Back on the coalface

After years of irritating my working friends by declaring – often – how wonderful it is to be retired, I suddenly find myself rather busy! As in slightly-work-like busy. I am now a short-term holiday let landlady.

Tobias Cottage went live on Airbnb in May, and bookings came in quickly. Rather haphazard bookings, because getting the hang of Airbnb’s complicated website took a while, and some people bagged a great bargain while I sorted out my pricing, but that’s ok, I guess. I switched off Instant Booking, although I know potential guests prefer it, and gave myself the opportunity to ask a few questions before accepting a reservation. Straightforward questions, of course, like “Who the hell are you, gang of potential axe-murderers? Tell me a bit about yourself and your travelling companions” when an attempted booking tells me only “Looking forward to staying in your house!” (4 adults and a child) or, as in a current issue, “I’m bringing my well-behaved cockatoo” – I’m still trying to discover whether she means a bird or a misspelled mixed-breed dog.

My first guests arrived the other day, to a spotlessly clean cottage (I’d still woken up in the small hours fretting about when the ceiling fan upstairs was last dusted, and had to get over there to double-check before their arrival) and a freshly-baked marmalade cake; they loved it all, and we loved them; a wonderful start to what I know can be a challenging way to make a bit of a living. Especially for someone who could almost make a living out of droning on about the joys of retirement…..

From years of never being quite sure what day of the week it is, I now have to manage a bookings calendar. This in itself feels like meaningful work.

And then there are the Facebook forums for hosts. They provide a huge amount of essential information, friendly advice and assistance, and a wealth of stories. Horror stories, more often than not, exposing the general public as fussy, filthy, idle, dishonest, stupid and ever-willing to ruin your bedding, smuggle in unauthorised friends/dogs, run the heating full blast with all the windows open, and arrive hours later than the check in time. But after reading some truly terrifying tales, some with photographs, someone will remind us all that the forums are there to allow hosts to vent, and that mostly guests are unproblematic, and some are even wonderful. So we’ll see.

So far, it’s fun! And a welcome addition to a retirement pension (see, had to get the R word in again). The Gardener is living for the day that his State pension kicks in – he has to wait until September, poor man, for his princely allowance – but meanwhile is pursuing his usual summer regime: mowing and moaning. He is excessively busy, because of the rate of growth of grass in so much rain, and tired. He says he’ll never afford to retire.

The cats carry on much as before: in one door, out the other, many many times a day. Millie has had tonsillitis, unusual in cats, the vet tells me, and hasn’t quite picked up since, but continues to make the most of her life here, carefree, car-free, and with many little creatures to er… observe with interest.

It is almost a year since our friend Suzi died; her mother gave me some money and asked if we’d plant a yellow rose in our garden in her memory. We did, although it had to go in a large pot, and this week it opened its first bloom.

I’m sorry she isn’t here to listen with righteous indignation to other people’s tales of their guests from hell; she’d have loved every minute of her beloved Tobias Cottage’s transformation, and laughed heartily at my new-found ability to manage a calendar.