"O Spirit Sweet of Summertime"

I put the snow shovels away yesterday. The last time I did that we were hit with 5 inches overnight so this time I waited until the grass turned green.  Even now I can see patches of snow on the far side of the hayfield under the trees. My world has been black and white for so long now that at one point I wouldn't have been surprised to see Bette Davis smoking on the deck.    But I've dared to put some pansies out this morning and spring-loving guests who enjoy the double dose of daffs are enjoying seeing it all happen again here after their own early spring is over. Sap buckets are hanging on trees all over town and one guest this weekend is here on a beekeeping course (that sounds springish, doesn't it?).  So, I guess we made it.  The Thursday singing club resumed in the dining room  and to our joint delight we learned that one of us took up belly dancing to stave off cabin fever.  What with demonstrations of her art (which involved hoiking up many layers of flannel, not a problem encountered in many harems, I reckon); marveling over the felted toys based on a Japanese anime film made by another; admiring sweaters, coats, blankets and rugs knitted, hooked and spun through blizzard after blizzard; discussing the dozens of books read (I kept quiet about watching 6 years' of MadMen re-runs in 2 weeks.  That was after the last storm and I was traumatized); we didn't have much time left for singing but did end with "O Spirit Sweet of Summertime' which put us all in a cheerful mood and sent them out my front door and across the lawn under a starry sky, serenaded by the peepers out on the marsh who, no doubt, had their own  tales to tell about winter under the snow.

 https://youtu.be/a6qqpHjZnfA

The Summer So Far

The weatherman said yesterday, "hot and sticky today followed by thunderstorms tonight and then summer's over."  What?  I don't know about you but I think that's taking weather reporting a step too far.  Summer's over?  Who is this guy?  My summer's not over and I'll thank him to stick to
THE WEATHER, nevermind the godly pronouncements.  Admittedly, it feels more like Maine and a little less like Guatemala today but that is a good thing. 

The guests come, the guests go.  Some of them write nice things in my guest book.  Some of them carve their name in the child's bunk.  Yes.  I KNOW WHO YOU ARE because you wrote your name, your parents' names, your brother's name and for good measure, the name of your imaginary friend.  A couple who had faced down a terrible illness last year sat in our Adirondack chairs and drank in the view they never thought they'd see together again while another complained about the raucous geese waking them in the morning. They wake me too and I feel  sorry for people so used to an alarm clock that the world waking them up is a nuisance.  I'm not a terribly hands on innkeeper.  I try to be available to my guests as needed,  but for the most part I work behind the scenes at providing a memorable visit for them.  I wonder sometimes if they know how much I learn and am touched by their brief appearance in my world.    

August at the B&B

Wacky season is upon us.  An Englishwoman lectures me at length on the finer points of email etiquette and then delivers a "terrible" rating on a travel site, the fact that she has never been here notwithstanding.  A former guest sends several messages asking me to search for a left-behind phone charger, clearly believing that I run a sideline selling phone chargers, abandoned Y-fronts and single socks on Ebay.   A woman has called twice now to ask the name of my inn and then to further inquire as to whether or not she has a reservation here.  As luck would have it, she does. 
And for some reason, (no doubt a travel program on tv) my guests have started confirming their already confirmed reservations, requiring me to re-confirm confirmations.  They also telephone me from the road giving me updates on their arrival times, despite a clear statement in their confirmations and re-confirmations that check in is any time after 3.  To me, this means that check in is any time after 3.  I've looked carefully at all the words in that sentence and I approve each and every one.  I think this is less to do with their reservation than the fact that they sit with a machine in their hands informing the universe of their every move interspersed with pictures of their cat.   Well, there is a full house checking in any time after 3 which inevitably means to someone that 1:30 is a good time to show up so I musn't dawdle. 

My dog ate my sofa

My dog has eaten 2 sofas in one week.  I think this might be a record for a furry person weighing in at 18 pounds.  (Those of you reading this before you visit Blue Skye, please rest assured that my animals are not allowed in the inn.  The sofas Jack ate were in our cottage. )

