SERVICE WITH A CATCH

ALMOST every day I hear some poor devil weeping into a Radio 4 microphone, blathering on about the near-insurmountable difficulties of running a small business. Useless banks, mounting debts, red tape and the dead hand of stifling bureaucracy all conspire to send them up the collective wall. “Oh for crying out loud; pull yourself together. How difficult can it be? It’s only a small business not the National Health Service,” goes the internal monologue (or, if Ian’s listening – which he usually isn’t – attempt at dialogue).

But now I have joined the weeping, winging ranks of the self-employed, and my pity knows no bounds. We’re doing this bed and breakfast lark for fun (or thought we were ’til we decided to do it properly, which is costing us so much we now have no choice) so what the poor, demented souls who have to do it for a living must suffer I can’t imagine.

This to date is the tally of paperwork, recommendations and costs: not the costs of providing the service, but of the marketing and upgrading of it to ensure we get more business. The question is: is it worth it?

• To the Yorkshire Destination Management System, ‘jointly operated by the Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate Tourism Partnership, Yorkshire Moors and Coast Tourism Partnership and Welcome to Yorkshire’ (no wonder BA’s struggling: everybody must be holidaying in God’s own county) £67-50 + VAT for six months membership. Next year, and every year after, it will be the full £137-00.
• From the above body comes (via email) 40 pages of information, 32 of which have to be downloaded, printed, completed and finally posted. Also from the above a visit from a nice lady called Jane who says we definitely have the ‘wow’ factor.
• From the local council and tourist information centre – a visit from two more nice ladies who say we have that certain je ne sais quoi. They’re lovely and jolly and helpful but can only promote us – as can the tourist boards – once we’ve been rated by  Quality in Tourism: we’ll then pay them 10 per cent of every booking.
• To the quality assessment people, £250 + VAT for the assessment, plus £90 + VAT for the ‘advisory visit.’ The best part of £400. The advisory visit tells you what rating you can aim for and explains how you might, just might, achieve it. The nice lady from QiT obviously thinks we have both the ‘wow’ factor and the je ne sais quoi but somehow just can’t find the words. “It’s a nice room, but I’ve seen better,” as she examines my lovely twin-bedded room with minimalist chic (which she interprets as ‘a bit spartan’); “This carpet isn’t up to much” (of the small double bedroom) and – the cruelest cut of all – “Your hospitality trays need serious attention. You certainly cannot have uncovered tea bags.”
• She makes the following recommendations: two extra rugs, three dressing-table mirrors, three extra waste bins (on top of the ones already in the bathrooms), a four-foot bed so the small double room can be downgraded to a large-ish single, 12 more coathangers (six in each wardrobe isn’t enough: actually there were 12 in one wardrobe but six of them had been left by guests), three hospitality trays with tea, coffee, decaffeinated coffee, hot chocolate and fruit tea all in little packets, an extra dining-table, at least one more chair and three new blankets for the people who don’t like duvets.  Total cost by my quick reckoning? About £1500. Oh yes – and what about some little extras for the breakfast menu? Fresh fruit salad, grapefruit segments, prunes, figs, selection of breads, preferably home-made, jam and marmalade likewise; smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, kedgeree, porridge and fruit compote all go down well, apparently. I can do porridge. I can even do WeightWatchers three-oat porridge at a pinch.

And so we’re left wondering if all we actually need is

• Bryan, who runs  ’theadvertiseronline’ and has done our website for an all-in price of just £250, plus a monthly payment of £12.99 to maintain it in good order and get it noticed.
• Lisa who runs the village shop and her own b and b, and who at present is the source of nearly all our bookings when she’s full.
• Nigel, the butcher, who lives next door and delivers our sausage, bacon and black pud for breakfast within an hour of our ordering it.
• Allen, the milkman, with his doorstep deliveries, and
• Eric the postman who keeps bringing us bills, despite the strike, and always with a smile.

Meanwhile two more guests arrive: ‘Wow’ they say as I show them into the twin-bedded room. I make them a cuppa to have with their slice of home-made lemon drizzle cake, as they admire the view from the newly-refurbished sitting-room.

