Occasional Showers Part 1

I like to think that I am something of a connoisseur of the gentle act of showering. My wife says that given the amount of time that I spend in there, this announcement should surprise no-one, but I like to plan my day, bathed in the tender caress of warm refreshing water (in the absence of any better options) and whilst I can pretty well guarantee this will happen at home (the warm water I mean, not the better options), the whole plan tends to fall apart whenever I stay overnight somewhere else. If you’ve ever trusted what remains of your mortal coil to the often less than tender ministrations of a hotel or guesthouse shower, you’ll know what I mean.

Showers in hotels and guest-houses are the hotelier’s revenge on the world. Once you accept this simple fact, you can get on with trying to make the best of, what is all too often, a diabolical situation. For the uninitiated, here are some simple rules.

1. Ignore the Instructions

You might as well. The instructions (if they exist at all) invariably do not relate to the shower that is there now. They are more likely to form a sort of nostalgic tribute, to the shower that used to be there but which has long since gone to that Great Plumber’s Skip in the Sky. That is why the diagram shows that you must adjust two dials to achieve the optimum shower (coupled with dark warnings of what may happen if you do not do this), when you can only find one dial (which won’t move) and a mysterious lever. Speaking of dials…

2. Don’t touch the temperature dial

As previously noted, better establishments will have a well-worn notice describing the supposed functions of the piece of plumbing to which you are about to entrust your important little places. This is a work of fiction but it will give you something to read while you are waiting for the ambulance to come and tend to your first-degree burns. Lesser establishments will eschew the reading material, knowing that real men (and women) don’t read instructions and will instead present you with a Heath-Robinson collection of pipes, plungers and taps and leave you to work it out for yourself. In either case, I urge you – do not touch the temperature dial. This applies no matter what apparently ridiculous rating it appears to be set at. From past and painful experience, whatever the setting of the temperature dial, it is probably correct, unless the previous occupant was a sadist (or, possibly worse still, a masochist).

3. Don’t wait until morning to find out how it works

True of so many things but particularly showers. I remember one infamous occasion when I was staying in a B&B in Dublin. I should have been forewarned when I found that my sleeping accommodation consisted of a camp bed in what was clearly someone’s Study. The ‘usual facilities’ had been shoe-horned into what had previously been a broom cupboard, situated across the hall from my makeshift bedroom. The following morning, crawling unsteadily from my temporary dormitory after a night spent sampling Guinness, red wine and Chinese cuisine (in that order), I stumbled into the shower expecting an invigorating blast of (hopefully) warm water. It didn’t happen. I found that, with all dials turned to maximum (expecting at any minute a Scottish Engineer to appear from the basement screaming “If I gi’e her any more Cap’n, she’ll blow”) I was the less than pleased recipient of a dribble of marginally warm, brown liquid (perhaps it was Guinness?). All attempts to improve upon this state of affairs failed and I was forced to revolve my hung over corporation under this pathetic stream, resembling, for all intents and purposes, a vision by Salvador Dali of the closing sequence of Sunday Night at the London Palladium (now I’m showing my age).

Further helpful instructions in Occasional Showers Part 2

A version of this article appeared in the first collection of stories - "Steady Past Your Granny's" which is now available in Kindle e-book format at Amazon UK and Amazon USA.  The second, bumper collection "Crutches For Ducks" can also be found at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com and you can find the companion piece to this 'Dry with some, Sunshine!' in  A Splendid Salmagundi

I was a stranger and ye took me in - Second Visitation

Readers of the original post on this topic (I was a stranger and ye took me in ) will know that I have some issues with the B&B crowd.  My antipathy toward this concept came to the fore again the other night when I was watching the latest episode in “The Hotel Inspector” where Alex Polizzi was trying to persuade a charming but out of touch couple to update their stately B&B.  The wife of this couple, at one point, made the plaintive comment that “this is our private home” which had me frothing at the mouth immediately.  This couple were charging guests £200 per night for one of their luxurious bedrooms plus breakfast.  It seems to me that this is the central flaw in the B&B concept that you are somehow inviting visitors into your own home and therefore have a right to have the decoration and amenities that you want and your guests should be suitably grateful.  My message to those who think like this is as follows:

Once you ask someone to pay for their stay with you, it is no longer ‘your private home’ but becomes an hotel.  THIS IS PARTICULARLY THE CASE IF YOU’RE TAKING £200 A NIGHT FROM THEM!