Last summer, Jack created a door for himself and his cohort, Rosebud the Cat, by knocking a hole in the sliding screen door to our deck, leaving a bit of flapping screen to act as a cat door, if you follow my drift.  By the time we discovered it, Jack and Rosie were prancing back and forth through it as if to say, "why didn't YOU think of this?"  So we, being who we are,  thought it was clever and left them to it.  This system worked well all summer.  It worked well until last week when I heard ripping, tearing and panting and grunting coming from our living room.  I went in to find Jack eating the sofa.  The mountains of it he couldn't eat were piled up all round the place.  Large piles of fuzzy stuff and bits of upholstery.  Now, it has to be said, he is a very good little boy for a Jack Russell, and tearing up the house isn't really his thing.  He looked at me somewhat sheepishly but also with a look that said, I'll explain everything later.  I got his message and lifted up the sofa to find a rather sad looking chipmunk.  City dwelling soft hearted readers avert your eyes.  Two loud crunches and chippy was sad no more.  He wasn't anything any more. 
What could I do but praise Jack for saving us from a chipmunk?  He was brave, we were safe and the sofa was, well, sort of beside the point.

It was at this point that I should have purchased a man-made catflap.  But I didn't. Okay.  So a week later the same thing:  the ripping, the tearing and grunting and growling.  Different sofa.  Different chipper.  Same result:  crunch crunch dead.  Only this time, Jack won't leave his kill.  He's turned into JACK THE WILD ANIMAL HUNTER.  He stood over his dead chippy and would NOT leave it, for like an hour.   After demanding he obey me (yeah, right) offering treats and threats, I put on my sunglasses, got my car keys and said, rather conversationally, "so, you want to go for a ride?
He did.  He ran to the door.  Now here is where sensible people line up on one side and nutters on the other.  I took him for a ride.  A little dog who had destroyed 2 sofas in 2 weeks.  I drove him into the village, turned around and came back.  I collected the dead, stuffed the stuffing into what remained of the sofa and settled down to relax.  Until I heard the noise. 
The scratching noise coming from the living room.  I went in and sat in a chair and stared at what remained of my second sofa.  Jack joined me and we both stared at the sofa.  After a long while we heard "meow".  Rosie,  in our absence, had come to see what the hoohah was about and got herself stuck in the springs of the destroyed sofa.  I managed to finesse her through the wreckage into daylight. 

This weekend we are fitting a catflap.  Wish us luck. 

Spring Greetings!

When this winter started, eight or nine years ago, I determined that we wouldn't complain about the cold, ice, snow or whatever, but would rather allow ourselves to be dazzled by the beauty while enjoying cozy evenings by the woodfire and improving our chess game. Let others complain, we said, we will find something wondrous to behold each day: the cardinal flashing through the white landscape; otters popping up from holes in the ice making their fishy snuffly sound; homemade soup and bread and the world of netflix to explore. What a load of old bollocks.

Thus started my last attempt at blogging, written and abandoned sometime in February.  The winter was brutal and made worse by THE COUGH.  Everyone seemed to have it and like the winter itself it would not go away.
But friends, here we are.  Spring!  Oh Bliss.  I'm aware that most of you have long ago waved goodbye to your daffodils and forsythia but we are just in the midst of it now.  But hummingbirds are buzzing around, an oriole came looking for oranges (and finding none moved on) and woodcocks are spiraling out of the sky at dusk.  So I guess we made it.  No doubt some of you have reservations already for this summer and to the rest of you, what are you waiting for?  I look forward to making your acquaintance. 
   

O Guest, where art thou?

Here's a way to feel really stupid. Haul yourself out of your cozy bed in the dark, face the subzero day to have a full breakfast on the table at 7 to accommodate returning guests with an early appointment. You wouldn't think that one hour would make such a difference but after putting several thousand breakfasts on the table, many times for 8 or 10 people at 8am , for some reason doing the same thing for a 7am deadline for 2 people seems difficult. Nevertheless, as I write, fruit has been prepared, bread has been baked, muesli has been made, eggs have been provided by the freezing chickens down the road, a fire blazes in the dining room and the aroma of freshly ground coffee fills the house. What doesn't fill the house are my guests. They aren't here. When they didn't arive at the table by 7:15 I went to see if perhaps they had overslept. Perhaps they did, but not in my house. There was their room with the welcoming light, just as I'd left it last night. Perhaps something ghastly has happened to them. I hope not. I'll keep you posted. Update: no one dead, apologies all round, life goes on, but if you want an early breakfast at Blue Skye in future, you can, as they say, whistle Dixie.

