The US marine left his long johns down the back of an armchair and the next guest complained that she had found ‘a pair of knickers’. I ran upstairs after she told me this, she and her male companion standing in the big Georgian doorway about to leave. I found grey thermals, of the kind you might wear under hiking trousers, completely hidden, dropped down the back of this bedroom armchair and camouflaged against the taupe coloured carpet.
I cursed myself for not moving the chair, which I normally do, and bolted back down the main staircase to tell the guest it really wasn’t knickers, but their car was already making its way around the fountain. Off it went down the driveway as I stood there shouting: ‘It’s not knickers!’
Darn it, I thought. I really don’t want a review mentioning a pair of old pants. Newly renovated en suite room with mountain views… relax in front of an open fire in the drawing room every night… enjoy a complimentary pair of long johns belonging to a marine from Virginia, if you want to hang over an armchair to retrieve them. You don’t get that at the Ritz-Carlton where they probably move all the furniture after every booking.
I can’t be expected to, although I will now, obviously. I trooped back upstairs to start getting the room ready for the next guest when I got a text from the lady who looks after my parents: ‘Call me, it’s urgent.’ My father had had a stroke.
He has only just recovered from a heart attack caused by a blood clot so the doctors at the hospital he was rushed to were looking for another blood clot, or a bleed in his head.
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