I once stayed in a similar (although much cheaper) establishment on the Welsh Borders.  The place was stacked full of antiques and photos abounded of the owners meeting various members of the Royal Family, which I assume was to put the visitor in his/her place from the outset.  This was one of those places where you get the impression that the room you are occupying normally belongs to someone else, who could come back at any moment.  In this case, most of the wardrobe space was taken up with the carefully packaged clothing of their daughter (photos of whom took pride of place on every available surface).  I confidently expected her to stride through at some point, jodhpurs steaming, to effect a quick change before the Hunt Ball (which I always thought of as a competition).  My question is, why do we assume that this is a perfectly ok way to treat paying guests in a B&B when we wouldn’t accept it for a moment in a hotel?

I’ve written before about the time when I was given a camp bed in someone’s study in a B&B in Dublin and again was made to feel that I should be grateful for it (see Occasional Showers in Steady Past Your Granny’s).

If you ever watched that series called (I think) “Three in a Bed” where various couples who ran B&Bs took it in turns to stay at each other’s establishments and criticise same, then you will definitely have seen this mindset demonstrated.  I remember one hostess becoming very upset because her ‘guests’ had not even touched her fresh fruit breakfast creation.  It never occurred to her that as paying customers they should have what they wanted not what she wanted to give them (and be praised for).  We recently stayed at a B&B in Llangollen where I was astonished to be told that I would have to remove my shoes before climbing the stairs so as not to spoil the cream coloured carpet.  Why it never occurred to anybody to consider the advisability of fitting a cream coloured carpet in a heavy traffic area and to perhaps think about changing the carpet rather than training the customers, I just do not know.

Is it just me or does anyone else out there agree?I

I was a stranger and ye took me in

I have always wanted to have the courage to put that biblical quotation in a B&B Guest Book, with its delightful double-meaning you could have real fun with it. The closest I have ever come to putting my plan into action was this weekend.

Four of us make a point of going on a 'walking weekend' each year. We've been doing this for the last 20 years and the negative effects of sudden physical exercise and too much booze get harder to cope with each time. Last year, our venue of choice was Bath. We arrived at our pre-booked B&B, bright-eyed and bushy tailed one Friday morning. The opening conversation went something like this:

Prop: "Now your rooms have a WC with a macerator. You need to make sure that you don't put anything down the toilet other than toilet paper else it blocks it and we'll have to charge you for repair."

We nodded and affirmed that we understood the vagaries of maceration.

Prop: "Also, your room (pointing to first two group members) has a problem with the flush. So, if the macerator keeps on going, can you let us know straight away as otherwise it overflows into the dining room"

We nodded again and began to wonder what we had let ourselves in for.

Prop: "Now, I've got you in two twin rooms,ok?"

Us: "No, we booked, one twin room and two singles"

Prop: "Oh, are you sure (we were)? I don't have two singles at the moment. Can't you share?"

We said that we didn't want to share, which is why we booked two singles.

Prop: "Well, I can try to get you in to some other B&Bs but I doubt I'll get anywhere at the weekend in Bath. Are you sure you won't share? I've just come back from a camp where I had to share with 8 other girls and I had a great time" [Quite what the relevance of this was, rather escaped us]

We then found ourselves having to justify our outlandish request for single rooms (basically because I snore stentoriously, of which more some other time).

The final outcome was that my 3 friends shared a twin-bedded room with a mattress shoehorned into a spare corner whilst I slept in splendid isolation in a twin room upstairs. This was bad enough, but as I was waiting on the landing for us all to assemble for our walk, I could hear the landlady downstairs describing our mad desire for single rooms to another resident in very loud terms and explaining the rationale for this (my snoring). This was one of those times when you feel about 5 years old again.

The first collection of stories - "Steady Past Your Granny's" is now available in Kindle e-book format at Amazon UK and Amazon USA


There's more about my snoring issue at It Started With A Snore