End of Summer

The summer season is now officially over and we have about a week before the autumn seekers show up. We went out in style this morning with 14 guests and even Jack got a curtain call by guests who had read the blog prior to their visit and asked to meet him. When I went to get him my husband said, "but we're watching Arsenal". For those of you not in the know, that is an English football side. Jack ignored me completely and sat unmoving on the back of the sofa behind Peter's head. "It's alright Jack," said my husband, "I'll record it for you." Reluctantly he trotted over to me but was mollified when he realised we were headed to 'the big house' as the inn is called in our family. No pets allowed. We all live in cozy chaos in the cottage next to the inn and so it was with a great deal of excitement that he bounded into the sunroom to be cooed over by three ladies who admired his polka dotted belly and newly grown mullet hairdo and whiskers. He's not an entirely normal looking Jack Russell, it has to be said, but he has his charms. The ladies in the drugstore drive through window like him and keep biscuits for him. He's used to the drive through window at the bank where they give all the dogs biscuits and so when we went to the drugstore he expected his treat and was quite put out when all we got were pills. Since then he gets a biscuit there too. He won't eat them of course - well, look - there isn't time to play bad bikkie in the car and we won't eat one without the game which, it appears, has changed since I saw it last. Peter gets up first and that's when they play bad bikkie in the kitchen. Recently when Jack has asked me for a treat I make an attempt to please him by crawling on the floor and poking him with the biscuit but clearly it has become more complicated and he just looks at me with a "come on, play it properly" look. There's a lot for me to catch up on now that summer is over.

Blood pressure test

I'm not a very doctor-y sort of person. The circumstances have to be pretty dire before I put myself into the hands of one. However, since breaking a tooth I've been feeling mortal. So when I felt sort of lightheaded and off kilter, I asked my husband to take my blood pressure. I don't even know why we have this machine but we do - I think it has something to do with the exercise bike I pile my ironing on - anyhow, I thought I'd use it. He wrapped up my arm and started pumping. What the .. "Take it off! Take it off!" I shouted, headlines like," Woman explodes in Maine B&B, glasses found in New Hampshire" appearing in front of my bugged out eyes. "I can't it's automatic!" he shouted back, at which point the thing cut off and peace was restored. Having doubts as to the wisdom of being thrust into a state of panic prior to a blood pressure reading became moot when I realised that we had no idea what the reading meant. That was a couple of days ago. This morning, waiting for guests to arrive at the table I thought I'd check out the numbers on the computer. So I got this chart on screen which said to make a line between the 2 numbers to find out ....something. So I did. The only thing on the chart below my number was a section called 'coma' and under that, 'DEATH'. I figured that if my blood pressure was so low when I was in a panic that my chances of making it through breakfast service were slim. Hoping I wouldn't croak before the pancakes were ready, I tried to stave off panic by thinking who to leave my All-clad pots and pans to in my will. I decided on my current guests, as a little thank you for calling 911 when I fell over dead in the kitchen. After everyone left I summoned my husband to tell him the bad news. I showed him the chart and my position on the bottom of it next to coma. I told him about the All-clad pots. He pointed out that I was drawing a line between the same set of numbers and that if I did it correctly I was in the normal zone. "Normal as far as your blood pressure goes, that is," he amended.

Is Thirteen Unlucky?

Things are wacky around here. For a start, the leaves are turning. Then there are no Monarch butterflies. It's felt like September for a couple of weeks now which is odd, and then there's the business with 13. I'm not superstitious at all but I've had 3 mornings with 13 at the table, a fact I made note of not because I'm spooked by 13, but because I have 12 of everything that goes on the table and 13 is a pain in the neck plus it means moving chairs in from the kitchen blah dee blah. So on the first 13 morning, I'm in my kitchen with stuff in the oven, stuff on the stove and 13 people at the table. My feet feel wet. My feet feel wet? I look down and see that hot soapy water is coming out of the bottom of the dishwasher. While I am trying to take this in, I turn to the double sink and see that water is coming up from both drains. I stood transfixed thinking to myself, 'well, if you're going to have an idea, now would be a good time'. And so it came to me to TURN OFF THE DISHWASHER. I sloshed around the kitchen throwing tea towels in my wake and managed to deliver breakfast to the unsuspecting baker's dozen. A week or so later there were 13 guests again. Keeping a wary eye on the plumbing, I was taken by surprise when my tooth fell out. That would be the one that makes you look like a homeless bag lady when you smile. No doubt my guests wondered why I suddenly was doing a geisha impersonation every time I was called upon to speak or smile. A couple of days later, it was with a good deal of trepidation that I set the table for 13. But, I cooked breakfast without drowning or setting myself on fire and my bodily parts stayed where they belonged and so I was taken off guard when one of my guests turned to me and said, "was that your horse?" "Horse?" I said. Thirteen heads nodded. "The horse last night" they repeated. "Horse?" I said again. I couldn't seem to say anything else. Were they saying "Horse"? "The horse that came down the driveway last night" someone said and they all nodded at me, smiling and waiting for an explanation. "Horse?" I said. All the people on the north side of the house told how a horse walked down the driveway and around the back of the house. The people on the south side reported how a horse walked down the back drive and disappeared. I remembered how the sensor light on the back of the house had come on in the night and how our Jack Russell barked and how we said rather crossly, "go to bed, Jack. There's nothing there." We heard him mumbling in his bed something about there's a bloody great horse in the driveway, but you know how Jack Russells are, and so we ignored him. There is no end to this story. A horse walked down my driveway in the middle of the night and 13 people and a Jack Russell saw him.

