified it as female, still unweaned, and put her in an enclosure with two other young orphans, where she is, according to all accounts, thriving. In time, she will be released into a red-squirrel-free area. (The law prohibiting release of greys into the wild is to be implemented in October, bringing England into line with Europe, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This will bring a slew of dilemmas for animal centres and people like me who could not readily abandon a small animal to a cruel fate.)

I found the whole experience rather harrowing, to be honest; Nature red in tooth and claw is all very well, and very true, but not at all comforting when the red teeth and claws may well belong to one of the nine cats who live here.

So who are these nine cats? Well, three of them, of course, live with The Gardener and I, two live in the enormous trailer beside the pond with L and T and their three pugs, and four, mostly elderly, live with J, the owner of the big house. Erick is one of her four, and makes up for the inactivity of the other three by waging war on all cats, with considerable fervour.

It amuses me to consider us as a gated community (the big gates are locked by one of us each evening) consisting of five humans, nine cats, four dogs, and – until a recent fox-related tragedy – a tame Muscovy duck.

Scooter, Lottie and Millie love living here, even with Erick’s occasional attacks. They roam the grounds, hide in trees, use every door in our place many, many times daily, just because they can, I suspect. Scooter and Millie play together like kittens, ambushing each other and scampering over the lawn.

They lead a glorious existence. Leaving this place is going to be a grievous loss to them as well as us. We know we will probably never live in a place like this again.

But for now, we stay put. J, our landlady and owner of the manor, will alter our tenancy agreement to allow us to stay on here in the mews cottage, even if the manor is sold – it is currently under offer, although a sale is by no means certain at this early stage. Our fixed term contract ends in  June, when it moves automatically to a rolling monthly agreement. By setting a longer fixed term, with ‘breakout clauses’ at regular intervals, to allow us to move as and when we choose during that fixed term, we have greater security, and more time in which to sell our own home.

And what of our own home and its hoped-for sale? It has been on the market since March, with a few viewings, many compliments and “I’d buy it right now if only my….” sort of reviews, and we have to accept that in a dead market, a house sale is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

And so the cottage sits empty, part-furnished, lightly heated when necessary, and visited daily by one of us or a helpful friend nearby, to draw blinds and check that all is well. At first, I was unable to stay in it for more than a few minutes without weeping, torn between feelings of missing it intensely yet not wanting to move back to it.

After a few weeks, the cost of maintaining two homes began to take its toll on our bank balances, and it was time to review our plans.

The problem is, basically, that of wanting to have my cake and eat it. I do struggle with regular bouts of doom-laden anxiety for the future, and have to remind myself that we embarked on this adventure without knowing its outcome, and that the here and now is also really rather special and very pleasant.

With that in mind, we are embarking on a simple, obvious course of action: the cottage can earn a little of its upkeep in holiday letting, whilst remaining available for sale.

More on this subject later.

Sharing with cats

Rather like sharing one’s bed with cats, I’m not confident that I will get my fair share of this blog, but here goes. I’ve said goodbye to blogging on Blogger, and will stay here for now. Thank you for the advice and encouragement.

I’ll be back later, with a shedload of news, but in the meantime, please just click that Follow button.

And look at this little baby. Whatever your views on grey squirrels, this little orphan is irresistibly sweet, and yes, she was in my scarf, then in a shoebox, en route to a wildlife rescue centre, after running across a dangerously cat-infested courtyard to beg me for help. More of that later.

What to do?

We are in a dilemma. Our Humans are making huge changes in all our lives, and we aren’t talking about it, because it’s a bit complicated, and we have many other more fascinating things to do, like prowling, keeping watch, listening to all the crows and rooks, exploring the long grass in the paddock, poking about in gigantic dark cellars. We are always busy!

But Rachel is wondering if she should start another blog for herself, here on WordPress, for which she pays an annual fee, rather than on Blogger, where no one really visits her. She has much to talk about, she says, exciting, even troubling things, that might interest you. And if they don’t, then she will be back to her original motive for blogging: to make a record of her life, even if it’s a bit prosaic most of the time, and mostly for her own amusement. She misses writing, she says.

She could share this one with us, and become the main writer, leaving us with some much-needed free time. Or she could start another  blog entirely – Slow Lane life IV or something. She is dithering.

What do you think?