“This tea has a certain je ne sais quoi, don’t you think?” I overhear one of them say. “Yes,” comes the reply. “I wonder if she left the tea bags uncovered?”

WHITE CHRISTMAS

I KNEW that Christmas card would start something. This was the scene at Bottom Chapel on Thursday 22 October. No need to dream of a white Christmas; it’s already here.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

IS THIS a record? Our first Christmas card arrived four days ago – “to beat the postal strike” said our thoughtful relative. Oh really? And there was I, Scrooge-like and increasingly crabby – as Ian will testify –  secretly hoping that the stoppage might go on long enough to give me an excuse not to have to send any cards at all this year. How mean is that? A couple of years ago in a rare burst of creativity and maternal pride, I made my own from a drawing of Mary and Joseph and the donkey done by Morag at nursery, and which I’d treasured for all those years. I thought she’d be delighted that, albeit 30 years on, I’d given her a discreet credit on the inside cover: “Painting by Morag.” Gosh, I was a proud mum. But she wasn’t impressed. “You could have mentioned I was three at the time,” she said in her 35th year. Oh well, I tried.

CRACK THE POACHED EGG AND YOU’VE CRACKED B AND B

"LOVELY place, warm welcome, friendly hosts. (Eggs a bit runny!)." The exclamation mark was an attempt to soften the blow. It failed. As Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh, points out, we are instinctively drawn to the negative. No matter the compliments in the visitors' book (typical English niceness, I tell myself) runny poached eggs were proof this b and b lark wouldn't work.  The following weekend a handsome film director booked in. What a dish! And Ian was away the next morning (hurray for model railway exhibitions) so I'd have him all to myself. This b and b lark is just the ticket. Then: "I won't want a big breakfast, thanks. Just a couple of poached eggs." Just? Oh dear. This could be the beginning of the end of the beautiful relationship that never was.

Still, Ian had bought a dinky little egg poacher so how difficult could it be? "You just butter it and dangle it over a pan of boiling water," he explained. What he didn't explain was that the minute you broke the eggs into it the whites drained through the holes (what a surprise), and when you came to ease out the remaining rubber yolks you realised you'd used Superglue not butter.

Egg poaching, meanwhile, is one of those skills which everybody else has not only mastered but wants to share: swirl the water, put vinegar in the water, brush the pan with olive oil, use little green rubber pouches from Lakeland (they're on order) boil for precisely a minute then leave them for 10 (it didn't work, Delia. They were like bullets).

I vow to keep practising - on Ian, as I can't even eat eggs, never mind cook them.

Then this morning's guests point out an omission on our newly-created breakfast choices list. "You've got fried, scrambled and poached eggs, but not boiled ones," they say helpfully. "And we love boiled eggs."

It's a good job they didn't mention it earlier. "Can you even boil an egg?" my domestic science teacher used to ask in exasperation as I served up yet another culinary disaster under her expert tutelage. The answer, then as now, was "No."

WHAT BOAT WOULD THAT BE THEN?

HOW do they work that one out? More to the point, how does George Osborne, shadow chancellor, work that one out? In his speech to the Tory party conference he says, justifying potential reductions in public sector pay, that we’ll all have to make sacrifices: ‘We’re all in this together” was the phrase. Well I’ve got news for Mr Osborne – we’re not. The people who’re “in it” are us. The ordinary, hard-working families that Gordon Brown likes to bang on about. I’m a long way from being a Tory supporter, just about as far now from supporting the Labour shower (after a lifetime of Labour voting I realise they’re just the same, with a few notable exceptions, as every other money-grubbing, power-hungry politician, except they have the nerve to call themselves socialists) and realise that whoever comes to power we’ll have a massive problem with public debt. But for an MP to suggest that they’re in the same position as ordinary folk is ludicrous. (Beth was so angry about it she rang me to have a rant: her mother’s daughter, then). Anyway, I’ve written to the Telegraph today to vent my anger. Will they print it? Well, the Independent used my Sarah Brown moan on Friday, so I’m hopeful. A bit, anyway.