How to clean old glass

Here's a spooky little household tip for you.  I have some decanters that I use on the breakfast table and they were beginning to look a little cloudy despite vigorous attacks with bottle brushes, baking soda, detergent and vinegar.  So I went to my best friend Google and was told that the foolproof way to solve my problem is with denture cleaners.  So off to the supermarket I go only to be confronted with the same overwhelming choices that make purchasing toothpaste an activity requiring a stiff drink at its completion.  Do I want protection from cavities, gum disease or plaque? Do I want my teeth to blind onlookers with their creepy whiteness or do I want to be refreshed?  It would appear our dentally challenged friends face the same questions which required me to stand longer than I found comfortable in the 'she's got false teeth' aisle.  When a neighbour approached to chat I felt her gaze linger longer than was absolutely necessary on my (by now) clenched teeth.  I wasn't so craven as to announce in a loud voice that I was buying denture cleaning effervescent tablets to clean my antique decanters , much as I wanted to.  I did however pretend that I had found myself in the wrong aisle and left the store with toothpaste for smokers.  I don't smoke.  So.  Cloudy decanters it will have to be.  Next morning I poured some cranberry juice into the worst of them, served it up and hoped that no one would notice.  Imagine my surprise when the empty decanter came back to the kitchen at the end of breakfast service sparkling and clear!  I repeated the exercise on all of my glass.  It works.  But I now feel myself disinclined to drink cranberry juice. 
Speaking of spooky, a guest informed me yesterday that she had had a late night chat with the builder of my house.  My house was built in 1774.  Was this, I found myself wondering, the result of too much cranberry juice or has old Abijah Waterman returned to give me a hand running the inn? 

Unraveling the Pollinating Secrets of a Bee’s Buzz - NYTimes.com

coincidentally, (see Japanese Beetles post) from today's Times

Unraveling the Pollinating Secrets of a Bee’s Buzz - NYTimes.com

Japanese Beetles

I'm battling Japanese Beetles who each year munch the Rosa Rugosas by the front door.  I've developed a system which works well enough.  I keep a little jug of water secreted behind the jen-you-wine antique concrete Grecian urn which sits nearby and whenever I pass by I knock a few bugs into it and manage to keep ahead of the devastation.  The problem is that the bugs don't die.  For days.  Now, much as I loathe them, I'm not a psycho weirdo about it and I'm not really into torturing anybody. So this year I refined my approach.  I added multi-purpose detergent to the mix and in addition to being instantly lethal, adds an  aroma of cleanliness to my doorstep.  Yesterday during a pleasantly murderous half hour my attention wandered to the bumble bees covering the shrubs.  They rumbled up in the usual bumble bee way but when they reached the yolky yellow center of the roses they upped the pitch of their buzz and as they rolled about emitted a high bzzzzzz that was an hilarious bee squeal of ecstasy.  And it was then that my new guests appeared. I was forced to explain that their room was not quite ready mainly because I had been watching bumble bees.  As I said this I was frantically trying to push the jug of dead beetles back into their hiding place with my foot.  My guests seemed of a mind to accept my lack of professionalism and chalk it up to charming eccentricity and  I didn't want to jeopardize their good will by showing myself to be the slaughterer of innocents.  Sadly, I miscalculated with the last push of the jug and it fell over, engulfing their New York City shoes, which probably cost more than my car,  in a virulent bright blue Lysol liquid studded with the corpses of countless beetle bugs.  Apologies and explanations are pointless in a situation like this, don't you find?  "Welcome to Blue Skye" I said brightly.

