Hotel AuBellefleur in full swing.....

Well here is a first for me since moving to France, its Saturday night and I am sitting at Angouleme airport waiting for Mr O Leary’s bus back to London Stansted. I have been at home in the Charente for a week to help Franca with our first full week of guests. Full week to us means that all three of our completed rooms have been rented out.

I arrived in Angouleme on Thursday night and our guests, the family of my old boss from the time when I worked in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam, at de Zeeuw & de Keizer, arrived Friday lunchtime, a little earlier than expected, but we were ready. He had always said that when we went into business he would be one of our first guests and true to his word he and his family arrived in Sigogne for a week long stay. Little did we know what a test he would put us through, and I mean that in a good way so to speak. We thought they would eat in with us for maybe three evenings during their stay, but in the end they ate with us every night except one, where we already had an appointment which we thought was going to be drinks and dinner, and turned out to be just drinks and nibbles. Our guests also stayed at the house for two whole days just relaxing, so that meant providing lunch as well, so I am now sitting at the airport waiting for my plane back to the UK and looking forward to going back to work for a rest.

I must say it was good fun but hard work, because in a way we had hired ourselves and our house out for a week, which is a step beyond a B&B but also very rewarding financially. We also learned a great deal, and at the end of the week lots of my old kitchen knowledge finally started to creep out of the back of my head where it had been sleeping for the last 20 years. Unfortunately too late for this time but we will be much better prepared next time. We did too many visits to the shops and were not very well organised with our time, and probably not disciplined enough in ourselves either. What it would be like if we had the swimming pool as well I really don’t know, though we already have our first volunteer to come and work for us during the holidays, as the eldest daughter of our guests was quite enthusiastic about come to work for us next year, at the moment we do not have a room for her, but we’ll have to work on that, because with 5 rooms in full swing and possibly a pool we will need help.

The family consisted of mum & dad, and three children aged 14, 10 and 7, which meant Fleur had three playmates for the week, which was just as well as I had no time to play with fleur. The whole family were ideal guests, the children were very polite, as were mum and dad! The whole family werehappy and enjoyed playing together, and when mum and dad wanted a chance to rest they could, though dad’s idea of a rest was a 40 mile cycle ride.

We managed to come up with unique recipes and menus every evening, and thank goodness nothing went wrong until the very last day when I let the children help me with the pasta, it was the first time I had made pasta in France and we ended with something that we just could not use, too dry and no matter how carefully I added more olive oil it just dried out again, so with three pairs of hands trying to help and time running out I had to give up and use that old standby stuffed tomatoes.

We are putting all the menus down on paper (which is what we should be doing anyway) so that planning is not such hard work next time. The work was full on for the whole time from 8:00am until midnight, I was able to wimp out around 11:00, as I had to read Fleur her bedtime story. It certainly reminded me of my time at the Rubens Hotel in London all those years ago.

The weather was not bad, though very changeable during the week, at one point the thermometer went off the top of the scale, and this morning when we put our guests in their car at 6:00am it was very pretty cold, not the best weather for the Charente in August when it should be fairly consistently around 28 degrees and sunny most days, but there is always next year!!

After we waved au revoir to our guests we went back to bed until around 11:00, and just played games with Fleur, until we summoned the energy to clean the kitchen. Luckily we have not guest tonight so the rooms were left until the energy returns, maybe tomorrow, though of course I will be in London.

We get a short rest before the next short invasion next weekend, though these guys are only staying for one night, and they are going to a family party, so we probably won’t notice them until breakfast.

So this is my first departure from my local airport, I’ve arrived here twice before, and it is the usual fun of a small airport, however it is very nice little airport, everyone is helpful and friendly, and although the arrival and departure lounges are basically tents they have made it very friendly, not your usual departure lounge. We of course have the usual chaos of a regional airport, but this also has a charm that La Rochelle, Poitiers and Bordeaux lack. I only hope Mr O Leary will make this a daily flight next year, and maybe every an all year round flight, but the chances of that are pretty slim at the moment. With the flights the way they are it does not lend itself to bringing and dropping off clients, though the Saturday night flight is not as bad as I first thought, so if it runs next year perhaps we will try a promotion and see how it goes.