Meanwhile I’m still trying to work out whether I am indeed one of Gordon’s hard-working majority, or the feckless minority who stay in bed til dinner-time, or indeed the ‘privileged few’ who deserve a bashing from the Labour government which – of course – hates rich people. Unless it’s one of  their rich people: those who’ve become rich through switching houses and asking us to feed them to the tune of £400 a month (no receipts necessary). Anyway, it just shows the dangers and the folly of politicians trying to pigeonhole us. I sometimes work hard – when we’ve got paying guests, for example – sometimes stay in bed til 10.00 (not quite lunchtime but near enough) if there’s something good on the radio, and am definitely, definitely privileged. I only have to look out of my back window to realise that. But how did I become privileged? I left school at 16 and worked b***** hard, earning a living and rearing a family, that’s how. So don’t lecture me, Mr Brown, about the punishments deserved by the privileged. And don’t tell me, Mr Osborne, that I’m in the same boat as you. In fact, I don’t want any politician telling me anything, ever again, unless it’s Boris Johnson or Austin Mitchell, who at least make me laugh.

THE LOVELY SARAH AND THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS

APART from the sight of Peter – sorry, Lord – Mandelson being lauded and feted by the very people who’ve previously hated his guts but who suddenly see him as their only hope of staying aboard the gravy train, the most disturbing image of the week must surely be Sarah Brown at the Labour conference, extolling the virtues of her beloved husband, our prime minister. Is it me? Or do others find it distasteful and manipulative too? What on earth was it about? “I love him: why can’t you?” was the message. But why? Do doctors bring their wives to the surgery to assure the patients they’re in good hands? Or judges’ wives give a little homily before the trial, trumpeting their husbands’ qualities of fairness and compassion? What have wives got to do with any of this? I just don’t get it. She’s an attractive (she wouldn’t have been rolled out otherwise, that’s for sure), intelligent woman who once had a career of her own but whose role now is almost entirely ornamental: kissing G20 wags, escorting them to fashion shows and holding Gordon’s hand, metaphorically and literally.

Meanwhile – on the same day, I think – a report (www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/sep/29/working-mothers-child-health) tells us that behind every obese, lager-swilling, out-of-control ASBO-ed yob there is, wouldn’t you know it, a working mother. (Working fathers good: working mothers bad. How neat is that?) Which, presumably, is why the lovely Sarah has given up her career to look after her boys. Except she hasn’t. She’s found a new one – as a professional wife who knows her limitations and her place. What a great role model for our daughters and granddaughters.

WHO NEEDS DERREN BROWN WHEN YOU’VE GOT BILL THE PLUMBER?

IT was definitely there when Andrew called on the Thursday. A black rubber ring, hooked over the tap of the wash basin for safe keeping. It had been far too big for the pop-up plug and as a result the water leaked rapidly out of the basin each time you tried to fill it. We (Ian and I – yes, he was a witness) demonstrated the problem to Andrew. It was a small snag, but an important one when you’ve got paying guests. Don’t worry, he assured us, he’d tell Bill Brookes of Clachers in Darlington who had organised the plumbing for the project, and he would sort it. By chance we had to call Bill out the next day because a radiator wasn’t working. I mentioned the plug. “Oh yes. Andrew told me. I’ve ordered some spare rings. Let’s see what the problem is exactly.”

“It’s here,” I said, as we went into the blue shower room. “Look. You can see, it just doesn’t fit.” Except it did. The ring was in place, around the plug. I ran the water into the basin. No leak. Not even a drip. Except me. He gave me that little knowing smile that men reserve for dim housewives. “Maybe your husband fixed it when you weren’t looking?” he suggested kindly.

“Did you mend that plug?” I asked Ian when he came home from – guess what? – a model railway exhibition. “No. Never touched it,” he assured me. It’s as big a mystery as those winning lottery numbers.