Gardening et moi

I spent the morning digging in our neglected vegetable patch to put in some plants someone gave us as a present of sorts and which I felt obliged to plant.  I forked and spaded, sieved and raked, fed fertilizer and planted.  I put in pea canes, strung miles of green twine, gently tied loose knots so as not to injure tender stalks.  I squished slugs and slapped flies all while wearing a hat that made me look like my grandfather, a sweatshirt that was too hot and wellies that were cooking my feet.   Now here's what I want to know:  why would anyone want to do this?  Why, when there are perfectly good green grocers and farm shops would a person WANT to spend the morning doing this? All you end up with is your food covered in dirt and bugs. I simply don't get it.  At the farm shop everything is clean and washed and pretty.  Not wormy and sluggy and muddy.  Have you ever grown your own kale?  Have you? Huh?  Have you ever watched the little white worms float to the surface when you cook it?  How about have you ever noticed the little white worms AFTER YOU HAVE ALREADY EATEN SOME OF YOUR DELICIOUS HOME GROWN KALE?????  And don't tell me I didn't wash it well enough.  Trust me.  I washed it.   But of course, we're all organic now and I washed it in water.  Probably I was supposed to use aloe vera and the juice of freshly squeezed rosehips and fairy dust.  So.  I let organic farmers do my farming. That's what organic farmers are FOR.  And if you're going to give me a present, give me something that doesn't come with slugs included.

Living in Maine

It has been known for Maine residents to make snide allusions to our state slogan, "Maine.  The way life should be".  Such comments are usually made when we find ourselves trying to find our car under a mountain of snow or trying to start a generator in a blizzard.  But yesterday I found myself thinking of our slogan with nary a touch of cynicism. 

When we bought Blue Skye, the sellers told us that the appliances were all old and ready for the knacker's yard.  And so it was that one by one, dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves and freezers all ended their days trundling up the drive in the back of our pickup on the way to the dump.  But not the enormous Maytag washer and dryer in the basement.  These gentle giants have run many times daily for twelve years now.  A few years ago I stuffed an enormous comforter in the washer.  It was well beyond anything sensible to try and wash and the machine baulked.  I found the file given to me by the last owners and discovered that the machine had been purchased in Waldoboro 25 years ago.  It was not with a great deal of confidence that I telephoned the number to discover that the Maytag guy was still in business.   I  told him that I had "a complaint".  "Really?" he said.  I told him that my 25 year old washing machine had stopped working. I thought he'd laugh and tell me to go soak my head.   "I'll come have a look" he said.  "OK" I said, getting a pencil, when can you come?"  "I can come now, if you like" he said.  In about 20 minutes he arrived and in about 10 minutes the machine was sloshing away as usual.  Yesterday, a few thousand loads of laundry later, my dryer started making a screechy sound.  I called the Maytag guy."  I wondered if his phone had rung since I called the last time because he seemed to know who I was right away.  "It's the dryer" I said.  "It's doing this" and I imitated the sound.  "Well, I've got to come out that way today so I'll call in".  In less than 15 minutes his car pulled into the driveway.  And in less time than that, a pile of coins and a mountain of fluff were placed without comment on the top of the dryer and a new wheel doodad was installed and the dryer purred to life.  "You're a genius" I murmured.  "Naw," he said.  "I used to have one of these."  I wanted to ask how it had died, but it seemed a bit personal somehow, so I just said, "Well, thanks again".   No doubt the next owners will look at these antique appliances (and the wooden counter tops in the kitchen amongst many other things) and replace them with acres of stainless steel and granite and Maine will be a little less like life as it should be. 

Spring Spring Beautiful Spring

Apologies to all who clicked on my blog only to find that I wasn't there. I notice all my followers have disappeared, having nothing to follow.    I'm not sure where I was.  Under a snow bank somewhere I expect.  The inn was closed.  I was closed.   
But now it's spring, the blackbirds came back to me, the geese are nesting, cardinals tap at my window, nuthatches have set up house in the bluebird box and every day brings a new arrival to our feeder.  My breakfast table is again filled with guests and I've returned to my post in the kitchen, happily setting tea towels alight and pouring orange juice into my shoes. 

But this morning something happened that was so weird that I had to tell somebody and all my guests have checked out - so here I am.  I was telephoning through a credit card payment and apparently (!) misdialed and got instead an extremely chirpy woman who announced rather improbably that I had reached the palace of pleasure and pain.  I could hear sounds of somebody washing dishes in the background while she assured me that I was about to experience such delight and agony as to be indescribable.  I hung up but can't help wondering about her and about this peculiar world I find myself in.  There is nobody here but me.  Would she tell me to get a hammer and bang myself on the head?  Why would I do that?  Why would I require some lady busily washing her dishes to tell me to do that?  Please don't answer these questions.  Anyhow, I have to go.  My computer informs me that I've got mail.  It's from Anthony Weiner.  I wonder what he wants. 