DIGGING FOR VICTUALS

HERE we are doing a passable imitation of the Waltons: scratching, if not a living, at least a bit of Sunday dinner, from the soil. Toiling in the vineyard of the railway enthusiast-cum-gardener who has managed to produce a fine crop of potatoes and – well, several onions. But we won’t mention the onions, which frankly I thought were a bit on the small side.

Not so the spuds – dug up by Charlie, washed and roast to perfection by Beth to accompany her lemon roast chicken, and eaten even by me, who’s still weight-watching. But I only had three and they were quite small. Sorry, cut quite small.

MODEL BEHAVIOUR

AS WE sit in Sainsbury’s in Newcastle with tea and toast I think this might be a good moment for a little chat with Charlie about the dangers of drink and drugs. I reason that if you get in early enough – before the teenage hormones kick in and they stop talking to you for six years – with a few well-chosen words, at an opportune moment, they might just recall them when they’re tempted to that first slug of alcohol or little blue pill. (Or are they white? Are they even pills these days?) “You can ruin your entire life with just one wrong decision,” I warn.  She gives me a weary stare and reminds me she’s still only 12. “Well,” I say “if you ask me you all grow up far too quickly these days. There’s no childhood any more. All this pressure to conform and be trendy.” Nobody did ask me, but I reckon she needs to be told.

Two and a half hours later we’re at home in Askrigg. Ian – under no pressure at all to conform and be trendy, or even to grow up, come to think of it – is in the model railway room with his chums from the Cumbria area group who’re having one of their regular get-togethers. (An hour’s chat and chin-rubbing as they consider the puzzle of the non-running trains, a two-hour lunch in the pub, another hour’s contemplation of the recalcitrant trains before a break for tea and scones, a quick fiddle with the wiring and then home). “Where’s Charlie?” I ask Beth as I come in with the shopping. “In the railway room with Ian,” she says with a deep sigh. And there she remains for the rest of the day, emerging bright-eyed and thrilled with the triumphant news that she can now re-rail a de-railed train and knows exactly how points work. 

I think I need a drink . . .

LONDON: CHEAP, CHEERFUL AND FRIENDLY

YES, really. I’ve spent the last two weekends there. The first for Sal’s wedding, then this one with a friend. For those who moan about the misery and expense of being in the capital, consider this:

1. Dinner at a (vegetarian) curry house in Chapel Market. As much as we could eat for £3.95. Total cost for three, including tea and coffee, £15.45.
2. Breakfast at an Italian restaurant. Kippers, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast for me, full fry-up for Ian; tea and coffee – total £9.00.(Bacon muffin £1.50.  In Northallerton, £4.50).
3. A smart, clean apartment in King’s Cross (at the Comfort Inn) – £40 per night each, including a serve yourself, eat as much as you like, breakfast: £30 if we’d used the rooms to capacity.
4. Three of us eat for just over £18 (in total) at a Thai restaurant near White City. They don’t serve wine so we bring our own:  no corkage.
5. Visit to Kings Place art gallery near Kings Cross – free. Lunch £4. Then to another gallery nearby which has a fantastic exhibition of work from children in some of the most deprived areas of London. Free again.
6. Sir John Soane’s Museum at Lincoln’s Inn – free. Suggested donation but no pressure. Friendly, informative guides who enjoy their work.
7. Lunch in Portobello Road at a Greek fish stall – £6 in total for three of us sharing a massive helping of sea bass, calamari, salad and fries.
8. Boat trip, Westminster to Greenwich return, £10 on a two-for-one special offer. Visit Royal Observatory, free.
9. Lunch in exotic Greenwich market; huge variety of Turkish, Greek, French, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Thai, food (and we dare to complain about immigrants – how would we eat without them?). We have five varieties of fresh, filling, salad for £3 each.
10. Tube fares for a whole weekend – I start with £11.40 on my Oyster card and end up with £6.

There’s a lot of tourist tat, but on the market stalls some fabulous hand-crafted gifts; well-made, beautifully presented, and sold with  a smile and a story from cheerful stall-holders. We see virtually no graffiti the whole time we’re there, the streets are clean, the parks used and well-kept, the trains and tube run on time. Oh yes – and the sun shines both weekends. I love it.