Smoke Alarms are ringing

No doubt you have all had a nice weekend while I have endured a less than gratifying one here at chirpy, cheery Blue Skye.  Good manners preclude me from sharing with you the highlights of the last few days, for while my guests can and do review me with gay abandon all over the internet and beyond, I cannot respond.    Suffice to say that smoke alarms were involved along with a very cross woman wearing earphones and bunny slippers who berated your blogette at 7 this morning.  Now I don't know about you, but I prefer to have a cup of coffee before being berated.   In any case, you may want to revise your daydream of running a B&B in beautiful coastal Maine. 

Have you done your debate prep?  Are you ready to shout at the television on Tuesday?  All you Romney supporters can just oil your hair and slap on the aftershave and you're ready to go, whereas we have to urge  our reluctant candidate to show up and stay awake.  Like Burgess Meredith in Rocky,  we have to
slap his face and throw some water on him after a few minutes.  Come on Barack, you can do it.  Come on, bop him on the nose JUST ONCE.   Do it for the dog on the car roof.  Better yet, send  in Michelle.  Now THAT would be a debate worth watching for an electorate used to dancing with the stars and singing with the idols.  That the spectacle has little or nothing to do with defining who can lead the American people intelligently, with integrity and a vision worthy of this country, is overlooked.  But.  I'll be there nonetheless hoping that when Romney pulls out his ACLU card, Obama will do a Seinfeld "Really?"

What makes a duck laugh?

Everywhere you look here you see geese soaring back and forth across the marsh,  quacking ducks sound like they are laughing their heads off,  flocks of birds rattle the leaves and chipmunks tear back and forth across the lawns with their cheeks stuffed with whatever it is chipmunks stuff their cheeks with.  Soon we'll be splitting wood, putting away the flower pots and piling up the pumpkins. I adore autumn.  Yesterday we had two rainbows over the hayfield - I mean, come on!  How can you not love that??  All this poetic, autumn is so sad baloney is written by people who have never been to my house in autumn or who don't take my brand of anti-depressants - but that's another story.    As I write, two guests linger over the breakfast table and I linger over a final cup of coffee, trying not to see the looming mountain of ironing which covers my exercise bike.  

Political Conventions

After a fortnight of political conventions I'll just say this:  the democratic mob looked like a jollier one to be part of.  The Republicans looked crabby.  I grew up in a house where my mother was famous for inviting our friends to stay for supper without really considering whether there was enough food.  When we'd raise our eyebrows knowing that we had 5 pork chops for 8 people she'd say, " If all your friends are interested in is the food, they can go home and eat. Dinner is about more than food."  I don't know about you, but I'd rather be at the party than home alone with the door locked eating my own pork chop. 

From today's paper

Favorite news story this morning:  police say a man at a movie theater in Nevada accidently shot himself in the buttocks during a showing of The Bourne Legacy.   One more reason to forego the cinema.  Currently we don't go because we can't hear the movie over the sound of chewing. 
Second favorite news story this morning:  state employees here in the Land of LePage can now keep guns in their locked cars in government carparks in Augusta.   I guess if they find themselves in a life threatening situation in say, the cafeteria, they can run to the carpark, unlock their car, get their weapon, run back to the cafeteria and defend themselves.  I feel so much better knowing this.  Don't you? 

A fire in August

I trust you all had a wonderful August.  I've been a tad busy.  I inadvertantly celebrated  the busiest weekend here by starting a fire in the middle of breakfast service for 14.  There was a time when this would have thrown me off my stride. There was a time when I made do with one chin.  Things change.  So I turn around to see a tea towel and a pot holder blazing merrily on the stove and I immediately have an out of body experience which enables me to watch  from a perch on the ceiling fan as this amazingly competent woman who turns out to be me, casually tosses all the flaming articles into the sink and continues cooking the sausages.

I've had a run of really interesting, nice people here with the occasional weirdo thrown in to jazz things up. (You know who you are.)  And they have been generously tolerant of the foibles of this innkeeper.  A wonderful example of my style of innkeeping was made apparent yesterday when I came into my kitchen to find a note from a guest telling me that he had answered the front door and dealt with an inquiry in my absence.  Now if I could just get them to make their own breakfasts and beds ...